She Loved a Poor Gardener—Then Discovered He Was the Heir to a Fortune
Chapter 1
Why would a man who owned nothing but a worn coat and a pair of muddy boots refuse a fortune large enough to make him one of the richest men in the colonies?
Clara Bennett had asked herself that question many times.
She simply did not know, when she first met Thomas Reed, that the answer would eventually change both their lives.
It was early spring at Blackwood Manor, when the gardens were still recovering from winter.
Clara was carrying a basket of folded linens across the rear courtyard when she saw the stranger kneeling beside a dead rosebush.
His coat was patched at one elbow.
His boots were stained with earth.
A straw hat rested beside him.
He looked nothing like the wealthy gentlemen who visited Lord Blackwood’s estate.
Yet he handled the rosebush with extraordinary care.
Clara stopped.
“You’ll kill it if you cut there.”
The man looked over his shoulder.
“Then perhaps you should show me where.”
She almost smiled.
“Perhaps I should.”
She set down the basket.
He moved aside.
Clara crouched beside him and pointed toward the stem.
“The frost damaged this branch. Cut below the dark wood.”
He followed her instruction.
A clean slice exposed pale green beneath the bark.
“Alive,” he said.
“Most things are, if you know where to look.”
He looked at her.
For some reason, Clara remembered his eyes.
They were tired.
But kind.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Thomas.”
“Thomas what?”
“Just Thomas.”
She laughed.
“Everyone has a surname.”
“Not everyone wants it known.”
That answer should have warned her.
Instead, it made her curious.
Later that day, she learned he had been hired as the new gardener.
The steward told her he was poor, quiet, and had worked wherever he could find employment.
No family.
No references worth mentioning.
No money.
Nothing remarkable.
Clara believed him.
And perhaps that was why she began to notice Thomas everywhere.
At dawn, pruning the orchard.
At noon, repairing the greenhouse.
At dusk, carrying buckets through the rain while everyone else remained indoors.
He never complained.
He never asked for favors.
And whenever Clara passed him, he looked at her as though she were the only person in the courtyard.
Their first conversation lasted five minutes.
Their second lasted twenty.
By summer, Clara had begun finding reasons to walk through the gardens.
She told herself she loved flowers.
But she knew the truth.
She was looking for Thomas.
