“Oh, yes. Of course,” Father said. “Now, about that greenhouse—”
“I’ll do a preliminary design before I leave,” Mr. Martyn all but bellowed.
“Excellent.” Lord Trentingham turned a vague smile in Rose’s direction. “Run along, my dear. Enjoy yourself.”
Her mouth dropped open, then snapped shut when she found herself propelled from the drawing room by a warm hand at her back. Then she was stepping out onto the covered portico, which had been pressed into service as a dance floor.
Three musicians in one corner were playing a minuet, a graceful dance that facilitated conversation. The wedding guests chatted and flirted, their shoes brushing the brick paving in unison. Though the dance was already in progress, Mr. Martyn handed both their champagne goblets to a passing maid, took Rose’s fingers, and swept her into the throng.
Touching his hand, skin to skin, reminded her of her first glimpse of him in Oxford. Her nerves were suddenly jangling, though she was not a nervous sort of girl, and she remembered she’d felt much the same when they’d first met.
But only until she’d discovered he was a plain mister. Since then, seeing him had had no effect on her at all.
So it was disconcerting to find that touching him now seemed to make the champagne bubbles dance in her stomach.
“Lovely Corinthian capitals on the columns and pilasters,” Mr. Martyn noted, ever the architect. “Do you know who carved them?”
She pliéd and stepped forward with her right foot before finally finding her tongue. “Edward Marshall, who also carved the Ashcroft family arms in the pediment. And in future, please keep in mind that there’s no cause to seek my father’s permission for a dance,” she added archly. “Ashcroft women make their own decisions.”
“So Rand has told me,” her partner said, breezing over the implication that she might have refused him.
They rose on their toes, and when he pulled her closer, she caught a trace of his scent. A woodsy fragrance with a base of frankincense and myrrh. It smelled nice, she thought, wondering if she could duplicate it in her mother’s perfumery.
“Your family is an odd one,” he said conversationally. “I don’t allow my sister to make her own decisions. Not the important ones, in any case.”
She felt sorry for his sister. “Our family motto is Interroga Conformationem.”
He hesitated.
“Question Convention,” she translated, narrowing her eyes. Couldn’t every educated gentleman speak Latin? Certainly any she’d consider husband material.
It was a good thing he wasn’t in the running.
They dropped hands to turn in place, then he grasped her fingers again. “Is it true, as Rand says, that your father allows his daughters to choose their own husbands as well?”
She noticed Lily and Rand dancing together—much closer than the dance required. Surprisingly, envy didn’t clutch at her heart this time. She smiled. “Yes.”
“In future, I’ll keep that in mind,” Mr. Martyn responded with an irresistible grin.
Ignoring his impertinence, Rose glanced across the wide daisy-strewn lawn toward the Thames, noticing her brother Rowan racing onto the portico. He looked like a miniature version of their father in a burgundy suit, his long hair streaming behind him.
A quite ordinary-looking man followed more sedately, but as he wore red and white—the king’s livery—he attracted more attention.
The musicians stopped playing, and the dancers ground to a halt.
“There he is,” Rowan said, pointing toward Rose in the sudden silence. “Mr. Christopher Martyn, the man you seek.”
TWO
“IF I MAY speak with you in private, sir,” the messenger said. “I bring word from His Majesty.”
Kit nodded and stepped off the portico, feeling the eyes of all the wedding guests upon him. Ignoring their speculative murmurs, he calmly led the way toward a summerhouse he’d spotted earlier. The sudden appearance of the king’s man didn’t alarm him as it did the others. He was, after all, completing several royal projects. King Charles likely just wanted a change.
He hoped.
As Kit crossed Trentingham’s celebrated gardens, he resisted the urge to cast Rose a last look over his shoulder, just to gauge her reaction. Not that it mattered what she thought of him—she was an earl’s daughter, after all. Unattainable. He was wasting his time with her, and he was not normally the sort to waste time.
But he’d watched Rose sipping champagne, and her mouth had looked like a perfect red rosebud. Or the comparison seemed to fit, anyhow. Kit didn’t know much about flowers.
And she was fun to tease. She wore her hauteur like armor, and he couldn’t resist testing it, poking at its weak spots. Trying to draw out what lay underneath. There was more to Rose, much more, than met the eye.
But perhaps he should leave well enough alone. It wasn’t his role to draw her out. He knew his place in the world. Commoner, through and through.
A girl like Rose would never look twice at a fellow like him.
Which was another reason he didn’t turn around. He didn’t want to see that theory confirmed.
Though his best friend was a baron who’d grown up in a mansion, Kit had been raised in a single-room cottage. No Martyn had ever held a title, or even flirted with the possibility—much less with a beautiful, high-born lady.
The circular redbrick summerhouse was a small building with classic Palladian lines. Kit ushered the king’s man inside. Owing to the commendable design—large arched windows over each of the four doors—it was bright beneath the cool, shaded dome.
Bright enough to make out the gravity in the messenger’s eyes.
Apprehension soured the champagne in Kit’s stomach. “Yes?” he prompted.
“It concerns one of your projects, sir. I’ve been sent to advise you that the ceiling at Windsor Castle is falling—”
“Falling?” The word hit Kit like a punch in the gut. “Falling how?”
The messenger shrugged apologetically. “I’m no builder. It looked to me as if only some plaster had fallen—not the ceiling itself. But there are many cracks.”
Many cracks. That was bad, very bad. And inexplicable. “Was anyone hurt?”
“No, sir.” The pressure in Kit’s stomach let
