Jumping in Puddles by Barbara Elsborg

superhuman, or have you had help from James and Gavin?”
    Damn, I’ve done too much . “I haven’t seen anyone. I was awake early, and after you’d talked about the herbs last night, I thought I’d come and give you a hand.”
    Henry scratched his head. “I thought there was more to do. You’ve even raked the gravel and put a twisty pattern in it.” He laughed. “Fantastic.”
    She kept her gaze away from the large heap of weeds. Hopefully the gravel had distracted him.
    “I think I talked too much last night,” he said. “I had a horrible feeling I’d wake up and find you’d run off.”
    “I like a challenge.”
    “You’re in the right place then. I just hope Sharwood doesn’t get you down. It feels like a black cloud hanging over us at the moment.”
    “I brought the sunshine.”
    He glanced up and smiled. “You did. Sharwood looks different when it’s not raining.”
    “I can’t believe you’ve worked here since you were twenty-one.”
    Henry crouched by a rosemary bush. “Yep, straight from agricultural college, assistant to the head gardener. I wasn’t the first in my family to work here.”
    “You said your father was a mining engineer.”
    “He was adamant he wouldn’t work here. His grandfather had, and his father before him, and Dad pleaded with me to be an engineer like him, but gardens have always been in my blood.”
    Ellie lifted another handful of weeds onto the pile. “Why do you think your father didn’t want you working here?”
    “Because the Lord Carlyle of the time was a miserable bastard—excuse my language. I remember my grandfather complaining about him.”
    “What was Jago’s father like?”
    “Another miserable bas—man.” He sighed. “I was in awe of Lord and Lady Carlyle when I started to work here. The awe didn’t last long in the case of his lordship, who was a bullying, cantankerous pain in the…backside. How I resisted popping him one I’ll never know, but Rebecca, Lady Carlyle, Jago’s mother—well, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”
    “Where Jago gets his good looks?”
    Ellie didn’t miss the flicker that crossed Henry’s face.
    “Yes, definitely from her. Lady Carlyle was graceful, had the most beautiful eyes, and her smile could light up a room. She never looked down on me, never treated me badly. Unlike her husband. Hard to do anything right for him. Maybe all the men of this family grow up to be miserable.” Henry stopped working and stared straight at her. “I don’t want that for Jago.”
    “I know,” Ellie whispered.
    “He’s given up a job he loves, taken responsibility for his feckless brother who was spoiled by his mother, and now he shoulders the burden of Sharwood, spoiled by his father. From the moment Jago came to live here, he began to unravel. Maybe it’s this place. Unraveling was the word Lady Carlyle used to describe her husband after his father died.”
    “What happened to Jago’s parents?”
    Henry clenched and then unclenched his fists. “Car accident. Lord Carlyle had come to tell me he was going to sell the place. He introduced me to the man who was going to buy Sharwood, and I took an instant dislike to him. I intended to resign. Rebecca…Lady Carlyle went with her husband and the other man to York to celebrate the deal they were going to sign. Lord Carlyle crashed the car on a straight road in perfect conditions and killed all three of them.”
    Ellie gulped.
    “I never told Jago about the sale. His mother hadn’t wanted him to know until it was done and dusted. She loved these gardens. Said it was where she felt most peaceful.”
    He’d loved her . Ellie chewed her lip. “I bet people would pay to come and look round. Do you ever have open days?”
    “We used to, but haven’t for years. When Jago’s parents were younger, they threw a party every July and invited the village.”
    “You could open to the public, sell tickets, provide refreshments, maybe even have entertainment for