Page 54 of The Scent of Intuition
Good.
Then he tipped the beaker to about a 50-degree angle, touched his finger to the oily film on the glass, and tasted it.
Something else was missing.
The woody elements were there; the scent was fresh, but it wasn’t relatively high enough or crisp. It didn’t beg for seconds, which was what he needed.
Alfie pulled out his old botany book and turned to the needle trees. Coniferous forests usually existed at higher altitudes, but some evergreens had similar notes and more promising medicinal uses.
He didn’t need the camphor notes or the sinus-clearing pine tree effects. What he needed was broad and heavy but light enough to linger like the crisp and cool air in the mountains, demanding to be inhaled deeply, reaching down to the lowest spots of List’s darkest secrets.
Myrtle.
And he knew just where to find it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
At the orangery at Cloverdale House, later in the day…
Pippa lifted thebuds of her orchids and eyed them critically. “They won’t blossom in time for the wedding.”
“Not every beauty can keep up with the breakneck pace you and Nick have,” Bea said, trailing her hand over the new waxy leaves of the orchids. She always admired the long but robust leaves of these plants, which were so at odds with the delicate layers of the blossoms. Several times, when Bea was confined to her room during a flare-up and worked on perfecting her watercolor skills—an activity her mother always highlighted to mask the true situation—she’d found herself thinking about Pippa. Unlike Bea, Pippa could freely spend time in her orangery, unburdened by society’s expectations and the relentless pressure to be the belle of the ball for whatever event her mother deemed important next.
In those moments of solitude, Bea had time to think and often let her mind wander while her hands controlled the pencil for a loose sketch and then the paintbrush for precise movement of the colors. Even though many debutantes were not terribly fond of watercolors, Bea always enjoyed them, especially painting flowers and plants from Pippa’s Orangery.
There were the prickly tops of the pineapples, like palms growing without a trunk. Long pigment-laden brush strokes lent themselves to the sharp-edged dark-green leaves. The same colors but different strokes were required for the busy ferns,which consisted of many-layered dots with just enough space between them to give them the plant’s shape. And then there were the orchids, with burned sienna around the edges of the underpainting, layered with blues for the fleshiest parts of the leaves on either side of the center thread. For the blossoms, however, Bea barely touched the brush to the paint and almost let the pigment flow to the edges of the delicate petals.
“How can I help the orchids bloom in time for your special day?” Bea asked when she’d counted nearly forty dark pink and purple buds.
“I think we need to ask the footman to light the coal stove he installed. There’s still not enough heat.” Pippa surveyed the room. “It’s humid enough but not quite warm enough yet. I’ll ask him on my way to deliver some of these things to the new house.” She eyed the plants near the stove. “Should we move those, do you think? I don’t want them to get overheated or scorched.”
“I’ll do it,” Bea offered. She and Pippa said goodbye and once her cousin had left the orangery, she began moving the pots closest to the stove.
A figure came to the side door, the glass one that had gotten foggy with the humidity.
Bea squinted.
Then, two hands pressed against the glass, and a face followed, looking in.
He knocked.
Bea straightened, sure it was Nick who’d come in search of Pippa and ready to greet him politely.
It would be all right to be found alone for a moment with her almost cousin-in-law.
Thus, Bea tugged at her dress and walked to the door. She turned the key on the inside, and it clicked open.
“Pippa, hullo,” Alfie said as he stepped in. “Oh!”
Bea blinked at the apothecary, dressed in a simple dark brown coat the same color as his chocolate hair. He looked sinfully delicious as always. Her heart skipped a beat.
“I beg your pardon, Lady Beatrice. Ahem… Bea… I thought Pippa might be here.”
“She was, but she left.”
He surveyed the Orangery and the rows of raised beds, and his eyes stopped at the furnace behind Bea. “Why is there a coal oven?”
Bea withdrew from his proximity, an act that demanded every ounce of her willpower. The space between them felt like a gulf she dared not cross, yet she couldn’t stop her mind from wandering in that direction.
