Forbidden Garden

Book by Fobes Tracy

Chapter One
London, England,
1860
When Anne Sherwood heard footsteps crunching down the gravel drive toward her, she clenched her pencil and groaned aloud. She was in a black mood and wanted only to be left alone, to wrestle with her sketchbook. The curves and lines in her illustration of Violaceae looked all wrong, the flower head too large, the leaves too pointed.
A child, she thought, could do better.
She'd spent most of the morning on that drawing, trying to duplicate the winsome beauty of spring's first violets peeping out from beneath brown, moldy leaves. She'd wanted to capture that excitement of new beginnings in her sketch. And yet she seemed fated to draw only rubbish today. Perhaps her sketch looked dull because she felt dull.
The sound of boots striding along the gravel path grew louder. She looked up and recognized the man coming toward her. Sir Richard Hooker, her cousin, had given her a post as botanical illustrator at Kew Gardens. He'd raved about the beauty of the violets in this spot, but she couldn't drag her attention from the cracked fountain, clogged with debris and abandoned, which squatted among the dead leaves like a rotting mushroom. Rather than smell promise in the moist earth, she smelled decay. Even the sunlight that fought its way through the canopy of leaves above her shone a sickly yellow.
If there was beauty to be found here, she couldn't see it. Indeed, beauty held no interest for her. She felt unlovely and severe, far older than her five-and-twenty years, and for good reason. Her brief marriage had aged her a lifetime. Henry, Baron Sherwood, had been her husband for five long years before dying of apoplexy. He had touched her but left her untouched.
Still, that severity didn't show in the lustrous sheen of her dark blond hair or in her full lower lip. It certainly didn't show in the more-than-generous breasts and hips that mocked the loneliness she'd deliberately immersed herself in. Only the small lines above her delicate nose hinted of cynicism and broken dreams.
Frowning, Anne pressed her pencil firmly against the paper, creating her first truly smooth line in hours... until the black core slid out of the top of the pencil. Suddenly bereft of lead, the wood casing created a tiny rip on the paper. She glared at the pencil for a moment, then crumpled the paper she'd been sketching on. She had no patience for failure, particularly her own.
Sir Richard stopped by her side. "How does it go, Anne?"
He stood nearly a head taller than she, his eyes a faded blue in his thin, bewhiskered face. Dressed in a tweed frock coat and fawn trousers, both impeccably tailored and pressed, he appeared both a scholar and a man who knew his way around the drawing rooms of London. He laced his hands behind his back and studied her, his expression kind.
"Fairly well." She placed her pencil and sketchbook in her lap and disciplined her features into a pleasant expression.
His gaze slid to the crumpled piece of paper. He must have known she was lying, but he nodded anyway. "Isn't this a beautiful spot?"
Unwilling to answer, she shrugged. She didn't want to tell him how she couldn't see anything but the crumbling fountain. She didn't want to admit how she loathed these gardens but accepted them, too. The tentative unfurling of color around her reminded her how lifeless she'd become, but at the same time, Kew Gardens represented her salvation. Her post as botanical illustrator was her one good chance of emerging in the world as a respected scholar in her own right.
He shifted from one foot to the other. "Eliza and I missed you at breakfast."
"I've been here since dawn." She did that sometimes -- left the house before anyone knew she had gone. Her time with Henry had left her with more than black moods. She'd also learned to treasure her freedom. She was an artist, one who saw past the frills to the simple lines beneath, and her marriage had taught her a glaring truth about herself. She required independence. She would never again live by anyone's dictates but her own.
"'Tis nearly noon. Come back to Kew Cottage with me," he coaxed. "Eliza has asked Cook to prepare us a small repast."
Sir Richard held out a hand. She accepted it and rose from her wooden folding chair, noticing how moist his skin felt. He gripped her hand slightly harder than necessary before letting her go.
She eyed him carefully. "A repast? Why?"
"We have a visitor."
"I didn't know you and Eliza were expecting anyone today."
He grimaced wryly. "Lord Connock, an Irish nobleman, has been in London visiting with the Royal Botanic Society in Regent's Park. He's decided to pay us a call."
Nonplussed, Anne searched her memory. The name sounded familiar, but she couldn't remember the context in which she'd heard it before. Regardless, she wasn't in the mood to entertain anyone. "Have I met him before?"
"I don't think so."
"His name sounds familiar."
"You've probably heard Eliza and me grumbling about him," he admitted. "Lord Connock's gardens in Ireland are the only ones that have more rare species of plants than Kew Gardens. Her Majesty is highly annoyed with the man for threatening the superiority of the royal gardens."
"He is a collector, then?"
"An obsessive one. Nearly bankrupted himself cultivating his glasshouses. He regained his fortune by selling rare plants. Oddly enough, a few of his rare plants were thought exclusively Kew's."
"Are you suggesting he bribed someone within Kew to smuggle out plants?"
"No, no, not at all. I'm simply saying that his resources for procuring rare plants are equal to if not better than ours. Lord Connock and I have corresponded about our methods, and if I remember correctly, he has a naturalist working for him, a Michael McEvoy, whose skills in the wild have no equal."
Anne raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. She'd met her share of adventurers who searched foreign lands for new species of plants. They were hard men who had grown used to living alone, in the wild, with only natives to talk to and gourds to drink from. Long spells in the jungle left them without manners and totally unfit for polite society.
Three years ago she'd spoken with Charles Barter just before he'd joined Baikie's Niger expedition. She'd found him a loud-mouthed bore. After Barter had succumbed to dysentery and died somewhere in Africa, Sir Richard had commissioned Richard Oldham, a young gardener, to explore the Japanese islands and China seas. The youth had cornered her and kissed her the night before he'd sailed. She'd felt nothing but a sense of invasion and had left the youth with a decided limp.
She supposed men who lived so close to death took advantage of every chance to live life to its fullest; nevertheless, she shuddered at the thought of Lord Connock's naturalist, an adventurer who knew no equal. "Has Lord Connock brought Mr. McEvoy with him?"
"I don't believe so."
"Thank God."
"Anne?" Sir Richard's gaze on her was complex, censuring and sympathetic all at once.
In a flat voice she said, "Michael McEvoy sounds like an adventurer, and a talented one at that. I have no time for adventurers."
Her cousin winced. She knew he'd caught the deeper meaning beneath what she'd said. Baron Sherwood, in his own wizened little way, had been an adventurer, a man who used women. He'd married her because he had recognized her talent. For five years she had acted as his secretary, copyist, and illustrator, and when they had finished Encyclopedia of Flowering Plants, he had taken full credit for the work. But he'd never loved her. The woman who had shown up at his graveside -- Henry's mistress -- was more than adequate proof of that.
"I've corresponded with Lord Connock for more than a year," Sir Richard said more gently. "His naturalist is often abroad. I doubt you'll even meet him. Why not come and talk to Lord Connock? He has some interesting news for us, or so he claims."
She hesitated, hearing the odd inflection to his voice, and tried to fight off an answering spark of curiosity. She didn't want to involve herself in Lord Connock's intrigues in the plant world. She simply wished to sketch.
In the end, however, the excitement in Sir Richard's eyes snared her. "Interesting in what way?"
"Come with me and find out."
She glanced down at her gown. A navy day dress of severe cut and without a single gewgaw, it was hardly fit for entertaining but perfect in Anne's opinion. Her wardrobe stood full of such gowns, uniforms that downplayed her femininity in exchange for competence and trustworthiness. She wanted the men who denied her access to their scholarly circles to see her as a fellow scholar, not a woman. God willing, no one would ever discover her one feminine weakness.
Sir Richard drew her toward the pony cart and helped her climb in. As he joined her and they began to plod back toward Kew Cottage, she imagined the meeting ahead. Anticipations of awkward conversation and embarrassing silences filled her. She had never been good at idle chatter and now refused to indulge in it, while many believed small talk was all a woman could manage. Still, she felt a curious glow within her and realized that Sir Richard's excitement had infected her.
Perhaps this time the awkward conversation and embarrassing silences would prove worthwhile.
In less than ten minutes the pony cart rattled to a halt outside Kew Cottage, a rustic villa Anne had called home for the past two years. Built of red brick, with decorative timber framing and a thatched roof, the cottage sported a tangled mantle of brown vines that would soon bloom into fragrant honeysuckle and scarlet climbing roses. For now, ivy provided the only green foil to the browns of winter, and a tendril of the stuff brushed her hand as she climbed out of the cart and walked with Sir Richard to the front door.
Eliza met them in the foyer, the wrinkles near the corners of her eyes hardly noticeable next to her pretty smile and soft brown waves of hair. She grasped Anne's hands, pausing long enough to level a significant stare at Sir Richard. "Lord Connock has paid us a c...