Chapter 1The Little Life Nobody Wanted

Willowmere lay in a valley that seemed to have been made for people who were content to stay. Its stone cottages leaned toward one another along narrow lanes, their walls crowded with climbing roses and ivy. A stream crossed the meadow below the mill, and beyond the last kitchen gardens the forest rose in a long green hush. On market mornings the air smelled of fresh bread, wet earth, and the apples Mrs. Eva Fenwick set out in wooden crates. By evening, chimney smoke drifted above the roofs as though the village itself were settling beneath a blanket.

Lila Brooks loved Willowmere most in the mornings, before its inhabitants remembered they had opinions about one another. She loved the frost silvering the herb beds and the small discoveries available to anyone willing to kneel beside a patch of soil. She liked the life she had made with Mrs. Ruth Blackwood, whose cottage stood near the eastern edge of the village. She liked her books, her plants, her own company, and the peace of being left to concentrate. She did not much like being told how a young lady ought to behave.

There were people who mistook this contentment for ignorance of her differences. Lila knew perfectly well that she was unusual. She liked being unusual. A mind that noticed the shape of a seedpod or the change in a person's voice seemed to her a perfectly fine mind to inhabit. What troubled her was not herself but the exhausting business of discovering which other people would insist she ought to be someone else.

A year earlier, not long after she had arrived in Willowmere from a larger and busier town, Lila had written to the Royal Botanical Conservatory in Bellhaven. She had left that town because its crowded streets, constant callers, and unending demands upon her attention had worn her nerves quite thin. Even the ordinary business of a day—the rattle of carts beneath her window, voices overlapping in shops, lamps burning too brightly at evening gatherings—could leave her unable to collect her thoughts. She had often returned home with a headache and spent hours in darkness and silence before she could bear another conversation. People called her delicate or unsociable; she knew only that the life expected of her had become intolerable. Willowmere had offered space enough to think, and the freedom to arrange her days around work she loved. The Conservatory’s glasshouses and research gardens had nevertheless fascinated her since girlhood. She had sent detailed observations on soil health, propagation, and restoring neglected specimens, asking to be considered whenever a position suited her particular expertise. There had been no vacancy in her specialty at the time. The Conservatory had acknowledged her work with unusual enthusiasm and promised to retain her application should such an opportunity arise.

A year without another word had made the promise seem distant. Mrs. Blackwood knew of the application, and Margaret, her friend and the village schoolteacher, had helped her put the papers in order. Lila still dreamed of working among rare collections, but she had no desire to escape Willowmere. She was a trusted horticulturist here, with gardens and neighbors who valued her knowledge. Whatever the conservatory decided, she had already made a life worth keeping.

When Lila was not knee-deep in a garden, she was most often found reading a romance novel. She had learned some of the customs of courtship from novels, which she read for several reasons. The stories delighted her: the moment of recognition, the ache of longing, the happiness of two people choosing one another. They also gave her the thoughts hidden beneath the dialogue. In a novel, a gentleman could say something baffling, and a paragraph later the narrator would explain what he actually meant. Life in Willowmere offered no such assistance. And even if every romance had been dull, she would still have loved the firm weight of a book in her hands, the whisper of paper, and the peaceful absorption of reading.

Edmund Whitmore, who had been courting her for some months, seemed to know all the proper forms. He arrived when he said he would, brought flowers, escorted her through the village, and asked after Mrs. Blackwood’s health. In Lila’s novels these were recognizable signs of a gentleman’s serious intentions. She did not love him, but she liked the possibility that love might grow. Nearly everyone assured her that it would.

That morning Edmund had paused beside her garden and remarked, with a small smile, “I hope you will save a little of your enthusiasm for the guests at the harvest supper, Lila. They may not all be quite so devoted to roots as you are.”

“Roots are important,” she replied. “Though I suppose they may prefer to talk about something else.”

“Precisely,” Edmund said, pleased, and kissed her hand. Lila subtly recoiled, unpleased by the physical contact; Edmund did not notice. Lila was unsure whether he had been teasing or offering advice. The smile suggested the former; his satisfaction when she agreed suggested the latter. She put the question aside. A little awkwardness, her novels assured her, was common at the beginning of an attachment.

Edmund Whitmore was widely regarded as a splendid prospect. His family owned the large house above the square, and he carried himself with the ease of someone who had never had to wonder whether a room would welcome him. Lila found his attentions pleasant enough, though she sometimes wished he would ask her a question and wait for the answer.

Most of Willowmere valued Lila for reasons quite separate from whom she might marry. Neighbors sought her advice about blighted roses, winter pruning, and soil that refused to yield. She never made a person feel foolish for asking, even when the answer seemed obvious to her. They knew she sometimes rocked while she spoke, looked toward their shoulders instead of their faces, or pursued a botanical question long after they had exhausted their own curiosity. These were simply things about Lila, not reasons to exclude her. At the market, people saved her interesting cuttings and asked after the plants she had helped them rescue. Not everyone understood her. That was different from disliking her.

Mrs. Blackwood had encouraged the courtship because Edmund appeared stable and serious, and because she worried about what would become of Lila when she herself was no longer there. “You needn’t feel obliged to marry him,” she said, “but a gentleman so well situated deserves a fair chance.” Lila agreed that people deserved fair chances. She was less certain that family property ought to determine how many.

Lila had approached courtship much as she approached a new kind of plant: with curiosity, some reading, and a willingness to discover whether the conditions were suitable. Edmund was attentive in the ways romance novels taught her to recognize. He remembered appointments, brought flowers, and spoke about the future with impressive certainty. When he called her “my little scholar,” she could not decide whether the phrase was affectionate or whether he thought scholarship ought to be small. She had not yet decided whether affection might grow with familiarity, as it sometimes did in her novels.

The market was never truly quiet. At the baker’s stall, Abel Mercer argued cheerfully with a customer about the size of a loaf while a boy carried a tray of buns through the crowd. A woman with a baby balanced on her hip counted coins beside the fishmonger. Two schoolchildren ran past with their satchels swinging until a sharp voice reminded them to mind the eggs.

“Miss Brooks!” called Clara Bell from behind a riot of cut flowers. Clara sold bouquets as though every bunch were intended for a wedding, even when the buyer wanted something to brighten a kitchen. “Tell me why these sweet peas are sulking.”

Lila examined the stems. “They’re thirsty, and the water is warm. You have them beside the south wall.”

“The light makes the colors look splendid.”

“It also makes them wilt.”

Clara sighed and moved the bucket into the shade. “You have a terrible habit of being right.”

“Not always,” Lila said. “But I am right about the sweet peas today.” Clara laughed and slipped a pale pink bloom into Lila’s basket.

At the next stall Mrs. Agnes Pritchard stopped her to discuss a rosebush that had flowered poorly. Mrs. Pritchard had grown roses for forty years and considered that sufficient reason to distrust most advice. Lila listened to the account of the plant’s position, asked about drainage, and suggested moving the neighboring barrel before disturbing the roots. “And you may continue speaking to it,” she added, when Mrs. Pritchard mentioned her daily conversations with the rose. “I can’t prove it helps, but it certainly won’t hurt.”

“There, you see,” said Mrs. Pritchard, satisfied. “A sensible girl.” She went away to tell the butcher that Lila agreed roses liked company.

Abel Mercer waved Lila over as she passed. His elderly terrier, Pickle, slept under the counter with one ear across a flour-dusted paw. “The thyme in my window box has gone woody. What do I do with it?”

“Prune the green growth, but not all the way into the old wood. I can show you after market.”

He tucked two warm rolls into her basket. “For the consultation.”

“I haven’t given it yet.”

“An advance, then.” Behind him the queue grew impatient, and Lila moved aside so he could serve them. She liked that people asked her questions because they wanted answers that she could offer.

That week Margaret and her husband Thomas had asked Lila to advise on the neglected strip behind the village hall. The old communal garden had gone to nettles and hard-packed earth. Thomas had suggested buying new benches first; Lila had explained that a bench would not persuade a seed to germinate. He laughed, conceded the point, and asked her to lead the planting instead.

Margaret taught the younger children in Willowmere’s one-room schoolhouse. She was quick with sums, patient with reluctant readers, and considerably less patient with parents who expected her to turn every restless child into a quiet one. The schoolhouse had a strip of hard ground beneath its windows where nothing had grown except nettles. She wanted Lila’s help to make it useful.

“The children ought to know where their food comes from,” Margaret said. “And they listen to you when you speak about plants. Would you come and teach them?”

“I could show them roots and stems,” Lila said, already considering the possibilities. “And how to test soil without ruining it. But I won’t make them memorize the Latin names unless they ask.”

“An excellent bargain,” Margaret said. “I’ll make them memorize their spelling instead.”

She agreed on one condition: they would consult the people who actually used the hall before deciding what to grow. Mrs. Fenwick wanted culinary herbs. The children wanted sunflowers. Mrs. Blackwood thought a shaded seat would be welcome after all. Lila began sketching a plan that might accommodate everyone.

She escaped to the woods after luncheon with a basket for collecting fallen seedpods. Her dark curls had worked loose from their pins; she did not bother fixing them. Her small boots followed the damp path until a sound stopped her: a thin, broken cry, scarcely louder than a leaf scraping stone.

Lila crouched beneath a thornbush. A tiny calico kitten was pressed into the roots, her fur wet and matted, her body trembling. No mother cat answered Lila's calls. There were no other kittens. Only this one, cold and hungry and very much alone.

“Oh, little one,” Lila whispered. She laid down her basket and worked her shawl beneath the brambles. “You must have been so frightened.”

The kitten hissed with more determination than strength. Lila did not take offense. Fear made perfectly sensible creatures behave defensively. She spoke quietly, inching forward, until the kitten allowed herself to be lifted into the wool. The tiny body felt terribly cold against her palms.

She was trying to free the shawl from a thorn when a man's voice sounded behind her. “Would another pair of hands be useful?”

Lila turned toward a pair of heavy boots. Above them stood a very large man carrying a bundle of split wood. He had rich brown skin, broad through the shoulders, with a thick, woolly beard and an expression more concerned than imposing. He had to bend to see beneath the branches.

“I have a kitten,” Lila explained.

“I can see that.”

“She is cold.”

“Yes.” He set down the wood. “May I hold the branches while you come out?”

Lila considered the arrangement. “That would help.”

The stranger braced the thorny stems with one hand and extended the other only when she asked for it. She emerged with her shawl bundled to her chest, rocking gently on her heels while she assessed the kitten's breathing.

“There's a cottage nearby,” he said. “Mrs. Blackwood's, if I'm not mistaken.”

“I live there.”

“Then we'd best get her warm.” He looked at the bundle. “I am Rowan Thatcher.”

“Lila Brooks. This is Sunshine.”

He glanced toward the pale sky, where the sun had scarcely appeared all day. “Sunshine?”

“She needs a hopeful name.”

Something in his face changed. It was not the smile he offered customers or neighbors. It came slowly, as though her answer had reached a place he had not expected anyone to touch.

“Then Sunshine it is,” he said.

Rowan had seen Lila before, at the market and outside the church, usually with a book under her arm. He had noticed her beauty: her deep brown skin, the dark curls framing her face, the smallness of her figure. But he had not known what to make of the quiet woman who rarely met anyone's eyes. Now, watching her shield a creature no larger than his palm from the cold, he found himself unable to look away. The attraction was unmistakable to him, and inconvenient: he knew she was being courted by Edmund Whitmore. Rowan would not intrude upon another man’s courtship or presume that her kindness offered an invitation. Yet restraint did not prevent him from being captivated. He wanted to hear what she would say next, and then what she would say after that.

He carried her basket. She carried Sunshine. They walked together beneath the trees while Lila explained, in careful detail, how young kittens lost heat and why the animal must be fed only after she was warm enough. Rowan listened with the attentive pleasure he usually reserved for an explanation of good joinery.

At Mrs. Blackwood's gate, Lila thanked him. He could have left then. He ought to have left then. Instead he asked whether she had a box suitable for a kitten's bed.

“I can find one,” she said.

“I could make one.”

She studied his hands, large and nicked from work. “Do you make things?”

He smiled. “Most days.”

“Then perhaps you would enjoy making it.”

It was an unexpected answer. People usually told Rowan what they needed built, how quickly, and how cheaply. Lila had asked whether he would enjoy it.

“I believe I would,” he said.

He walked home by the stream that evening with an empty wood basket and a curious feeling in his chest. His own cottage stood beyond the village, small and solid among the trees. He had built most of it himself, including the bed, the kitchen shelves, the table, and the wide chair by the hearth. He loved the place exactly as it was. Yet while he prepared supper, he found himself wondering what Lila Brooks would think of it. He knew perfectly well that she was unavailable. He had no intention of pursuing her. Making Sunshine a bed was a kindness he could offer without asking anything of Lila, though he could not entirely deny that the prospect of seeing her again pleased him more than was prudent.

Rowan had noticed her beauty before she had even introduced herself. But what stayed with him was the gravity with which she had spoken of a shivering kitten. She had not asked who might see her kneeling in the mud or whether such an animal was worth the trouble. She had simply decided that the little creature mattered. After too many conversations about fashionable acquaintances, profitable matches, and fortunes waiting elsewhere, her earnestness felt like clean air.

He did not mistake one encounter for knowledge of a woman. Still, he wanted another conversation with Lila Brooks, and not merely to ask after Sunshine.