The lost garden was not so much lost as abandoned. When Lord Abercrombie’s father decided to open the castle to the public in the seventies, the old Dower House was temporarily taken over by the newly expanded office staff until more suitable accommodation could be found for them. They were still waiting. And the Dower gardens, tucked away—as was the dowager herself because historically, heirs who inherited country piles did not want their predecessor’s widows hanging about—were out of sight and therefore easy to put out of mind. So they had fallen further and further down the priorities list, until Isaac had become their advocate.

Isaac shoved at a wooden gate in the wall, so perfectly devoured by ivy that only someone who knew the land well would know there was a gate there at all. The gate gave reluctantly, tearing a half-moon hole in a mat of old leaves as it opened. There was no discernible path, and trees had self-seeded and grown up in places the original gardeners would never have intended. Thorny brambles arched over everything like huge green coils of barbed wire. What might once have been topiary were now wild-haired giants blocking out the winter sun. Hollyhocks stooped, brown and withered above the green mounds of next spring’s foxgloves and forget-me-nots. The gardens may have lacked human guidance, but Mother Nature had not sat idle.

“What do you think?” Isaac asked, leading her through an archway into another garden, equally as unkempt. A weeping willow stood at the center, its long, naked branches cascading down like tangled hair to brush the tops of the brambles, which rose up to meet them. The garden was alive with the tinkle of running water courtesy of a mossy gargoyle head on one wall, dribbling lazily into a green pool.

“I love it,” said Nory, looking around. “What will you do with it if you get the go-ahead?”

“What would you do?”

“I’m not a gardener.”

“But if you were given this space, what would you do with it? I am genuinely interested to know.”

Nory looked around her. She could see through the overgrown archway into the next garden, which was as tangled and snarled up as its neighbors. “Do you have access to the original plans?”

“Yes.”

“Hmmmm. You know, I can see the merit of restoring the gardens to what they would have been like. But equally, I kind of like the way they’ve been reclaimed by nature. Obviously, they need cutting back and some serious TLC for their own good, but is there a way that you could give a nod to the old gardens while keeping them a bit more free? Let them be wildly cultivated?”

“Wildly cultivated,” Isaac repeated. “I like that.”

“It feels magical here, and I think other people would feel it too.”

Her eyes did another lap of the neglected garden before settling on Isaac. He was watching her.

“What?” she asked, smiling.