“Still, it will be part of this whole.” Her sigh sounded wistful, calmer than before their bout of laughter. “Show me what you’re creating.”
He led her out the back of the palace, nodding to the sleepy guard. Before them, lime trees stretched into the dark distance, and moonlight reflected off Charles’s Long Water, a manmade canal inspired by one at Versailles. Kit drew Rose to the right, where at the corner of the palace another guarded gate marked the entrance to the privy gardens.
“Harriet!” Rose exclaimed. “Whatever are you doing here?”
In the torchlight from the gatehouse, her maid blushed. “Just passing the time, milady. Your mother introduced me to Walter.” Harriet motioned to the guard. “You haven’t need of me, have you?”
“I certainly do…not.” Rose shook her head. “No, not right now.”
When Kit pushed open the gate, Walter cleared his throat. “The garden is for the king’s pleasure only, I’m afraid.”
“I’m here to work,” Kit said succinctly.
“At this hour?” The man looked between them. “With her? Pardon me, Mr. Martyn, but it doesn’t seem as though—”
“She’s volunteered to assist me.” Kit raised his supplies.
“Ah, let them go,” Harriet cajoled with much more familiarity than Kit expected from one so newly introduced. “Trust me, Walter, my mistress won’t be dallying with the likes of him.”
That perspective, unfortunately, Kit did expect. As he ushered Rose through the opened gate, the fragile closeness he’d felt in Cloister Green Court disappeared like sawdust in the wind.
“Trust my mother to find a suitor for my maid,” Rose grumbled. “She thinks she can match every last soul with his or her perfect mate.”
Kit shut the gate. “Do her introductions often result in marriages?”
“Usually, which is annoying as anything.”
He hid a smile. “Not to the happy couple, I’ll wager.”
“Hmm, I don’t think I shall take that bet.” She hurried toward the new construction. “Show me what you’re building.”
He walked her through the new apartments, the main rooms and all the bedchambers for Barbara Palmer, the Duchess of Cleveland, and the five children she’d borne for King Charles. Most of them were all but grown already, but the king had granted them titles, and he played a large part in their lives.
“The chambers are bare yet,” he told Rose, “but they will be rich. King Charles is sparing no expense.”
“Isn’t her grace living in Paris now?”
“Yes, but he knows she’ll be back.”
“I understand he doesn’t stay at Hampton Court often. Word has it he prefers Windsor and Whitehall.”
“All the more reason to give her a home here,” he said, lifting a brow. It was common knowledge that the king was long finished with his old mistress, though he valued their offspring and would support her so long as she should live.
After the tour, Rose held the lantern for Kit while he measured and made notes.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Something off. Not to plan. I won’t be able to tell here, but I’ll take the notes back to my quarters and review every inch.” Her lovely rose scent was distracting. “What did you mean,” he asked, “when you said earlier tonight that you didn’t want to be responsible for the earl’s death?”
Though he was busy measuring, he heard her tight swallow. “The duke wouldn’t have been fighting the earl if not for me.”
“You?” Jotting a note, he looked up. “The duel was over you?”
“Yes.” Her face looked pale in the lamplight. “The earl took…liberties that were out of line.”
“Liberties?” Kit looked away, stretching his rope to make another measurement.
“With my person. He was trying to…”
She didn’t need to say more. Fearing the heat of his temper, Kit counted the knots spaced at one-foot intervals, added swiftly in his head, and recorded the sum before allowing himself to speak. “Bridgewater should have killed him,” he said quietly.
“Not you, too,” Rose grumbled, yanking the rope from him and moving to another beam. “Men will be men.”
Following her, he took one end of the rope and pulled it taut. “Not around you, they won’t,” he said with an aggressive streak.
“Especially around me. The whole court thinks me a loose woman, merely because I had that wretched book and asked a few gentlemen to kiss me—”
“A few?”
“Only the unmarried ones,” she said, managing to sound indignant.
The rushing sound returned to his ears. “All the unmarried ones?”
“There aren’t that many. And heavens, Kit, they were just kisses.”
Kit darted her a glance. Her too-defensive tone told him she was regretting those kisses. Shaking his head, he thought, much as it pained him to admit it… “I’m thankful the duke came to your rescue.”
“He didn’t rescue me—I rescued myself quite well, thank you. I believe the earl has my handprint on his face to prove it.” He’d finished counting the knots, so she dropped her end of the rope. “The duel is the result of a misplaced sense of possession. The duke wishes to marry me.”
In the midst of writing another measurement, Kit froze. Here was the truth he’d been dreading. ”Bridgewater proposed, then?”
“Yes.” Rose adjusted the lantern for a moment that felt like the longest of Kit’s life. “I refused him.”
His heart reawakened in his chest. “You seem to make that a habit,” he managed to say coolly, though a chorus of angels had replaced the rushing in his ears.
“I do, don’t I?” she said with a sigh.
He wished he knew what that sigh meant.
“MY, HARRIET, you’ve been out here a long time.”
The maid startled and pulled her lips from the guard’s, smoothing down her skirt. “Please forgive me, Lady Trentingham.”
Walter’s face flamed red in the torchlight. “My lady—”
“I saw nothing.” Chrystabel waved a hand. “I’m looking for Rose.”
“Oh! Lady Rose is in the privy garden, working with Mr. Martyn.” Harriet hurried to open the gate.
“Is she?” With a smile, Chrystabel reached out and shut it. “I’ll just let her be, then. I imagine they’re doing something important, and I wouldn’t want to interrupt.”
The news that Kit had managed to get Rose alone—tonight
