must be neighbours’ houses on either side and maybe at the back but even the tops of their roofs were barely visible through the rampant growth. But, overgrown as it was, the garden was still a splendid sight. The front gave only a hint of the extent of the size of land that lay behind the house.
She stared around her for a long moment before she was able to speak again. ‘It’s magnificent. Or was magnificent. It could be magnificent again. And...and so much bigger than I thought.’
Declan’s dark brows drew together. ‘Does that daunt you?’
He must be more competent than she at reading people—because she thought she had hidden that immediate tremor of trepidation.
‘A little,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m more exhilarated by the challenge than worried I might have bitten off more than I can chew.’
‘Good. I’m confident you can do it. I wouldn’t have hired you if I wasn’t,’ he said.
Shelley appreciated the unexpected reassurance. She took a deep breath. ‘Truly, this is a grand old garden, the kind that rarely gets planted today. A treasure in its own way.’
‘And the first thing you see is the fountain,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s very grand.’
‘And very dry,’ he said.
The fountain she’d so hoped to see was classical in style, three tiers set in a large, completely dried-out rectangular pond edged by a low sandstone wall. It took quite a stretch of the imagination but she could see water glinting with sunlight flowing into a pond planted with lotus and water iris interspersed by the occasional flash of a surfacing goldfish. She could hardly wait to start work on it.
And, beyond her professional pride in her job, she wanted Declan’s approval.
Behind the fountain, paved pathways wound their way through a series of planted ‘rooms’ delineated by old-fashioned stonework walls and littered with piles of leaves that had fallen in autumn. Graceful old-style planters punctuated the corners of the walls. Some of them had been knocked over and lay on their sides, cracked, soil spilling out. The forlorn, broken pots gave the garden a melancholy air. It was crying out for love.
And she would be the one to give this beautiful garden the attention it deserved. It would be magnificent again.
She turned to Declan. ‘Whoever planted this garden knew what they were doing—and had fabulously good taste. Everything is either really overgrown or half choked to death but the design is there even at a quick glance. It will be a challenge, but one I’m definitely up for.’
He nodded his approval. ‘It’s like anything challenging—take it bit by bit rather than trying to digest it whole. In this case weed by weed.’
She was so surprised by his flash of humour she was momentarily lost for words. But she soon caught up. ‘You’ve got that right. Man, there are some weeds. I’ve already identified potato vine—it’s a hideous thing that strangles and is hard to get rid of. Morning glory is another really invasive vine, though it has beautiful flowers. It’s amazing what a difference a lot of Aussie sunshine can do to an imported “garden invader”. The morning glory vine is a declared noxious weed here, but they nurture it in greenhouses in England, I believe. And there’s oxalis everywhere with its horrible tiny bulbs that make it so difficult to eradicate.’
‘Who knew?’ he said.
She couldn’t tell whether he was being sarcastic or not. Was that a hint of a smile lifting the corners of his mouth and a warming of the glacial blue of his eyes?
Okay, maybe she’d gone on too much about the weeds.
‘That’s the nasty stuff out of the way.’ It was her turn to smile. ‘And now to the good stuff.’
‘You can see good stuff under all the “garden invaders”?’ he said, quirking one dark eyebrow.
‘Oh, yes! There’s so much happening in this garden—and this is winter. Imagine what it will be like in spring and summer.’ She heaved a great sigh of joyous anticipation. She was going to love this job.
And it seemed as if Declan Grant might not be as difficult to work with as she had initially feared. That hint of humour was both unexpected and welcome.
She pointed towards the southern border of the garden. ‘Look at the size of those camellia bushes shielding you from your neighbours. They must be at least sixty years old. More, perhaps. The flowers are exquisite and the glossy green leaves are beautiful all year round.’
He put up his hand in a halt sign. ‘I don’t want you getting rid of those. The woman who lives behind there is particularly obnoxious. I want to screen her right out.’
‘No way would I get rid of them,’ she said, horrified. Then remembered he was the client. ‘Uh, unless you wanted me to,’ she amended through gritted teeth. ‘That particular white flowering camellia—camellia japonica “Alba Plena”, if you want to be specific—is a classic and one of my favourites.’
‘So you’re going to baffle me with Latin?’ Again that quirk of a dark eyebrow.
‘Of course not. I keep to common names with clients who don’t know the botanical names.’ Uh-oh. ‘Um, not that I’m talking down to you or anything.’
‘Both my parents are lawyers—there was a bit of Latin flying around our house when I was a kid.’
‘Oh? So you know Latin?’ She understood the Latin-based naming system of plants, but that was as far as it went.
He shook his head. ‘I was entirely uninterested in learning a dead language. I was way more interested in learning how computers talked to each other. Much to my parents’ horror.’
‘They were both lawyers? I guess they wanted you to be a lawyer too.’ His mouth clamped into a tight line. ‘Or...or not,’ she stuttered.
There was another of those awkward silences she was going to have to learn to manage. He was a man of few words and she was a woman of too many. But now that she understood the dark place he was coming from, she didn’t feel so uncomfortable around him.
She took a deep breath. ‘Back to the camellias. I think we’ll find there’s a very fine collection here. Did you know Sydney is one of the best places to grow camellias outside of China, where they originate?’
His expression told her he did not.
‘Okay. That’s way more than you wanted to know and I’m probably boring you.’ When would she learn to edit her words?
He shook his head. ‘No. You’re not. I know nothing about gardening so everything you tell me is new.’ His eyes met hers for a long moment. ‘I guess I’m going to learn whether I want to or not,’ he said wryly.
‘Good. I mean, I’m glad I’m not boring you. I love what I do so much but I realise not everyone else is the same. So just tell me to button up if I rabbit on too much.’
‘I’ll take that on board,’ he said with another flash of the smile that so disconcerted her.
She looked around her, both to disconnect from that smile and hungry to discover more of the garden’s hidden treasures. ‘I want to explore further and think about an action plan. But the first thing I’ll do today is prune that rather sick-looking rose that’s clambering all over the front of the house. Winter is the right time of year to prune but we’re running out of time on that one. It’s dropped most of its leaves but in spring it must be so dense it blocks all light from the windows on the second floor.’
‘It does,’ he said. ‘I like it that way.’ His jaw set and she realised he could be stubborn.
‘Oh. So, do I have permission to prune it—and prune it hard?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve committed to getting rid of