Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Potting Shed Mystery (Potting Shed Mystery series Book 3) by Marty Wingate Page B

down. “Why is it such a problem for you that I’m working on this project?”
    “I’m just not accustomed to how you do things in Texas,” he said, shrugging. Pru opened her mouth to ask what Texas had to do with it, but Iain spoke first. “Well, perhaps I’ll stop by tomorrow,” he said.
    After he left, Saskia sprang back to life, jumping up from her chair, gathering the cups and spoons, and picking up the tray. “I’ll just do the washing up before I go, shall I?”
    “Saskia,” Pru called to her, and the young woman held up. “Iain can be irritating, but…”
    “No explanation necessary,” Saskia said, shaking her head. “We’ll need to get to those Sir Joseph Banks letters next week, Pru. I know we’d planned on them for today, but occasionally it just happens that you need to alter your plans to make things work out. Don’t you think? Sometimes we need to be flexible.”
    Pru smiled. She’d yet to see any flexibility from Saskia—she seemed to move only in a straight line. “Yes, right you are.”
    —
    Her third week ended on two fairly high notes.
    Another good meeting with Iain. She made them coffee, and they compared excerpts from both documents—the authentic and the unverified—and Pru read aloud a note from Mr. Menzies on July 9, 1791, when the
Discovery
had reached the Cape of Good Hope:
“I could not help being charmed with the native and romantic suggestions of a country so celebrated for the uncommon variety of its vegetable productions…”
    “You don’t think he’s a bit flowery?” Iain asked, and she knew he meant no pun by it.
    She shook her head, waving her spoon around for emphasis. “I believe he was a kind man and he was constantly delighted by what he saw.”
    Iain’s eyebrows jumped slightly in reply. And then, picking up a conversation that began on her first day, he said, “It’s an old Scottish pronunciation—Mingis. It’s because the Scottish letter for that sound looks like a cursive zed—the letter zee to you. Printers inserted a zed, and it’s been confused ever since.”
    Pru swallowed the cutting reply she had readied for the moment this topic came up again. If Iain offered even the slightest conciliatory comment, she would accept it in the spirit of collegiality—and in hopes that the rest of her encounters with him would go as smoothly.
    “Oh, I see,” she said, and thought she would try for some idle chitchat. “Are you from Edinburgh?”
    Iain shook his head. “A village in the Borders. But I left a long time ago. I went to University of Sheffield.”
    Pru perked up. Christopher’s son, Graham, had gone to Sheffield—environmental sciences. “Did you stay and teach?” she asked.
    “No—not there, at any rate.” He nodded toward her. “You have a degree in garden history?”
    “Well, garden history isn’t exactly listed as a major at Texas A&M,” Pru said and shrugged. “I created my own speciality, you might say. I kept after my professors until they let me do what I wanted. What did you study at Sheffield?”
    “I wrote
The Native Flora of Britain: Its Social and Practical History
. It’s a text they still use where I taught before I came here. You’d be surprised at how many uses there are for a spindle tree.” He stood. “Well, Ms. Parke, I’ll see you on Monday.” Just before the door closed she heard, “Have a good weekend.”
    And, at the end of the day, Madame Fiona rang. Pru’s heart fluttered.
    “Ms. Parke, your dress is ready for its first fitting. I’ll expect you on Monday afternoon at quarter past four. At that time, we will discuss your undergarments.”
    A smile spread slowly across Pru’s face. Yes, she thought, I can do this. The dress is finished—maybe planning a wedding will be fun after all.
    Having nothing left in her fridge to eat—and cheered by progress all round—she decided a celebration was in order and took herself to her local pub, the Pickled Egg, where tables were already set for the