The Secret Language of Flowers

By Minerva Pendleton

Comhghall Harrington is a bookseller who is infatuated with his regular customer, Lady Laure Charmante. Due to their radically different social stations as well as Laure’s marital status, Comhghall and Laure can never, ever be together.

However, Lady Laure Charmante is no stranger to razing decorum or soliciting vice. Her passions for Comhghall run deep, and she very much wants to pursue a physical and intellectual relationship with him at all costs. To this end, she purchases a series of texts from him regarding floriography, the secret language of flowers, in an attempt to seduce him.

However, when a plague strikes the land, the two of them are separated and must communicate through writen and floral messages only. Lady Laure Charmante opens herself to him completely, admitting a deep longing for him by way of a floral bouquet. When he responds in kind, she invites him to her annual Halloween salon, hoping to make good on her proposal. When he responds in the affirmative, she is thrilled, but however will she get the poor man from Hibernia to drop his guard and his social pretenses and give into the lust that she knows he feels for her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Nov 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781487434519

Book preview

Comhghall Harrington is a bookseller who is infatuated with his regular customer, Lady Laure Charmante. Due to their radically different social stations as well as Laure’s marital status, Comhghall and Laure can never, ever be together.

However, Lady Laure Charmante is no stranger to razing decorum or soliciting vice. Her passions for Comhghall run deep, and she very much wants to pursue a physical and intellectual relationship with him at all costs. To this end, she purchases a series of texts from him regarding floriography, the secret language of flowers, in an attempt to seduce him.

However, when a plague strikes the land, the two of them are separated and must communicate through written and floral messages only. Lady Laure Charmante opens herself to him completely, admitting a deep longing for him by way of a floral bouquet. When he responds in kind, she invites him to her annual Halloween salon, hoping to make good on her proposal. When he responds in the affirmative, she is thrilled, but however will she get the poor man from Hibernia to drop his guard and his social pretenses and give into the lust that she knows he feels for her?

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The Secret Language of Flowers

Copyright © 2021 Minerva Pendleton

ISBN: 978-1-4874-3451-9

Cover art by Martine Jardin

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by eXtasy Books Inc

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Smashwords Edition

The Secret Language of Flowers

By

Minerva Pendleton

Chapter One: Leabhar Oscailte

Leabhar Oscailte was a small book shop tucked quietly off a side street from the main shopping district of Plowonida. Even though it was inconvenient for a lady of means to visit with her escort guard, Lady Laure Charmante always made a point to stop in on her shopping days to visit Comhghall Harrington, the shop’s proprietor.

Mr. Harrington was a quiet, unassuming man with a tightly trimmed beard that Laure always wanted to bury her nose in. While he didn’t reek of a pungent scent like some of the more dandy men, he did take care of himself, and always had a light aroma of spices from some exotic land like Habash which, combined with the smell of old books, was a heady aroma for Laure. He routinely wore the modest clothes that one would expect of his station—nice wool trousers, a tweed waistcoat over a linen shirt, a simple morning coat, heavy leather boots. If there was anything that stood out about Mr. Harrington to make him different from the hundreds of other chubby, middle-aged men that populated the great city of Plowonida, it was the unique slump of his bowler hat, which sat on his head with a jaunty, cocked angle that was both eccentric and endearing.

Good day, Lady Charmante, said Mr. Harrington, tipping his hat to her with a slight bow.

Oh, Comhghall, tittered Laure flirtatiously, how many times must I ask you to call me Laure?

Just once more, as always, m’lady, said Mr. Harrington, blushing. Laure loved to flirt with him. She loved watching his cheeks redden and his voice dip into his native brogue which he was always so careful to avoid when dealing with other customers.

He tried to recover quickly. And how is Lord Charmante?

Oh, well enough, I’m sure, said Lady Charmante with a wave of her hand. Everyone knew that Lord Charmante had run away to live in sin with his mistress in the city of Lutetia on the continent. He had not been seen in Plowonidan society for years, and Lady Charmante was assumed to be, for all intents and purposes, an independent woman of means. It was considered polite to keep up the pretense of her marriage, but anyone who was anyone, and many who weren’t besides, knew that she was a free and independent woman who had what seemed like a limitless income to do with as she pleased.

Lady Charmante