The rose garden at the Duke's manor was a spacious and tidy array of lush, blooming rose bushes bursting with vivid flashes of strawberry-lemonade coloured flowers. Bumblebees buzzed lazily in the air, spoiled for choice  - and the sun warmed the tiled paths that circled the courtyard in the centre.

The garden had been arranged to surround an old latticed gazebo. The fixture itself was more or less abandoned, but it was clean even for the faded white paint. There was deeply green ivy growing up the posts and shading the little iron table and benches - and some clovers had taken over most of the grass nearby. 

It was such a beautiful place that I was kind of surprised I had been allowed in at all. 

"Ah, Miss - your dress will get dirty!" Margo cried as I dropped down into the grass and lay flat on my back.

I stayed there for a long quiet moment, soaking in the heat of the sun on my skin, the sound of the breeze rustling through the grass, and staring up at the dream-like clouds floating slowly in the blue sky.

"Let's have tea down here, Margo," I mumbled, looking up at her shadowed silhouette and the endless sky behind her. 

"Well...at least let me put a blanket down."

Once she had spread a woollen blanket, Margo elegantly sat across from me - where I still lay mostly in the grass - and poured us both tea.

With her pretty freckled face and long silky hair in the sunlight, she seemed more like the daughter of a noble than I did. Maybe she had been reading the etiquette book too; she held her teacup so delicately.

"You look comfortable here," I commented, rolling onto my side and idly playing with the petals of a nearby flower. 

"Ah, re-really? I - I came here once when I was younger. With Her Grace. These were her gardens," she said, hiding a smile behind her teacup, "besides, you seem more comfortable than me, Miss."

By 'Her Grace' I knew that Margo meant Kenric and Haydn's mother, the late Duchess Forsythia Rune, who had only been mentioned by name once in what I'd read of the novel, and was only described as a 'regal-looking woman with fiery red hair'.

"She must have liked roses."

"She loved all flowers," Margo murmured, bowing her head and gazing down into her cup. "And she always treated us very kindly. She said that a home was like a garden, and all of the plants no matter how small must be carefully tended, in order to thrive." 

I couldn't imagine that kind of person was a good fit for the Duke, but It was probably an arranged marriage for political reasons. In which case, I guess it made sense for two people so completely opposite to come together. I was grateful, in a sense, that I wouldn't ever have to worry about that. Only an idiot would accept me in a political marriage.

With that unpleasant thought, I pulled myself up and brushed some clovers out of my hair.

"I'm going to leave, Margo," I said matter-of-factly.

"Leave, Miss? But we just got here -" 

"- No, leave the manor. For good."

Her teacup clinked loudly on its saucer. 

"Wh-what? Where - where are you going?" 

"Good question," I muttered, looking out across the rows and rows of roses, "I don't know yet. I'm...I'm still working on that part. Maybe I can find somewhere like this. Where it's quiet, and I can be surrounded by flowers. I'm just...I'm tired. I don't care about being the Duke's daughter, I don't care about the wealth or the luxury, I just want to live peacefully...I don't think I'm cut out for this world. Maybe I'm not cut out for any world." 

A quiet sniffle surprised me, and my eyes snapped back to Margo, who was in tears; "Uh - it's okay, I didn't mean -" 

"Miss -!" she wept, "-you - you've had such a hard time!"  

"A hard time..." I repeated.

Oh. I see, she means Evra, not me.

I was embarrassed that I'd almost misunderstood; "It's not so bad," I sighed, rubbing the heat of the sun from my face, "after all, now I have you, right?"

She nodded fiercely, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief.  Despite the calm of the garden, I had become antsy; "I think I'll take a walk." 

"Yes, Miss! I'll - ah, shall I bring cold drinks?" 

Margo ran off back to the house without waiting for a reply, and I heaved myself up from the grass, following a path deeper into the maze-like bushes. The pink-yellow roses shifted lazily in the breeze, carrying a honeyed scent across the garden and brushing up against me in some places where they'd overgrown.

I wanted to take a leisurely stroll, but instead found myself walking quickly, and then running, following the sharp turns of the tiled garden path as fast as my feet could carry me.

Just as I was starting to feel the rush of being lost in nature, my path came to an abrupt halt.

A towering wall of blue lilacs stretched out in front of me, awkwardly cutting the tiles off from their natural course. With a confused frown, I ran my hand over the flowers and sent a heady, strong perfume into the air.  

Looking along the barrier, I saw that it stretched all the way from the outer wall of the manor to the wrought iron gate that surrounded the perimeter of the estate.

This was the Duchess's garden...

I took in a deep breath, and exhaled it slowly. Then another, not quite as calm, and another after that. The mixed floral scents had become suffocating.

They shut you away too?

It shouldn't have bothered me, she wasn't even my mother...but Margo had said she was good, and kind...

I wanted to scream, but even that felt stifled by the smell of lilac.   

Overcome with a sudden furiosity, I swung out and sent a rainfall of blue petals splattering across the grass. I crushed handfuls of flowers and tore them away from their stems. With all of my strength, I forced my way into the very heart of the hedge, bearing a hole all the way through until eventually, with very little fanfare, I popped out the other side.  

Out of stamina, I tumbled to my knees and sat there for a while, gritting my teeth against my swimming vision and swallowing the hiccups that had arisen from my gasping breaths. Once a tenuous calm had settled over me, I glanced around.

I'd come out on the side of the manor, close enough that if I strained my neck I could see the very top of the large marble fountain in the front carriageway, which is where I headed. A fire crackled in my belly, the kind that sends you looking for a fight. 

It was time for them to see and hear me, whether they wanted to or not. 

It was time to have a conversation with my father.