My room turned out to have the most surveillance equipment in it, which I thought was odd. Shouldn’t his room have had more? 

All of the bugs and cameras were in fairly superficial locations, so he didn’t think the builders he used for my renovations were to blame.

“They could have done it in such a way that we would have had to saw your room into swiss cheese to find them.”

“Do you think the house is clean now?” I asked as we consolidated our piles of broken devices into one box.

“I don’t know. The main point now is to continue checking the rooms daily. Noticing when a new piece shows up will be crucial to discovering who is planting them.”

“Why don’t we set up a camera?” I suggested. It seemed like the obvious solution.

“Their camera? Our camera? There is no difference. They can get information from our camera just as easily as we can. In my opinion, cameras make people stupid. Something looks one way on the camera's footage, so it must be true. Besides, I don’t want either of us to turn into the sort of people who spend their day sorting through video footage.”

***

He left Sunday night with a promise that he would visit the next weekend. He said I could invite Trinity over in August and made arrangements for Charles Lewis to be elsewhere during her visit, so at least I could enjoy my time with her. He said smoothing things over with Charles was up to me.

On Monday morning, I slept in Christian’s bed until noon. He hadn’t given me permission, but he also hadn’t locked the door. Mable found me in his room and brought me lunch in bed since breakfast was untouched.

“I wish I were Christian’s daughter,” I heard her whisper under her breath as she left the room. 

On Monday afternoon, I met Mr. Brandon. His name was Henry Brandon, but just Brandon seemed to work just fine for him, so I called him that. Everyone had been right about him. He was a total show stopper. He was a full-grown man with dark hair, thick eyebrows, stubble on his chin and a bone structure designed to make girls melt. To top it off, he had the one devastating charm Christian had to leave out of his long list of male attributes—an intoxicating Scottish accent.

It was much nicer having him around rather than Charles. When I came around to meet him, he gave me a little lesson on how to care for the plants.

The first day I asked him, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Well, hen, someday I might not be here and it would be better if someone knew. These gardens are fussy for a house no one lives in. Two conservatories? If I were Henderson, I’d have chucked all the plants outside ages ago and replaced them with silk ones. But then again, if he didn’t need a gardener all year long, where would I be?”

“Is this your only job?”

“Not all the time, but sometimes it is.” He winked at me. 

I blushed. Really, the guys I knew were nothing like him. “Are you really busy right now? With other gardens, I mean?”

“Next week, I’ll be doing some landscaping elsewhere. Charles will take care of the plants here.”

I groaned. “Really, I don’t mind learning. Why don’t you teach me how to take care of the house plants so that he doesn’t have to come?”

Brandon’s eyebrows popped up. “Is there a reason you don’t want him to get paid?”

“Okay, I didn’t mean to deprive him of a paycheck. Can’t he get paid while I do the work?”

“What have you got against him anyway? He told me about the tiff you two had. Something about the swimming pool?” Brandon stood expectantly, waiting for me to fill in the blank.

“I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life,” I managed to spit after a minute.

“Really? He didn’t even get you in the pool from what I heard. Charmed life,” he commented and went back to his work.

I watched him cart a wheelbarrow full of additions to the compost heap. His clothes were shabby. Both the knees in his trousers were patched and his cuffs were frayed. His boots looked ancient, like someone had once worn them to war, and his shirt had more stains than I could count.

I liked him.

***

I didn't get out Christian's bug detector until after everyone had gone for the night. It was time to check to see if any replacement bugs had been planted. I went around the house and made sure all the doors and windows were locked with their curtains pulled closed. Then I started by scanning Christian's bedroom. It was empty. I scanned the room twice, just to make sure, but it had stayed clean.

In my second solitary sweep of the house, I found a few devices Christian and I hadn’t found on the first night we went looking. 

Then, because I had grown suspicious of Charles, I checked the conservatories. Christian had not named him when he spoke of the people he trusted. Well, I didn’t trust Charles, and he was always in the conservatories.

I looked carefully, but there was nothing new. Even so, I didn’t think that meant Charles wasn’t spying on Christian and I. He was in and out of the house so often, he didn't need electronic eyes and ears to observe what was going on.

After I smashed the devices on the sound block, I went up to Christian’s room. From his bed, I made a map of the house and listed the exact location of every bug and camera Christian and I had found.

I fell asleep breathing in the scent he left on his pillow. I thought it made it feel softer.