The night had leeched the colour from the world, leaving only silver and shadow.
Moonlight, strained through the thousands of glass panes of the Blackwood conservatory, painted ethereal patterns on the stone floor.
It turned the broad leaves of the philodendrons into dark, waiting hands and the hanging tendrils of orchids into skeletal fingers.
The air, usually thick with the scent of damp earth and sweet blossoms, was taut with a silence that felt heavier than sound.
Hidden behind a dense wall of towering fiddle-leaf figs, Beatrice Holloway held her breath.
Her heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs, a wild counterpoint to the steady, reassuring presence of Alistair beside her.
He stood perfectly still, a silhouette of rigid control, but she could feel the tension humming through him where his arm brushed against hers.
A few yards away, crouched behind a marble pedestal supporting a magnificent bird of paradise, the Chief Officer of the Bow Street Runners and two of his men were similarly concealed, their forms nearly invisible in the gloom.
Every rustle of a leaf in the wind, every distant creak of the old house, sent a fresh jolt through Beatrice’s nerves.
Their plan, pieced together from Finch’s tearful confession and her own deductions, had felt so clever in the lamplight of Alistair’s study.
Now, in the waiting dark, it felt impossibly fragile.
They had baited the trap with false information, a whispered rumour of a new, highly valuable shipment arriving under the cover of the new moon.
All they could do now was wait and pray the serpent would come for the apple.
“He will come,” Alistair murmured, his voice a low vibration that seemed to travel directly up her spine. He must have sensed her trembling.
“Davies is too arrogant to suspect a trap, especially one laid by a reclusive botanist and… and a brilliant woman he has utterly underestimated.”
The compliment, offered so quietly in the charged darkness, was a small, warm coal against the chill of her fear. She glanced at his profile, the sharp line of his jaw clenched tight.
This was not just about his name or his estate anymore.
She saw it in the fierce, protective set of his shoulders.
It was about reclaiming his life from the ghosts of betrayal, and she was, impossibly, standing beside him as he did it.
A sound broke the stillness—the scrape of a boot on the gravel path outside. Then another.
Beatrice’s breath caught in her throat. Alistair’s hand found hers, his fingers lacing through her own, a silent anchor in the swelling tide of fear. He gave her hand a single, firm squeeze.
I am here.
The side door to the glasshouse creaked open, the sound unnaturally loud in the silence.
Two burly figures slipped inside, followed by a third, more refined silhouette that could only be Lord Davies. His voice, an oily whisper that carried with perfect clarity in the humid air, slithered into their hiding place.
“Careful with the lamps, you fools. And for God’s sake, don’t disturb the Earl’s precious flowers. We are merely here to retrieve what is mine.”
A sliver of light from a hooded lantern cut through the darkness, sweeping across the rows of plants. Davies’s men moved with practiced efficiency, their eyes scanning the floor.
“It should be here,” one of them grunted, his gaze settling on a large wooden crate placed strategically in the main aisle. “Just as the informant said. Packed with the ferns from Ceylon.”
Beatrice’s theory had been correct.
The informant had to be someone on Davies’s payroll, someone who had planted the first crate of contraband. Finch had confirmed the man’s identity—a disgruntled under-gardener dismissed for drink.
Davies stepped forward, a smug smile playing on his lips as he surveyed his prize.
“Beaumont thinks himself so clever, hiding in his glass palace. But in the end, he is just a man. And all men have their price, or their weakness.”
He ran a gloved finger along the leaf of an orchid, the very species they had discovered. “This little flower has been quite the convenient distraction.”
That was the signal.
“Now!” Alistair’s voice was a roar that shattered the quiet.
The world erupted into chaos.
The Bow Street Runners burst from their cover, lanterns flaring to life, flooding the glasshouse with sudden, blinding light. “Bow Street!” the Chief Officer bellowed. “Drop your weapons!”
Davies’s men swore, spinning around in shock. One dropped his crowbar with a deafening clang; the other made a break for the door, only to be tackled to the ground by one of the runners.
But Davies did not panic.
His face contorted, the mask of civility melting away to reveal something ugly and desperate beneath. His eyes, wild and calculating, scanned the room and found their target.
He moved with a viper’s speed, not toward the exit, but toward her.
Before Alistair could react, Davies had closed the distance, grabbing Beatrice by the arm and yanking her from their hiding place.
He dragged her in front of him, his other arm snaking around her waist. Something cold and sharp pressed against her ribs.
A knife.
“Stay back!” Davies snarled, his voice raw with fury. “All of you! Or the lady botanist will have a rather unpleasant end to her research!”
Alistair froze, his face a mask of pale horror. “Davies, let her go. This is between us.”
“Oh, it has always been between us, Beaumont!” Davies spat, his grip tightening on Beatrice.
“You, with your family name and your celebrated greenhouses. You thought you could lock yourself away from the world, but the world always finds you. I just helped it along.”
Beatrice’s mind raced, overriding the terror that threatened to paralyze her.
She could feel the wiry strength in the arm that held her, smell the cloying scent of his cologne mixed with the sour tang of sweat.
She kept her eyes fixed on Alistair, watching as he took a slow, deliberate step forward.
“There’s nowhere for you to go, Davies,” Alistair said, his voice dangerously calm. “My man has already gone for the local magistrate. Your men are captured. It’s over.”
“It’s over when I say it is!” Davies hissed, dragging Beatrice back a step. His eyes darted around the conservatory, searching for an escape.
“You should have stayed out of it, Miss Holloway. A woman’s place is in the drawing-room, not meddling in the affairs of men.”
The insult, so dismissive and banal, was like a splash of cold water. Her fear coalesced into a sharp, clear point of anger. She was not a pawn. She was a scientist.
While Davies was distracted by his standoff with Alistair, Beatrice’s gaze fell upon the crate that had been planted weeks ago—the one the Runners had “discovered” and left as evidence.
It was still there, tucked away beneath a bench. The lid was slightly ajar, and a bit of the packing material—a cushion of dried moss—was spilling out.
In that instant, everything clicked into place. The coin she’d found. Finch’s coded ledgers.
And this. This moss.
“You won’t get away with this,” she said, her voice shaking but firm.
Davies laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “My dear, I already have. You think they will believe the word of a disgraced Earl and his trespassing whore against a man of my standing? There is no proof.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Alistair said, his eyes locking with Beatrice’s. He saw the shift in her expression, the spark of recognition, and he understood.
He trusted her.
He took another subtle step to the side, drawing Davies’s attention.
It was all the opening she needed.
“There is proof,” Beatrice declared, her voice ringing with newfound confidence. “The proof is right there.” She nodded her head toward the old crate. “In your packing material.”
Davies glanced at it, confused. “It’s just moss, you foolish girl.”
“It is not just moss,” she countered, her scientific mind taking complete command.
“It is Thuidium daviesianum, a species of fern moss. It’s quite rare. In fact, it grows in only one place in all of Southern England.”
She paused, letting the weight of her words fill the suddenly silent glasshouse. The Chief Officer of the Bow Street Runners took a step forward, his expression intent.
Beatrice looked directly into Davies’s panicked eyes.
“It grows on the damp limestone cliffs bordering the northern edge of your estate, Lord Davies. I documented it myself two years ago. Your men have been using it to pack their smuggled goods, leaving your signature on every illegal crate they’ve handled.”
The blood drained from Davies’s face.
The irrefutable, scientific certainty in her voice had done more damage than any weapon could. He was trapped not by steel, but by a flowerless, spore-bearing plant.
His grip on her faltered for a fraction of a second. It was enough.
Alistair lunged.
He didn’t come at Davies head-on, but slammed his shoulder into a towering rack of terracotta pots beside them.
The unstable structure swayed and then crashed down, a cascade of clay and soil exploding between them.
Davies shoved Beatrice away to shield himself, and she stumbled back into Alistair’s waiting arms. He pulled her behind him, placing his body squarely between her and the threat.
The Bow Street Runners surged forward in the ensuing chaos, subduing the stunned and dirt-covered lord. The knife clattered harmlessly to the stone floor.
It was over.
The glasshouse was a wreck of shattered pots and scattered earth.
The air was thick with the smell of broken stems and overturned soil. But as the Runners hauled a sputtering, defeated Lord Davies away, a profound quiet settled.
Alistair turned to Beatrice, his hands coming up to frame her face. His eyes, dark with the remnants of fear and fury, searched hers. “Are you alright? Did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” she breathed, her body still trembling with adrenaline. “Just… a bit shaken.”
“You were magnificent,” he said, his voice thick with an emotion that went far beyond relief. “Absolutely magnificent. You saved us, Beatrice. Your mind… it saved us.”
He didn’t seem to care that they were covered in dirt or that Mr. Finch was now rushing toward them with the Chief Officer, his face a mess of tears and gratitude.
In that moment, there was only the two of them, surrounded by the beautiful, resilient life they had fought to protect. He looked at her not as a rival or a partner, but as the brilliant, brave center of his world.
Standing there amidst the wreckage, under the serene gaze of the moon, Beatrice knew that the orchid was no longer their most extraordinary discovery.