“Not all buildings, but the well-designed ones.” He cocked his head, piercing her with those all-seeing eyes. “What do you find beautiful?”
A little flutter skittered through her, but she ignored it. “Are we back to playing the getting-to-know-each-other game?”
“Tell me. Beauty is…”
“Oh, flowers, jewelry, rainbows—”
“No. Not what others find beautiful; what you find beautiful. For example, this curve of cheek to chin”—he reached a long finger to trace along her face—“is a thing of beauty.”
She shivered.
“Tell me,” he said softly.
Your eyes, she thought. Your voice, when you talk like that. Your ideas…
“Flowers,” she repeated aloud. But then she added, “When they’ve just been kissed by the rain.”
He nodded solemnly. “What else?”
“Children’s laughter.”
“And?”
“The sun reflecting off the Thames at dusk.”
He seemed to be staring at her mouth. “Very good.”
Her lips tingled. “And my sister, playing the harpsichord. Even more beautiful when Rand sings with her.”
Kit nodded again. “He has an incredible voice.”
“Yes, he does.” And it didn’t hurt anymore to think of him as Lily’s husband.
“How about,” Kit suggested, “the first blade of grass that pushes through the ground in the springtime?”
“Oh, yes.” She’d never thought of it before, but a blade of grass could be a thing of beauty.
“Church bells ringing through the fog.”
“Fog.” She nodded. “Tendrils of fog creeping over the rooftops of London.”
“The fog in London?” Laughing, he picked up his sketch board and ripped off the top sheet of paper. “Perhaps we’re getting carried away. Read on, please.”
She hesitated a moment, wishing the game could continue. “‘Figura Tertia—The Third Figure.’ The delineation of an oblong square in perspective…”
FOURTEEN
KIT SKETCHED while Rose read all that long, pleasant afternoon.
And the longer he spent with her, the more he wanted her.
Rose was much more than just a pretty face. He’d known that, somehow—known it in his gut before he’d even really known her. But now he knew for sure.
“You’ve never seen these buildings,” she commented after translating nearly a dozen of the Latin explanations. “In person, I mean. Have you?”
“No.” He placed the sketch board facedown on the table and stuck the quill into the inkwell. “I’ve always dreamed of traveling abroad to study the classical buildings, but”—he smiled sheepishly—“I don’t know how I’d communicate.”
“I’ve also never been outside of Britain.” She flipped through more pages, her dark eyes lingering on the drawings of classical buildings. “I’d dearly love to go to Italy—to travel anywhere, really, where I could see the world and try speaking the languages I’ve learned to read and write.”
“How many?” he asked.
“I’ve never counted.” She lifted a shoulder in an elegant shrug. “Ten, eleven…maybe more. You get to a point where new languages become easier, where the words and grammar parallel ones you already know.”
“You get to that point,” he said, making her laugh.
She was charming in that easy dismissal of her abilities. And kind, too—willing to sit with him all day and patiently translate his book.
And she shared his dream, to travel. Although it was clear she wasn’t talking about traveling with him, Kit couldn’t help but think of her mother’s matchmaking intentions. With such a talented wife at his side, Kit would gain access not only to knowledge like that of the Perspectiva Pictorum, but to the whole wide world beyond England’s borders.
Not that he was really looking for a wife.
“You must have done well in school, though,” she said, startling him from his musings, “in order to get where you are today.”
He shook his head to clear it. “I was a good student. I had to be.”
“What do you mean?”
“I lost both my parents in ’sixty-five—”
“The Great Plague?”
“Yes.” That year of horror. “Did it not affect your family?”
“We went off to Tremayne, an estate my family owns near Wales. We were safe there. Isolated.”
“We weren’t,” Kit said succinctly. “My father was a carpenter, my mother a secretary and housekeeper for a local noblewoman. They owned no land; we had no place to go.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you miss them terribly?”
“I did, but it’s been twelve years. My sister, Ellen, was but four when they died. She doesn’t miss them like she might if they’d passed when she was older.”
“But you remember your parents well.”
He nodded. “Oh, and she remembers them, too. I talk about them often—I’ve tried to keep them alive for her. My mother was the daughter of a cleric, and she taught us how to read. My father taught me how to build. They were good people.”
Not that that had saved their lives. The few titled families in the area had escaped before falling ill, but common folk like the Martyns hadn’t any choice but to stay behind. Kit and Ellen had survived, but their parents had not.
The Martyns, Kit had resolved—what remained of them—wouldn’t be left behind ever again.
Leaning closer, Rose laid a hand over his. “What happened after they passed on?”
“I was thirteen and did my best to care for Ellen, but we had no income, after all. We were alone in our tiny cottage. We nearly starved.”
Her fingers tightened on his, and she leaned closer still, swamping him with her floral scent. “Oh, Kit…”
He shrugged off the sympathy. It would do him no good. He’d long ago learned to face life’s problems and work toward solutions. Wallowing in self-pity got one nowhere.
“When my mother’s employer, a widow called Lady St. Vincent, returned to Hawkridge after the danger had passed, she felt great remorse for having left our family behind. To make amends, she took in Ellen and sent me to Westminster School. She saw to it that I was made a King’s Scholar and promised to send me on to university if I did well. So I did,” he concluded simply.
He’d been given a chance in life, and he hadn’t been about to waste it.
“Did she follow through with her promise?”
“Indeed, she did. She sent me to Oxford, and not on charity, either. She paid
