But it was a warm, sunny day, and Rose feared for her creamy complexion, so she opted to stay indoors. She wandered the crowded drawing room, sipping from a goblet of the new and frightfully expensive champagne her parents favored for celebrations. Although she enjoyed sharing a word or two with various relatives and neighbors, she was generally feeling at loose ends, not quite sure what to do with herself.
Until, that was, she heard her father’s voice and turned to see him addressing Kit Martyn.
“…one of those newfangled greenhouses,” Father was saying. “On the east side of the house, I’m thinking, to catch the morning sun. Since autumn is nearly upon us, I’d be much obliged if you could start it immediately.”
Rose couldn’t believe her ears. It was the second time her father had asked the esteemed architect to build him a lowly greenhouse.
Half tempted to ball up the lacy handkerchief she had tucked in her sleeve and stuff it into her father’s mouth, she hurried to join them. “Mr. Martyn builds things for the king, Father! Palaces, for heaven’s sake. He hasn’t—”
“Well, not quite palaces,” Kit corrected her. “Renovations to palaces, additions to palaces, but I’ve yet to build an entire—”
“See?” Rose met her father’s deep green eyes, speaking loudly and slowly to make sure he could hear her over the hubbub of the celebration. “Palaces. He hasn’t the time to build you a greenhouse.”
Kit sipped from his own goblet of champagne, then grinned at Rose’s father. “Oh, I think I might find the time,” he disagreed, his words infused with a hint of laughter. “In exchange for a dance with your beautiful daughter.”
He shifted to look at Rose, making it clear which daughter he meant. His green-brown gaze swept her lazily, almost as though he were mentally undressing her…and if his expression was any indication, he plainly liked the results.
Lord Trentingham frowned. “My bountiful bother?”
Kit looked confused, and Rose knew she should remind him that her father was hard of hearing at the best of times—and in a crowded room, he was all but deaf.
But she couldn’t seem to speak. The audacity of the man, thinking he could trade a building for her company. Surely her father would never—
“I’ll be most pleased to build your greenhouse,” Kit reiterated, “if your lovely daughter will oblige me with a dance.”
“Oblige you with advance?”
Understanding dawned in Kit’s eyes. “A dance,” he shouted. “May I have the honor of a dance with Lady Rose?”
“Oh, yes. Of course,” her father said. “Now, about that greenhouse—”
“I’ll do a preliminary design before I leave,” Kit all but bellowed.
“Excellent.” Lord Trentingham turned a vague smile in Rose’s direction. “Run along, dear. Enjoy yourself.”
Her mouth dropped open, then 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, Kit handed both their champagne goblets to a passing maid, took Rose’s hands, and swept her into the throng.
She’d never touched him—certainly not skin to skin—and the contact reminded her just how attractive she’d thought him the first time they met. The mere sight of him had set her blood to singing inside her. But that, of course, had been before 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,” Kit noted, ever the architect. “Do you know who carved them?”
She pliéd and stepped forward with her right foot at the same time she finally found 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 need to ask my father’s permission for a dance. Ashcroft women make their own decisions.”
“So Rand has told me,” Kit 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 whiff 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. “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 looked at her blankly.
“Question Convention,” she translated. What sort of educated man didn’t know Latin? Certainly not one she’d ever 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 said, 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 only smiled. “Yes.”
“In future, I’ll keep that in mind,” Kit responded with a disarming grin.
Ignoring his impertinence, Rose gazed across the wide daisy-strewn lawn toward the Thames. Just then, her brother Rowan raced onto the portico, looking like a miniature version of their father in a burgundy suit, his long midnight 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
