Rakes and Radishes Read Online Free PDF

bronze, he won a beautiful wife to love him like he desired and deserved. He would make an excellent husband and father, so caring and attentive. Thinking in this light, Lady Sara or some yet unknown lady’s future happiness depended upon Henrietta. And in the end, Kesseley would thank Henrietta, else he would have never met his perfect wife.
    She looked up at Kesseley. He raised a suspicious brow.
    “Why are you smiling?” he asked.
    “Because you are a wonderful man. Kind and patient and—”
    “Gullible.”
    “I was going to say intelligent.”
    “You can stop now. I said I would read your novel.”
    “And Lady Sara?”
    “She may love me if it is her inclination.”
    “Don’t forget about Schweitzer and Davidson.”
    “Now you’re doing it a bit too brown.”
    Was she? His jaw clenched, but the edge of his lips trembled, trying to smile. The knot of guilt around her heart eased. She cuddled closer to him. The setting sun shot long rays of light, casting gold and pink shadows on the clouds. Before them, the land gently rolled to the horizon, dotted with white sheep, like a pastoral scene woven in a tapestry. Lovely, but it wasn’t enough.
    ***

    The sun had set before they came to Henrietta’s home. Kesseley could see the distant towers of Ely Cathedral rising over the gables of Rose House, black against darker hues of dusk. The golden light of candles and fires spilled from the windows into a garden filled with rose shrubs dormant with winter. For as much as she complained about her drafty antique home—forever asking his opinion of this paint, this pillow, whether to put this strange bauble on the mantel or on the round marble table—he liked it as it was. Kesseley felt comfortable here, for the most enjoyable times of his youth were spent inside Rose House’s crooked walls, away from his raging father and the despair engulfing his mother. He never spoke of the horrors inside his own home, wanting to pretend they didn’t exist as he and Henrietta sat together in Rose House’s dark paneled parlor. They would spread a copy of Tristram Shandy across their laps, their legs touching and their small feet dangling off the sofa’s edge, both of them covered in biscuit crumbs. After his father’s death, his mother insisted everyone, including Henrietta, call him Lord Kesseley, but back then he was still just Tommie to her. It was so natural and easy between them. And in those dark years before his father’s passing, everything else in his life had seemed so hard.
    “Oh, I forgot to tell Mrs. Potts to set a special table,” Henrietta said, banging her hand on her forehead. “Mr. Van Heerlen wanted to celebrate. I hope I have not angered him.”
    “I thought he had left.”
    “No, he keeps putting it off and now he and Papa were granted an appointment at the Royal Observatory. I wouldn’t be surprised if I find Papa has invited him to live with us. Though I doubt Mr. Van Heerlen would accept. I would live in Amsterdam or Brussels a thousand times over boring old England.”
    Kesseley didn’t agree with her. He was sure Van Heerlen was quite willing to remain in boring old England. “Is he bothering you?”
    “Yes, he is quite annoying, but I can’t tell Papa because his success depends on Mr. Van Heerlen’s approval.”
    He grabbed Henrietta’s hands. “Ask me to dinner,” he ordered.
    She gasped. Kesseley assumed it was in response to his chivalry until she said, “Wait! Lower the edges of your mouth a bit more. It’s more demonic, like Lord Blackraven. I wish you could see yourself.”
    “What? Who’s Lord Blackraven?”
    “Lord Blackraven…the book you’re supposed to read…Lady Sara. Oh, never mind.” She shook away the thought. “Very well, please come to dinner. Just be delicate. Mr. Van Heerlen could really help my father and that means everything to me.”
    “I’m delicate. I mean, I can be delicate.”
    “And don’t talk of birthing bovines like last