The air in the potting shed was thick with the scent of damp earth, peat, and the sharp, green perfume of crushed leaves. It was a scent Alistair had associated with comfort and creation his entire life.
Tonight, it smelled of decay.
He stood in the narrow aisle between benches laden with terracotta pots and seedlings, a small, worn ledger held loosely in one hand.
The setting sun cast long, amber fingers through the shed’s grimy windowpanes, illuminating dust motes dancing in the heavy air. Mr. Finch was at the far end, his back to the door, carefully transplanting a delicate fern.
The rhythmic tap of his trowel against a pot was the only sound.
Alistair had found the ledger tucked beneath a loose floorboard an hour ago.
Lord Davies’s official inquiry had been the catalyst, a public prodding that had forced him to look for shadows in places he had always trusted to be filled with light.
The coded entries—dates corresponding to botanical shipments, followed by cryptic symbols and figures—had turned his vague unease into a cold, hard certainty.
“Finch,” Alistair said. His voice was quiet, yet it cut through the tranquil sounds of the shed like a shard of glass.
The gardener started, his shoulders jumping. He turned slowly, his face, usually ruddy with outdoor work, was pale and drawn in the dying light.
He wiped his soil-caked hands on his apron, a gesture of ingrained habit that seemed pitifully inadequate for the moment.
“My lord,” he stammered, his gaze darting from Alistair’s face to the ledger in his hand, and then dropping to the floor. “I did not hear you approach.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Alistair replied, his tone devoid of warmth. He took a step forward, the floorboards groaning under his weight.
“I’ve come about a matter of accounting.” He held up the ledger. “Perhaps you can explain these entries to me. They don’t seem to correspond to any of the estate’s official books.”
Finch’s face crumpled. The years of quiet dignity, of steadfast service, seemed to melt away, leaving behind a man brittle with fear. “My lord, I… it is a private matter. A… a record of my own plantings.”
“Is it?” Alistair’s voice remained level, but an edge of steel crept into it.
“Because this symbol,” he pointed to a recurring mark, “appears next to every shipment that has arrived from the continent in the last six months. And the figures beside them do not match the invoices for Phalaenopsis or Cattleya. What do they represent, Finch? Casks of brandy? Bolts of French silk?”
The gardener flinched as if struck. A terrible, ragged sound escaped his throat, half-sob, half-gasp.
His knees seemed to buckle, and he gripped the edge of the potting bench to steady himself, his knuckles white.
“Please, my lord,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “Please.”
The sight of the man, who had taught a young Alistair how to properly graft a rose, so utterly broken sent a fissure through the Earl’s cold anger.
He had come here for a confession, for the satisfaction of rooting out a betrayal. He had not expected it to feel like this—like tearing a limb from his own body.
“Tell me everything,” Alistair commanded, his voice softer now, laced with a weary authority. “From the beginning.”
And so, the story came tumbling out, a torrent of desperation and shame that filled the small space with a misery far heavier than the scent of soil. It began not with greed, but with love.
Finch’s wife, Elspeth, had been ill for years, her condition requiring medicines and treatments far beyond the means of a head gardener.
Then his son, a good lad with a weak will, had fallen into debt with a ring of London moneylenders, the kind who employed brutes to collect.
“They came to the cottage, my lord,” Finch choked out, tears finally carving clean paths through the grime on his cheeks.
“They threatened Elspeth. They said… they said they would see my boy thrown in a debtor’s prison, or worse. I had nothing left to sell, nothing to give.”
He’d met a man at the village pub, a sailor with cold eyes, the same rough-looking man Beatrice had mentioned. The man had heard of the Earl’s frequent, private shipments of rare and exotic plants.
Such shipments, he’d explained, were perfect covers. They were handled with care, rarely inspected with any rigor, and delivered to a private estate where prying eyes were few.
“He said all I had to do was… look the other way,” Finch continued, his gaze fixed on a crack in the floorboards.
“Make sure a few extra crates were unloaded with the ferns and orchids. Crates they would collect in the dead of night. For every crate, they would forgive a portion of my son’s debt.”
At first, it had been a simple arrangement. But soon, the smugglers grew bolder.
They demanded Finch add their contraband to his own supply orders, hiding the cost in the estate’s accounts. They forced him to create false entries in his private ledger, a record of their dark transactions.
“I tried to stop,” he sobbed, his whole body shaking.
“Last month, I told them I was done. But the leader… he said if I refused, he would send an anonymous letter to the magistrate. He said he would tell them the Earl of Blackwood was a smuggler, using his passion for botany as a front. He would ruin you, my lord, to save himself. I… I could not let that happen. Your family… you have only ever been good to me. I am so sorry, Alistair.”
The use of his given name, a relic from a childhood spent trailing the gardener through these very glasshouses, struck Alistair with the force of a physical blow.
The last of his anger evaporated, replaced by a profound, hollow ache. This wasn’t a simple story of a trusted employee’s betrayal.
It was the story of a decent man caught in an impossible trap, a man who had chosen to risk his own integrity to protect his family and, in his own twisted way, Alistair’s.
Alistair was now faced with a terrible choice. He could turn Finch over to the authorities.
The law would be satisfied, and justice, in its coldest form, would be served. Finch would be ruined, his wife left destitute, his son at the mercy of wolves.
The Blackwood name would be cleared, but at the cost of a man’s life—a life dedicated to his service.
Or, he could handle this himself.
He could shield his gardener, a man who was more family than employee, and face these criminals alone. He could step into the shadows to protect his house, risking his reputation, his safety, and everything his father had built.
He felt the familiar weight of his title settle upon his shoulders, heavier than it had ever been. It was the Earl’s duty to protect his people, and Finch, despite his crime, was one of his.
He finally moved, placing the ledger on the bench beside a tray of orchid seedlings—the very crossbreeds he and Beatrice had been cultivating.
He looked at their tender green shoots, symbols of a future he had just begun to believe in, a future bright with shared discovery and a startling, thrilling intimacy.
The thought of Beatrice, of her sharp mind and her even sharper wit, flashed through him.
For a moment, he yearned to go to her, to lay this whole sordid mess at her feet and let her brilliant, logical mind help him find a path through it.
But the impulse died as quickly as it arose.
This was not a scientific problem to be solved with logic and collaboration.
This was a stain of dishonor, of criminality. It was a poison that had seeped into the roots of his estate.
To involve Beatrice would be to contaminate her, to pull her into the scandal that Lord Davies was so clearly orchestrating. It would endanger her name, her family, her future—the very things she fought so fiercely to secure.
His past trauma whispered its venomous logic in his ear.
Trust leads to ruin. Dependence is a weakness. You must handle this alone.
He had let his guard down with her, shared a kiss that had felt like a new beginning, and now the world was reminding him of the folly of such openness.
To protect her, he had to push her away. He had to rebuild his walls, higher and stronger than before.
“Go home, Finch,” Alistair said, his voice quiet but resolute. “Go home to your wife. Speak of this to no one. Not a soul. Do you understand?”
Finch looked up, his eyes wide with a mixture of terror and dawning, incredulous hope. “My lord?”
“I will handle this,” Alistair stated. It was not a promise of forgiveness, but a declaration of intent. A burden taken.
“From this moment on, you know nothing. You have seen nothing. You will continue your duties as you always have.”
The gardener could only nod, tears of gratitude now mingling with those of shame. He stumbled out of the potting shed and into the twilight, a ghost of a man leaving his sins behind.
Alistair remained, alone.
The setting sun had finally dipped below the horizon, plunging the shed into a deep, cool gloom. He stood motionless, surrounded by the quiet, growing things that had always been his sanctuary.
But his sanctuary had been violated, turned into a hiding place for contraband and betrayal.
He felt more isolated than ever, a solitary lord standing guard over a legacy that was threatening to crumble from within. The weight wasn’t just his to bear; it was his alone.
And in that cold, silent darkness, he knew it would cost him everything.
Most of all, it would cost him her.