“Bollocks,” Colin muttered. “Never mind, you’re well rid of her.”

I took a deep breath. “What shall we do now? Advertise for a position? Keep sheep?” I tried to smile.

“You’ll stay here.” Lord Jasper thumped his cane insistently. “You clearly need more training,” he insisted. “You can’t be letting spirits take up residence in your head like that, my girl.”

I smiled, nervous and hopeful and grateful. “But what about Colin?” I didn’t want to be greedy, but I wasn’t going to abandon him. “I can’t just leave him to fend for himself.” I squeezed his hand.

“Never mind me,” he said.

“His grandfather was a gardener,” I offered helpfully.

Lord Jasper shrugged. “What’s one more? We have extensive gardens. I reckon Godfrey could use the help.”

“Thank you, sir,” Colin replied. It wasn’t ideal, but it would afford us some time to make plans of our own. And besides, he hated London.

“I can work too,” I assured Lord Jasper.

He just shook his head. “You’ll be working hard enough learning to use your gifts properly.” Being a medium under Lord Jasper’s tutelage seemed far less disconcerting than doing so under Mother’s control. “You should get some rest now,” he added. “You’re still recovering.”

Colin walked up the stairs with me, incongruous in his plain clothes against the fine paintings and gilded banister. He was more beautiful than any antique carvings of Jasper’s knightly ancestors.

“Do you mind very much?” I asked. “Being a gardener, I mean?”

“It’s a sight better than being your mother’s lackey,” he said, brushing my hair off my face. “I don’t mind hard work, never have.”

I kissed him lightly and used the moment to slip the package out of the inside of his pocket. It was a white kerchief folded into a square. “What’s this?”

He pretended to look put out. “Did you just pick my pocket?”

“Yes.”

“Good thing it’s for you then.”

“It is? Really?” I’d only been teasing him when I went through his pockets. I unwrapped it, touched. It was a small brooch made of tin, in the shape of a rose. “Oh, Colin, it’s lovely. Thank you!”

“I thought the rose would remind you of this place. I guess now you don’t need it.” He pinned it to my top, just under my collarbone. “I love you, Violet. Could you love a gardener who can’t afford real silver, now that you’re an earl’s daughter living in a fine house?”

I leaned forward so my lips were so close to his they brushed lightly when I spoke. “I love you, Colin Lennox.”

His grin was crooked and wicked.

“Then we’ll be just fine.”