Chapter Text
Orynth, 1919
Rowan Whitethorn didn’t know what to think about his new job. He’d never imagined that he’d end up as an assistant gardener, but after the war ended, he’d used the only connection he’d had to get a position: his old army captain Lorcan, who’d been discharged a year before due to an injury to his leg.
He’d found a position at the Galathynius estate as head gardener, and gotten Rowan a job when he was out looking.
It was a nondescript sort of career, not anything Rowan had pictured himself ever doing, but it was peaceful. Despite the wealth and the fame of the Galathynius’, a family headed up by one of the biggest businessmen in the country right now, there was hardly ever anyone there.
He’d seen Mr. Galathynius once, and he had never seen his wife. He supposed it wasn’t too surprising, this was the family’s country home. They spent more time in the city.
The only family member he routinely saw was their only daughter: Miss Aelin Galathynius.
She was young, a little younger than him. If he’d had to guess, he’d say she was somewhere around the tender age of twenty one, though he couldn’t be sure. Rowan supposed her birthdate was out there somewhere, but there’d been a surprising lack of information surrounding the socialite in recent years.
For a family as famous as hers, she was relatively under wraps.
It intrigued him. She intrigued him. And not just because of her beauty, though she was stunning, with her long golden hair, shining turquoise eyes, her sunkissed skin… Rowan blushed, cursing at himself under his breath.
He dug his shovel into the mulch, crouching down in front of a camellia bush, grabbing his pruners out of his gardening apron.
A stupid crush wasn’t going to get him anywhere, and he couldn’t afford to lose the only opportunity he had. With thousands of soldiers flooding home from the front, there were only so many positions available that were worth anything. He couldn’t give up this spot just because he couldn’t control himself.
He ripped at the bush, clipping angrily. The only sounds in the scenic garden were the metal blades clipping together, the small and disorderly branches falling onto the dirt for him to later pick up. A few birds whistled their turns as they flew past, some bugs chittering in the trees, but apart from that, it was just him and the silent peacefulness of the nature that surrounded him.
That was the best part about this job, it was calm enough to keep the shit out of his head, not like the city, where every loud noise brought him back to the hell he’d only recently managed to escape.
He set the clippers down, kneeling on the ground as he took a deep breath. He took off his hat, swiping at his forehead with the back of his gloves, undoubtedly leaving a streak of dirt.
“Hey,” Lorcan’s voice came, and Rowan turned half around, seeing the other man coming up from one of the paths. “The trees down on the west end need more mulch, there’s a bag in the shed.”
He nodded, throwing his hat back on as he stood up. With one hand he shoved the pruners back in his pocket, the other reaching for the shovel he’d abandoned earlier.
“I’ll get on it,” he said to his boss and friend, who just nodded back, disappearing back from where he came. Rowan definitely did more of the physical labor than Lorcan did, but Lorcan had to deal with the house manager Darrow, who was notoriously difficult. So they were pretty evenly matched in their duties.
Besides, by working so hard during the day and exhausting himself out, he fell asleep at night with ease, less of a chance for nightmares to keep him up.
He rested the shovel on his shoulder as he turned left down the carefully preserved path down to the shed. The estate had an extremely large garden, one of the biggest in the county, and it was all perfectly and intricately maintained, mostly by his own hands. Most of it was shaded by taller trees, with flowering bushes and plants lining the paths, with small squares throughout, detailed with marble steps and stone benches, bubbling fountains characterizing the spaces.
It was beautiful.
Nothing compared to the house itself, but he’d never been inside, so this was his paradise.
His boots crunched against fallen leaves as he traveled toward the shed, looking through the trees until he caught a glimpse of blonde hair. His heart did an unwelcome flip.
She was sitting where she always was, on her favorite stone bench under a pretty tree, her hair curled up in a loose bun as she read. Her dress was long like always, covering her legs, but the sleeves were shorter and loose, all of it a pretty blue color that he knew would bring out the color in her eyes.
She looked peaceful, and he didn’t want to bother her, so he kept going, only stopping when he heard -
“Mr. Whitethorn!” Her melodic voice called to him and he slowed to a stop, turning to face her. She was looking up from her book, a charming smile on her face. “You weren’t going to stop and say hello?”
“Miss Galathynius,” he said with a nod, ignoring her question in favor of his own. “Having a good morning?”
“A very fine one indeed,” she answered, though she narrowed her eyes at his avoidance. “I just started a new book and it’s proving quite intriguing.”
She had a new book at least twice a week, leaving him wondering how exactly she had so much time to read. Though he supposed as a daughter of a family as rich as hers, she didn’t have too much to do. Rowan hadn’t picked up a book in years.
When Aelin had heard that, she’d berated him in that teasing way of hers, promising to find him a book he’d love.
That was another problem, another reason why he couldn’t get rid of this entirely unwise crush. She flirted. She was out here nearly every day, and every time he passed by she took the opportunity to talk to him, asking him about what he was pruning today, or what he was doing later that afternoon, or what she’d done that morning, whatever small talk she could think of.
Rowan wasn’t unhappy to speak to her, quite the opposite really, but it made it that much harder. Because with every laugh they shared, every smile she sent his way, the harder he fell. And she was destined to marry rich, to marry an heir of some large fortune and forget he ever existed.
Rowan was an ex soldier, a gardener with no past and no future. What did he ever have to offer her?
But just for now, he could set that all aside.
He rested his arm against a tree trunk, above his head, leaning forward a bit as he looked into her little grove, finding her dancing blue eyes.
“What’s this one about?” He asked, his free hand still holding onto the shovel over his shoulder. Aelin closed her book, but didn’t move. She never did, always staying seated on her little perch. And he never entered her little hideaway, with the bubbling fountain and the ivy growing on the bench. He stayed outside, and she stayed inside, keeping some sort of distance.
“Political intrigue,” she answered vaguely, tucking her chin into her shoulder. “Dashed with family drama and forbidden romance.”
“Sounds interesting,” he said, his lips quirking up on the side as she scoffed, tendrils of her blonde hair coming loose.
“How would you know?” She teased. “When’s the last time you’ve read anything besides your paycheck?”
“As meager as it is,” Rowan said under his breath, immediately regretting it as her expression faltered.
“Is it that poor?” She asked, lips pressed together. “I can speak to my father and -”
“When is the next time you’ll see him?” He said, a bit bitterly, and very unfairly. He immediately regretted the words as he watched her face deflate. “I’m sorry,” he sighed, “I shouldn’t have said th-”
“It’s okay,” Aelin interrupted, steeling her face. “You’re not wrong. I am not sure when I will see him next, but when I do I’ll be sure to raise the issue.”
He knew better to argue with her when she looked like that, so he just nodded a bit bashfully, straightening up.
“I better go,” he said, like a coward. “Lorcan told me to go mulch the west end.”
“Ah,” she said, cracking open her book. “Better get to that, you wouldn’t want to upset him.” The air between them suddenly felt icy, and he knew it was time to leave.
“Have a good day,” Rowan said, and she didn’t even look up at him as he left, heading back down to the shed.
------
As soon as Aelin knew Rowan was gone, she looked up, staring after him. True to what she’d thought, he’d disappeared down the path, leaving nothing but the light breeze dancing between the trees.
“Gods Aelin,” she cursed under her breath, closing her book again and rubbing at her face. She sat out here every day for him, and yet she couldn’t speak to him properly, let alone convince him to even get near her.
He always stayed those few yards away, not daring to get too close. Though Aelin wasn’t sure she wanted him to, not sure if she wanted him to know the truth. He didn’t seem like the type of person to turn away from her because of it, but with all of the people in her life who had, it didn’t seem worth the risk.
Especially when it was doomed already. What could she possibly be hoping would come out of this? Nothing good.
Either he would find out the truth and leave her alone, or he wouldn’t, which would ultimately be worse considering this… this relationship was bound for hell anyways. It was better to keep that distance, and yet she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the path, hoping for one more glimpse.
“Are you ready to go back in, Miss Galathynius?” Philippa’s kind voice rang through the peaceful garden, and Aelin turned her head, seeing her nurse step into the little grove.
She glanced back, but Rowan was still long gone, so she nodded, setting her book to the side.
“Yes,” she answered as well, “I think I’d like to go have some tea.”
“I’ll ring for it once we’re inside,” the older woman said, and Aelin half smiled half grimaced as Philippa reached for her, using her surprisingly strong arms to help lift her off of the bench, effectively carrying her whole weight to transfer her to the wheelchair she’d brought out. The wheelchair that had been her method of transportation for far too long now.
There were braces on her legs, but they didn’t offer as much assistance as they did support. No matter how much she tried, they wouldn’t work. Not anywhere near how they’d used to, when she’d run around this very garden with her cousin, wreaking havoc on the poor old gardener, Mr. Murtaugh.
She hadn’t seen him in ages, after he retired.
She hadn’t seen a lot of the people she’d once used to know, though really she didn’t see much of anyone. Practically just Philippa, her maid, occasionally a footman, and Rowan.
She was a pariah now, leaving her parents scrambling for her prospects, which had once been overflowing with proposals. They’d kept what happened mostly under wraps, but until they could figure out how to marry her off quietly, she was shuffled to the side, kept under lock and key in this damned estate.
There wasn’t much to look forward to in her life, besides her morning visit to the garden. She enjoyed the nice crisp air, the songs of the birds who flew by, the beauty of the flowers around her, and of course, the man who kept it all together.
But there wasn’t any hope for that either , she thought sullenly as Philippa rolled her back toward her prison.
It would be better to just let it all go.