The estate was Thornfield Hall, a Victorian mansion with a conservatory that jutted from the east wing like a crystal ship. I’d lived there my whole life — the owner’s daughter, the girl who was supposed to marry well and tend to tea roses. I’d never tended to anything until Sloane.
Sloane was the head gardener. Twenty-nine. She’d arrived in spring with mud on her boots and a way of looking at the orchids like she understood their secrets. She wore a dark green apron over white blouses that showed her forearms, and she had a habit of finding me in the conservatory at dawn — “to show me the new blooms,” she’d say.
This morning was misty. The conservatory glass was fogged. The tropical house was warm, humid, alive with the smell of wet earth and jasmine. I’d come down in my white linen dress, my hair still damp from my bath, and found Sloane among the ferns.
“The estate is still asleep,” I whispered, standing among the orchids. The mist was clinging to the glass panes, turning the outside world into a blur. Sloane was behind me, her hand on my waist, her apron stained with soil. “The glass is fogged with morning mist. The sun is just rising over the east lawn. The housemaids haven’t woken. And your hand is on my waist, not the pruning shears. You’re supposed to be showing me the new blooms. Not pulling me into the ferns. Not pressing your palm into the small of my back. Not—”
Sloane didn’t speak. She just leaned in, her cheek brushing my bare shoulder, her hand sliding to the small of my back, then lower, under the hem of my dress, finding my thigh with a gentleness that was completely at odds with the dirt under her fingernails.
“If the groundskeeper walks past,” I breathed, my voice trembling as her fingers traced my skin, “he’ll see the gardener pulling the estate owner’s daughter into the tropical ferns. He’ll see your apron stained with soil and your mouth on my neck and the glass walls turning everything into a Pre-Raphaelite painting and he’ll know that the morning walk became something that can’t be pruned back. He’ll know that while the house sleeps, the conservatory is growing something forbidden—”
She turned my face toward her with a hand on my jaw. Her mouth found mine. A kiss that tasted like chlorophyll and morning secrets and the exact moment when a greenhouse becomes a hiding place for everything the world won’t allow. Her tongue slid against mine, her hand sliding higher under my dress, finding me wet and ready and completely overgrown.
The conservatory door creaked.
Boots on gravel. The groundskeeper’s voice — Mr. Halloway, sixty, loyal, completely unaware — humming as he walked past the fogged glass.
“Morning, Miss!” he called out, his voice muffled by the mist. “Early for flowers, isn’t it?”
Sloane didn’t pull away. She just pressed her other hand over my mouth, her fingers still moving inside me, her eyes locked on mine. Then she reached over and misted the orchid beside us — a fine spray of water that turned the air into a cloud.
“Just showing Miss the rare bloom, Mr. Halloway!” Sloane called out, her voice perfectly steady. “It only opens at dawn!”
“Beautiful! Carry on!”
His footsteps faded. Sloane looked at me. The mist was settling on my dress, turning the linen transparent.
“The rarest bloom in this house isn’t a flower,” she whispered against my mouth, her thumb circling my clit, her fingers pressing deeper, finding a rhythm that matched the dripping condensation. “And I’m the only one who knows how to open it. So be still. Let the mist hide us. And let me show you exactly what grows in the dark.”
She made me come against the orchid shelf. Her fingers inside me, her mouth on my breast, the ferns hiding us, the glass walls fogged with our breath. I came with her hand over my mouth, my cry swallowed by the humidity, my body shaking so hard an orchid petal fell.
After, she wiped the soil from my dress. She pinned a jasmine in my hair.
“Same time tomorrow?” she asked.
I nodded. I couldn’t speak.
I still walk in the conservatory every dawn. Sloane still tends the orchids. And every morning, when the mist rises and the house sleeps, she finds me among the ferns and shows me exactly what blooms in the dark.
The groundskeeper still doesn’t know why the tropical house is always fogged at 6 AM. But the orchids know. And so do I.
