Free The Truth About Love by Stephanie Laurens Page A

not. It would indeed be easy to get lost.
    “The four viewing stages,” Jacqueline said as they reached the next, a rectangular stone platform with a wooden roof, “are placed at the main junctions of paths and also where a number of gardens meet.”
    There were five paths, including the one they’d just arrived on, radiating from the stone platform.
    “We’ve just left the Garden of Apollo. That path”—Jacqueline pointed to the next path on the higher side of the platform—“leads back to the house via the Gardens of Poseidon and Venus. The next also leads back to the house, but through the Gardens of Diana, Athena and Artemis—we’ll go back that way later. The next path”—she pointed to one heading up the southern ridge—“initially goes through a portion of the Garden of Mars, but then forks—you can head back to the house via the Garden of Diana, or go farther down the valley through the Gardens of Hermes and Vulcan. Which brings us to the path we’ll take, heading down to the cove.”
    She led the way; Gerrard followed, taking her elbow to steady her down the steps. She glanced briefly at him, then looked ahead. “Thank you.”
    Once on the path, he released her. They waited until the others joined them, then Jacqueline turned and walked on. “This is the Garden of Mars. Although everyone knows him as the god of war, most gods have multiple, often contradictory faces, so Mars is also the god of fertility and farming, especially of all things that grow in the spring.”
    The beds they were passing were full of plants that had flowered and now carried seed pods of every description.
    “Your relative, whoever he was, was quite inventive in choosing his gods.” Hands in his pockets as he ambled beside her, Gerrard added the questions of how Jacqueline’s mother had died, and why Jacqueline disliked the Garden of Night, to his growing list.
    “My great-great-great-grandfather started it, my great-great-grandfather completed the design, but the planting wasn’t complete until my great-grandfather’s time.”
    They walked on, Jacqueline naming the gardens as they went, describing the association of each with the god for whom the area was named. They descended through the Garden of Persephone, goddess of plenty, lying below the dark mass of the Garden of Hades, her husband, lord of the underworld. The path led them to the lowest of the viewing platforms, a wooden one giving an excellent view of the narrow cove filled with rocks on which the waves crashed, then slowly, sussuratingly, receded.
    The platform sat squarely at the intersection of four paths. The one leading to the shore wended through a landscape comprised of plants with unusual leaves or strange shapes. “The Garden of Neptune, god of the sea. The plants were chosen because they look like various seaweeds, or suggest another world.”
    They all stood at the balustrade, drawn to the view of the sea, gentle today yet the waves still rolled in. Gulls wheeled on the updrafts rising up the cliffs to the right, their screeching a sharp counterpoint to the rumble and whoosh of the waves. To the left, the cove was bound by a rocky outcrop, the extreme seaward section of which consisted of a single, massive boulder.
    “Here comes a big wave.” Barnaby pointed.
    Gerrard looked; from the corner of his eye he saw Jacqueline glance at him, caught the curving of her lips…now what?
    A sudden roaring sound reached them; before they could react, a spout of water exploded upward from the center of the massive rock.
    Gerrard stared.
    Barnaby grabbed his arm. “Good Lord! It’s a blowhole!”
    They both turned to Jacqueline. Smiling, she nodded. “It is indeed a blowhole—known as Cyclops, of course.”
    “Of course!” Barnaby’s face was alight.
    “What you just witnessed was a mild eruption. Every day as the tide comes in, there’s a time when every fourth wave or so sends up a huge fountain. During king tides, the height and amount of water