“Oh.” Nory was a little taken aback. Touchy! I guess some people hang on to their grudges for life. “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything . . .” She trailed off. Excellent start, Nory!

His frown softened, one eyebrow raised as he regarded her. Isaac. Isaac Malik the head gardener’s son, all grown up and standing before her like a dark-skinned Adonis in green Wellington boots and a cable-knit fisherman’s jumper. And she’d already managed to piss him off. Some things never changed.

“You used to throw mud at my head” was all Nory could think to say.

“I could say the same about you,” said Isaac. “Can I ask why you’re out here in the dark, in the freezing cold, with no coat on, trying to sabotage my hellebores?”

“That’s a lot of questions. Would you like my national insurance number and date of birth as well while we’re at it?”

The corners of Isaac’s mouth twitched.

“No,” he replied, “that won’t be necessary, unless I decide to press charges.”

“Charges?”

“For trespassing,” Isaac explained with a completely straight face. “After all, you’ve got form for that.”

“I’m not trespassing, I’m a guest.”

“A guest?”

“Why is that so shocking?” she asked.

“I suppose it’s not really, if you run in those kinds of circles. I saw some of your fellow guests smoking out on the lawn earlier.”

“Is smoking on lawns illegal now?” she asked exasperatedly. “And what do you mean those kinds of circles?”

“People with more money than sense.”

“You don’t know anything about them, so stop being so judgy,” she said, affronted. “And for your information almost all of them have more sense than money, which amounts to a lot of sense indeed!”

He smiled, his peevishness replaced by amusement. “Sorry,” he said. “Ignore me. I’m not usually such an arse. But smoking is bad for you.”

“Okay.”

Nory was having trouble keeping up; this guy was capricious.

“You still haven’t told me what you were doing in my flower beds. Were you burying something incriminating?”

Nory narrowed her eyes at him. “I wanted a closer look at the hellebores near the back of the bed. I don’t recognize the cultivar.”

Isaac seemed unable to hide his surprise.

“But then a big oaf scared me half to death, and well, you know the rest,” she continued. She shivered despite the warm coat. Her teeth had begun to chatter loudly, and her feet were stiff with cold to the point of painful.

“Shall I escort you back to the castle?” Isaac asked. His voice was deeper than she remembered it, much deeper, but it had a soft edge to it.