The air in the Grand Glasshouse was a living thing.
It was thick with the scent of damp soil, the sweet, heavy perfume of blooming jasmine, and the sharp, green tang of fern fronds unfurling in the humid warmth.
For Alistair Beaumont, the Earl of Blackwood, this was the only air he could truly breathe.
Outside these cathedral-like walls of glass and iron, he was a title, a landowner, a man burdened by a legacy he felt perpetually at risk of tarnishing.
But in here, surrounded by the quiet, demanding life of his collection, he was simply a botanist.
He ran a gentle finger along the waxy leaf of a Phalaenopsis amabilis, a pearl-white moth orchid his father had cultivated decades ago.
The plant was a direct link to the man who had built this sanctuary, a brilliant, obsessive botanist who had passed on to his son not only his title, but his passion and his pressure.
The weight of that legacy was a physical presence, settling on Alistair’s shoulders the moment he stepped outside.
Protect the name. Expand the collection. Uphold the Blackwood reputation.
It was a reputation that had been grievously wounded five years prior. The memory, a scar that never quite faded, was always closest to the surface here, in the one place he should have felt safest.
He straightened, his gaze sweeping over the meticulously organized benches, the terracotta pots bearing neat Latin labels in his own precise script.
Every plant was a success, a testament to his dedication.
But one empty space on a high shelf served as a constant reminder of his greatest failure.
That was where the Paphiopedilum rothschildianum had been, the subject of his groundbreaking research on cross-pollination.
Research that his colleague, his friend, Robert Davies, had stolen, published under his own name, and ridden to acclaim within the Royal Society while Alistair was left with nothing but the bitter taste of betrayal and the whispers of his peers.
The theft had done more than rob him of credit; it had hollowed out his trust, leaving behind a fortress of suspicion.
He had retreated into his work, into this glass world where the rules were logical, where growth followed a predictable pattern, and where the only betrayals were the simple, honest ones of blight and frost.
Here, he was in control.
A frantic clearing of a throat from the doorway shattered the humid peace.
Alistair didn’t need to turn to know who it was. “Finch. What is it? Has the new shipment from Borneo arrived?”
“Not yet, my lord,” came the reedy, perpetually worried voice of his head gardener.
Mr. Finch was a man who seemed to be permanently weathering an invisible storm, his shoulders hunched and his hands always twisting the brim of a worn cap he was forever forgetting to remove indoors.
“Something… else, my lord. A matter of some delicacy.”
Alistair finally turned, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features.
Finch’s idea of a delicate matter usually involved an aphid infestation on the rose bushes or a dispute between the under-gardeners over the proper method for composting.
“If it’s about the new fertilizer, I have already made my decision. The guano stays.”
“No, my lord. It’s not the guano.” Finch took a hesitant step into the glasshouse, his boots leaving damp prints on the flagstone path.
He clutched his cap in his hands now, twisting the fabric into a distressed knot. “It’s a trespasser.”
Alistair’s posture stiffened. Trespassers were common enough—local children looking for birds’ nests, village couples seeking a private stroll.
He usually let them be, so long as they kept to the main paths. “And?”
“It’s a woman, my lord. On the eastern parcel, near the sun-dappled glade.”
A cold stillness settled over Alistair. The eastern glade.
The one place on the entire estate, aside from this glasshouse, that he considered sacrosanct.
It was a unique microclimate, a topographical anomaly that allowed for the growth of species that had no business thriving in the English countryside.
It was the site of his most private, most promising work.
“What is she doing?” he asked, his voice losing its earlier warmth.
Finch swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. “That is the thing, my lord. She isn’t picking flowers or… or meandering. She has a satchel. And a sketchbook.”
The word struck Alistair like a physical blow. Sketchbook.
The humid air suddenly felt thin, suffocating. The memory of Robert Davies was no longer a dull ache but a sharp, stabbing pain.
He could see him so clearly, sitting in this very glasshouse, his head bent in concentration over his own sketchbook, his charcoal stick flying across the page with a deceptive innocence.
Robert, who had praised Alistair’s work, who had borrowed his notes, who had copied his illustrations with the precision of a forger and then claimed the genius as his own.
A cold, familiar fury coiled in his gut.
This was how it began.
With academic curiosity. With a sketchbook and a plausible excuse.
“Describe her,” Alistair commanded, his voice now clipped and hard as iron.
“Of moderate height, my lord. Brown hair, pinned up, though some of it’s escaped. Dressed respectably, but not… not in the high fashion, if you take my meaning. Looks more like a scholar than a lady of leisure.”
Finch wrung his cap.
“Young William, one of the groundsboys, saw her. Said she was on her hands and knees, peering at the ground orchids like they were crown jewels.”
The ground orchids. His orchids.
The unclassified species he had discovered only last spring, the one he had been cultivating in situ, documenting with painstaking secrecy.
The one he believed could finally restore his name and solidify the Blackwood legacy for another generation.
His lifeline.
It couldn’t be a coincidence.
No rival botanist knew of that glade. He had ensured it.
Which meant this woman was either a poacher, looking to steal a rare specimen for sale on the black market, or worse—a scientific thief, another Robert Davies in a skirt, sent to spy on his work.
Perhaps even sent by Davies himself, now Lord Davies, whose political star had risen in direct opposition to Alistair’s own retreat from society.
The man was arrogant enough, and certainly ruthless enough.
“How long has she been there?”
“William saw her an hour ago. He came straight to me, and I came straight to you, my lord.”
An hour. An hour for her to document his find.
To draw it, to classify it, to steal it with paper and charcoal just as surely as if she had dug it from the earth. The violation felt profound, a contamination of his last remaining refuge.
“Has anyone approached her?”
“No, my lord. I thought it best to await your instructions.”
“Good.” Alistair set his magnifying glass down on the potting bench with a sharp click. The botanist was gone, replaced by the Earl.
The quiet scholar had vanished, and in his place stood the lord of the manor, a man whose territory had been invaded and whose most valuable possession was under threat.
The pressure he felt from his father’s legacy, the paranoia born of betrayal—it all coalesced into a single, hard point of resolve.
He strode past Finch, his long legs covering the length of the glasshouse in a few angry strides. He would not send a groundskeeper.
He would not delegate this to his estate manager. This was a personal affront, and it demanded a personal response.
He had been passive once, trusting and naïve, and it had cost him everything. He would not make that mistake again.
This intruder, this thief with her sketchbook, would not find a welcoming academic. She would find an Earl.
And she would learn that the flora of Blackwood, like its master, was not to be trifled with.
“My lord, what are you going to do?” Finch called after him, his voice laced with anxiety.
Alistair paused at the heavy oak door, his hand on the cool iron latch. He glanced back, not at Finch, but at the rows of orchids, his silent, beautiful charges.
They were his work, his honor, his future.
And like any lord worthy of the title, he would protect his domain.
“I am going to remove a pest from my garden,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet.
And with that, he pushed the door open, leaving the warm, controlled world of the glasshouse for the unpredictable territory of the fight to come.
He would confront this woman, this poacher of discoveries, and he would expel her from his land and his life.
At all costs.