After he nearly tripped over the edge of the rug for the ninth time, Derrick could no longer deny that he was nervous. Inviting himself to tea the same day as the will reading pushed the bounds of propriety, but he possessed little patience to wait for the inevitable. One way or another, this tangle with Angie needed sorting, and the looming deadline mandated the conversation occur sooner, rather than later.

After he entrusted Will with his letters, he began to tread back and forth, pausing only when the midday meal arrived, brought by a kitchen maid; her presence confirmed Will's continued absence, which pressed deeper into his frayed nerves. Though he perched on his desk chair as he consumed the repast, his body refused to be still: his legs bounced in a rhythm that would challenge the most practiced marcher, and his weight shifted as though he were a young child waiting for the opportunity to relieve himself. For a usually decisive and composed gentleman, this struggle to control his own body disturbed him so he could not eat more than half of what he had been served. Receiving a response to his missive should ease his restlessness, he assured himself as he rose and resumed his measured pacing.

The small clock on the mantle read nearly one o'clock in the afternoon when Will knocked on the study's door a moment before letting himself into the room. He bore an envelope with the Hollins family seal, and he gave Derrick a knowing smile as he placed it on a small silver tray on the left front corner of the large desk, as he did with all incoming correspondence.

"Should I wait for a reply, sir?" he asked.

Derrick scowled at him and directed his agitated feet to the desk and his overstuffed chair behind it. He snatched up the letter as he sank into the comfortable cushions of the dark green chair. He slid out the top drawer and grasped the mother-of-pearl handle of his favorite letter opener, the slim blade a gift from his mother. The sharp blade and a flick of his wrist opened the flap of the note without hesitation, and he unfolded the single page to read. As he absorbed the contents, his anxiety grew stronger, with a dash of confusion for good measure. The script was unfamiliar, the broad simple strokes most likely the work of a man, an impression firmed up by short succinct sentences without a hint of whimsy. They extended an invitation to tea at the Hollins residence at three, with a strong warning against arriving early, lest he be asked to wait outside.

So many questions whirled about his brain, he needed to put the paper down on the desk and close his eyes to address them. Why might he, a duke in all but official title, be kept waiting outside for the offence of an early arrival? Was something the matter with their receiving room, or had they previously engaged another important visitor for the foregoing hour and could not cancel? Why had Angie not written herself, rather than engaging a servant or other man to draft her communication? Did she dictate the abrupt phrases presented here, or were they the creation of the stranger who penned them? No answers came, and he felt his unease burgeoning rather than releasing him from its tense grip.

"Is there a reply, sir?" Will asked again, ever the attentive servant. "Or something else you need?"

Derrick sighed and reclined his head against the top of the chair back without opening his eyes. A change of clothes and a comb through his hair would go a long way toward improving his appearance and his mindset. His almost-too-long dark auburn mane felt more tousled than current style allowed, the result of his hands pushing through it again and again as he roamed the room, and his waistcoat and shirt bore both wrinkles and the faint scent of sweat, obvious evidence of his restlessness. His station demanded a perfect appearance when outside his residence, and he preferred to prevent the descent of the gossips on his state of affairs for as long as possible. When his gaze met Will's, the butler gave him a slight smile and a swift nod before he could speak.

"I will see that a fresh set of clothes and a full pitcher of water await you in your chambers momentarily, sir." With that, he vanished and left Derrick alone again.

He stood and tucked the letter into a drawer before striding out of the study, aware that his disquiet accompanied him like a bad debt. With luck, repairing his appearance would ease his thoughts; at the least, looking the heir apparent might keep his inner turmoil hidden at tea.

Derrick preferred to dress himself, a private dig against his father's expectations of him as a youth, and within thirty minutes, his reflection again revealed a man of fine breeding, cool and poised to dominate the world in a black walking jacket over snug cream breeches and a smoke-gray waistcoat embellished with silver stitching. To complete the look, the crisp white points of his shirt drew attention to the elaborately knotted emerald cravat that matched his eyes. A daub of cologne applied to his neck filled his nose with the fragrance of oranges, refreshing his senses and dulling his nerves; time to leave.

The journey to the Hollins home would take about half the time as his grooming, and to his dismay, the faithful foyer clock read just past two. What to do with more than half an hour? After a moment of pondering, he decided a quick walk in the garden behind the manor house would provide distraction and perhaps a peace offering to Angie.

Back when they were children, Angie always gravitated to the outdoors and playing in the gardens and parks of the houses around her home and his. Throughout the spring and summer, there was always some flower or another in bloom, and she adored them all, stopping to sniff each new blossom whenever she could. She also enjoyed sketching some of the more complex and colorful varieties, especially in the last year before he had been forced to leave. He wondered if she was still able to draw, or if her infirmities had taken the joy of that activity from her.

Determined to bring some token of his good intentions with him, he wandered in the garden, looking about for a blossom young Angie would have delighted in. The early spring weather was still too cool for most flowers; there was little chance anything was blooming, let alone one of her favorites. So his heart leaped a little in his chest when he spotted the brilliant purple of a bed of crocuses near a stone bench at the far east corner of the garden.

That bench had witnessed many hours of pleasant conversation between the two of them, and there he had planned to tell her about his enrollment in Eton, a circumstance his father stunned him with as they mounted the stairs to retire for the night one evening when he was thirteen. Instead, he found himself rushed into a carriage before dawn the next morning, assured by his father that a note about his abrupt departure would be posted to Angie immediately. He never knew what transpired between his father and Angie after that morning; Angie refused all of his letters from Eton, and his father offered only vague assurances of fulfilling his promise of an explanatory note while claiming no memory of the specific contents of the communication.

In those days, he did not fully comprehend the trouble his father's meddling tendencies could cause, the man's high standing having protected him from any obvious backlash to that point. He would not remain ignorant much longer. After her sudden death a few weeks prior to the Eton jaw-dropper, his mother's tranquilizing influence on her husband became painfully clear. Reports of the duke's hair-splitting management of his staff and lesser ranked relations spread like fire in dry grass within three months of his first day away from home, and news that many of the unmarried servants left his father's employ to avoid forced marriages arranged by the Duke himself encouraged Derrick to remain far from Chesterton Manor by any means necessary, even occasionally spending holidays alone in the dormitory. The swells of emotions and memories from those days crashed over him, threatening to pummel his soul to pieces, but he shoved them aside with an ease borne out of long practice and dashed to the collection of crocuses.

Halting his steps just short of the beautiful blooms, he bent to snap off a few but hesitated with his fingers wrapped around the base of a vibrant green stem. Given the devastating effect of the past years on her countenance, he wondered if her garden still provided the joyful haven she experienced in her youth. Perhaps her condition reduced her search for the perfect flower to minutes rather than the hours of the past, if it allowed her any time in the garden at all. With this in mind, he resolved to bring her a spot of color that would brighten her home longer than a day or two and began to hunt for a vessel of some sort.

Minutes passed as he looked high and low for a suitable container. His departure time fast approaching, he turned back toward the crocuses to clip a few to carry to Angie, and a flash of white under a rosemary bush a short distance away caught his eye. He grinned when he picked it up and recognized the chipped tea cup they had employed in their imaginative adventures together; its gold gilded edge had worn off long ago, along with most of the delicate painted design on the outside. Still, no cracks marred its surface, so it met his needs to perfection.

He made short work of separating out a single crocus bulb to place in the cup, followed by a generous amount of the rich fragrant soil to cover the roots and sustain the plant until a more suitable vessel could be found. He mouthed his gratitude to his mother as he worked; she imparted her knowledge of all the plants in the garden to him, including the particular care each required to thrive year after year. Her tutelage would help him bring a bit of their familiar garden to Angie, and he hoped his words found her ears somehow.

Finished creating his gift, he carried it with him into the manor kitchen. The cook, who had known him since the top of his head brushed her elbow, wiped the crusted dirt from the outside of the cup while he scrubbed the dirt from his hands, both finishing just as the clock in the front hall struck quarter till three. The exquisite timing sent a tendril of hope fluttering in his chest as he entered his carriage, cup in hand. His cheeks twinged as they stretched around a rare smile; the unraveling of some of the day's mysteries lay within his grasp, and a reunion with an old friend awaited.