"Butterflies?" she whispered.
He nodded. "Once upon a time, you told me you loved them. What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn't give you your heart's desire?"
Chapter 9
I want you to have everything you love, Kat," Tristan said softly.
What if all I want is you?
She couldn't tell him that, and he could never know how deep her feelings for him ran. He could break her heart, their parents could split up and get hurt … too much was at risk. What would he do if he learned she was falling in love with him?
"I just want to have fun with you today." With a few rapid blinks of her eyes to clear the newly forming tears, she took a deep breath and sat back, determined to enjoy the half-hour ride to Kew Gardens.
After the taxi had dropped them off, she and Tristan walked down the wide, open path toward the glass edifice in the distance. Evergreen trees were dusted with snow and sunlight illuminated the ice beneath their feet, making it shimmer and sparkle like crushed diamonds.
"Come on, you have to see this," Tristan said before trotting toward a magnificent tree that stood at the northern end of the Broad Walk.
Covered in snow, an old, thick-trunked tree spread its branches out in a wild fan.
"This is an oriental plane tree. They call it the ‘Old Lion.' It was planted around 1762." Tristan pressed a palm to the bark and looked her way. The boyish charm he wielded to devastating perfection tugged at her heart.
Unable to resist, she walked over to join him, placing her hand next to his, feeling the rough scrape of the cold bark. "How do you know all of this?" she asked.
He glanced away, a hint of sadness in his eyes. "My mother used to bring me here as a child. She loves flowers, and whenever she was sad or hurting, we came here to escape our lives for a few hours."
The picture he painted was a melancholy one. A strained, unhappy woman and her tiny son, wandering among the gardens, happy to find some measure of peace. Not unlike the way her father used to sit on the edge of her bed and read her stories of Verne's metal ships beneath the sea, of mighty squid and hot-air balloons uplifted to the skies to begin grand adventures.
She and Tristan had more in common than she'd realized. They'd both been hurt by one parent and were desperate to protect their other parent from the pain of the world. It wasn't a duty a child was meant to have, but when you loved someone, you did what was necessary to protect them. In this one way they were the same. It's why we understand each other on a deeper level.
"The entrance is this way." He covered her hand with his, calling Kat out of her thoughts.
As she followed him toward the building, she glanced back at the Old Lion tree, wondering if it would last another two hundred and fifty years. Some things could stand the test of time.
The interior of Kew Gardens was bright and rich with color. Perfumed scents from a multitude of flowers filled the air. Winter's frost had no power inside this gigantic hothouse. Archways were covered in the purple blooms of wisteria, which swung hypnotically in the slight breeze of the heated air. She and Tristan meandered down the path, admiring flowers as they went until they arrived at another room sealed by sliding doors. On the other side, a garden attendant monitored people coming and going from the next area of the conservatory.
"He's checking for butterflies," Tristan whispered in her ear. "They can cling to your clothes and you might not notice."
Following him, she reached for his hand, and he clasped her fingers warmly in his. Maybe they were damned, but at least they could be damned together. There was time enough to face the world when they got back to the town house.
As they passed through the sliding doors and into the butterfly garden, Kat gasped.
It was an eternal spring. Butterflies were everywhere. Pots full of nectar were nestled in all the nooks and crannies by the plants, and a hundred different species of butterflies were seamlessly floating about on the air. A large black butterfly with blue dots on its wings landed on Tristan's shoulder blade. He couldn't see it, and Kat laughed.
He looked down at her. "What?"
"You have a passenger catching a free ride on your right shoulder."
"Little bugger." Tristan chuckled and tried to crane his neck so he could see the butterfly.
It fanned its wings down flat as though settling in for the ride, which displayed the striking colors and patterns on its wings. It was alluring and seductive, and Kat couldn't resist reaching for it. Rather than flutter off, it moved onto her finger, its little antennae swiveling as it studied her. It touched her skin with its little butterfly tongue, searching for nectar.
"Hello," Kat whispered, marveling at the little insect.
Butterflies were so fragile, yet against all odds they survived, through storms, through frost, through almost anything except the extinction of their habitats. Her eyes burned with tears as she thought about the world losing butterflies one by one. They seemed such a small, insignificant part of the universe, but to Kat they were no less important than any other creature.
"Don't do that, darling," Tristan murmured and tipped her chin up so he could see her eyes.
"Do what?" she sniffed and attempted to smile.
"Cry. I never want to see you cry." He stroked a fingertip over her lips and chuckled.
"What?"
"Your little friend landed on your head. I think he winked at me. Do butterflies wink? If so, they are certainly the cheekiest little fellows … "
She knew Tristan was teasing her, but it made her laugh and kept the tears at bay.
"Your mom really brought you here as a child?" She still held his hand, and his fingers tightened around hers.
The blue-green of his eyes made her think of the waving colors of a kelp forest, just when sunlight cut through the gloom and illuminated the sea of green strands as they rippled through the deep water.
She and her father had lived in Monterey Bay only a year, but he'd taken her to the aquarium several times. It was there that she'd glimpsed sea otters frolicking about in the kelp forests. It had been peaceful and strangely enchanting to watch. Kat could have stood there forever, with her hands pressed to the tall glass of the underwater room, watching the kelp and the otters.
"It's hard for someone in my mother's place. She is the daughter of a peer, and she was expected to marry equal to or above her station. I think, when my father proposed, she was too young to realize that she didn't have to say yes. But there's so much pressure in this life to do what is expected of us. Her parents were little different than my father when it came to what they believed their daughter should do. Rather than give herself time to find true love, she let herself believe love would come in time with my father. That mistake cost her too much." The solemnity in his eyes made Kat's heart ache.
"Is that what's expected of you? To marry someone like … " She swallowed hard, trying not to think about him being with another woman, marrying someone else.
He didn't immediately answer her. Instead, he walked away a few feet and reached out to tap the petals of a large orange flower where a butterfly was settled. Half of the insect's wings were transparent.
"What kind is this one?" Tristan pointed at the butterfly. He was able to slide his finger underneath it, and the insect let him lift it up so Kat could see.
She smiled, a little sad. "A glasswing butterfly. It's from Central America and very rare. The tissue on its wings is so thin it's actually see-through."
"Magnificent," Tristan whispered, then he finally looked at her. "You see things in the world, small, wondrous things, and you do everything you can to learn about them. You have a passion for knowledge, and a gift for seeing endless wonder in things I so often take for granted." The smile upon his lips was carved from lines of grief rather than joy.
Kat's heart stuttered in her chest, and she raised her chin, trying to draw strength from deep inside as she replied, "Do you know what I like about you Tristan? You're not afraid to live."
For several moments they watched the butterflies twist and dance around them before Kat repeated her original question, but she feared she knew the answer.
"You have to marry someone like Brianna Wolverton, don't you?"
The heavy sigh that escaped his lips was a tomb being sealed upon her last hopes.
"It is what's expected of me. Whoever I marry will need to be capable of handling the pressures of society, politics, and managing the estate alongside me. Most women in my social circles have been raised since birth to handle this. I would be a fool if I said I didn't need to look at it rationally, no matter what I might wish otherwise." The finality in his tone told her that he didn't want to talk about it anymore. As sick as she felt in that moment, with her chest splitting open with pain, she didn't want to talk about it, either.