Who: Genevieve de la Croix (@lavieenton) & Edgar O'Connor
Where: O'Connor residence, Mayfair
The garden had not looked like this two weeks ago. Then, it had been respectable. Trimmed hedges, neat gravel paths, roses arranged in the usual English fashion. Pretty enough, Edgar supposed, if one liked gardens that seemed afraid to feel too much. Now there were hydrangeas everywhere. Blue, violet, pale pink, creamy white - gathered in fresh beds along the terrace, clustered near the fountain, waiting in pots beside the paths. Gardeners moved around them with spades and wheelbarrows, arguing over where the wisteria ought to climb next. Edgar had, by some miracle, left the work to them this time. The presence of the gardeners helped. Their voices, the scrape of shovels, the ordinary noise of labour; all of it made the afternoon safer. Public enough that he could not simply turn toward Genevieve, forget his better intentions, and kiss her next to the hydrangeas like a man with no sense at all. He did have sense. Some.
He walked beside her with his little notebook in hand, the one that had become half-dictionary, half-confession. Every day since the Barnett ball, she had come back. Every day, Edgar had found himself waiting earlier. It was a dangerous habit, wanting someone's arrival. "Je suis très..." he began, then frowned slightly. "Heureux. Oui. Je suis très heureux que vous soyez ici." The sentence felt clumsy, but it held. His accent was still unmistakably his - Irish tangled through French - but it no longer collapsed after three words. He glanced at her, waiting for judgment with more nerves than he liked.
They passed a row of new hydrangeas, their heavy blossoms bowing in the warmth. Edgar's expression softened before he looked back to the path. "I have been practising," he admitted. "At night, mostly. William endured my French over breakfast yesterday with great courage and no comprehension whatsoever." A gardener crossed ahead of them, forcing them to pause beneath the shade of an old tree. Genevieve's sleeve brushed Edgar's arm. Barely anything. Still, he felt it like a spark. He tightened his grip around the notebook. He was trying. Truly trying. Not because he had become respectable overnight, but because he wanted her to know this was not only about stolen kisses. He wanted those too, badly enough that it was becoming embarrassing. But he wanted the rest as well. Her language. Her thoughts. The parts of her that existed between words.
When the path cleared, Edgar began again, slower this time. "Je veux parler avec vous dans votre langue," he said carefully. "Pas seulement..." His mouth curved. "Pas seulement vous embrasser." Then, an even brighter smile grew on his face. "Though I remain very fond of that verb." Then, softer, more serious, he added, "Je veux vous connaître, Genevieve." His accent caught beautifully on her name. "That one, I practised the most."
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