“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, silently leading the way to the summerhouse he’d spotted earlier. He felt the eyes of the other wedding guests following him and heard their speculative murmurs, but the sudden appearance of the king’s man didn’t intrigue him as it did them. He was, after all, completing several royal projects. Likely Charles simply wanted a change.
As Kit crossed Lord Trentingham’s celebrated gardens, he thought instead of Rose, vaguely wondering where he’d found the nerve to imply he might be interested in marriage. He’d been drawn to her when they first met, but quickly dismissed it when she failed to respond to his advances. He figured there were plenty of splendid women in the world—which meant there was no sense pursuing one who wasn’t attainable.
But today she’d sipped champagne, and he’d noticed her lips were made for kissing. And he’d taken her hands and felt something like a punch to his gut. And she’d challenged him verbally, and those words had jumped out of his mouth.
Ludicrous words. As a man who’d never wanted for female attention, he was frustrated by Lady Rose’s obvious disinterest, but deep down he knew that pursuing her was an absurd waste of time. Although he thought her lovely and intelligent—he’d watched her decipher a coded diary weeks earlier and been nothing short of astonished—he had no illusions of winning Lady Rose. Or, for that matter, any lady at all. He knew his place in the world.
Commoner, through and through.
His best friend might be an earl who’d grown up in a mansion, but Kit had been raised in a single-room cottage. No Martyn had ever borne a title. Before him, he doubted any Martyn had ever even considered the possibility.
He knew that, social perceptions aside, he was damn well as good as anyone else. But he was also well aware that he wasn’t considered good enough for the Earl of Trentingham’s daughter. And wishing things were different would never make them so.
At least, not in the near future.
The circular redbrick summerhouse was a small building with classic Palladian lines. He ushered the king’s man inside. Owing to the admirable design—large arched windows over each of the four doors—it was bright beneath the cool, shaded dome.
Bright enough to make out the seriousness in the messenger’s eyes.
Apprehension soured the champagne in Kit’s stomach. “Yes?” he asked.
The man’s words were anything but reassuring. “This concerns one of your projects. I’ve been sent to advise you that the ceiling at Windsor Castle is falling—”
“Falling? Has anyone been hurt?”
“I should say chunks of plaster have fallen—not the ceiling itself. But it’s sagging, and there are many cracks. There have been no injuries, but His Majesty wanted you to know—”
“I understand.” Kit understood Charles’s underlying message all too well. If he failed to complete this project on time and satisfactorily, his dream of being appointed Deputy Surveyor—a step toward someday becoming Surveyor General of the King’s Works, the official royal architect—would be as good as dead.
And without that, the rest of his dreams—his plans to obtain a title for himself and marry his sister Ellen to a peer of the realm—would die along with it.
He yanked the door back open. “I shall depart for Windsor posthaste.”
“Sir.” The man bowed and preceded him outside.
Back at the house, Kit looked around for Rand, but his friend was nowhere to be found. He went instead to give his apologies to his hostess. “Forgive me, Lady Trentingham, but I must take my leave. There’s a problem at Windsor Castle. I cannot seem to locate Rand—”
“He and Lily have a habit of disappearing,” she told him with a suggestive twinkle in her eye that took him by surprise. She was, after all, the girl’s mother. But then her brown eyes turned sympathetic. “I’ll explain,” she added. “He’ll understand.”
In no time at all, Kit was settled in his carriage, rubbing the back of his neck as the vehicle lumbered its way toward Windsor.
Could he possibly have made an error in designing Windsor’s new dining room? Had a flaw in the plans gone unnoticed? He unrolled the extra set he always carried, spreading the linen they were drawn on over his lap. But he couldn’t seem to concentrate.
Especially when his carriage jostled past the village of Hawkridge, where he’d grown up.
Toying with the small, worn chunk of brick he carried in his pocket—a chip off his first building—he found himself gazing out the window as memories assaulted him. Nights whiled away in his family’s snug cottage, he and Ellen playing on the floor while their mother read by the fire. Days spent with his father, learning carpentry and building. Afternoons fishing with the local nobleman’s son, Lord Randal Nesbitt, both of them starved for companionship their age.
That felt like a lifetime ago. Rand was married now, a man who declared himself in love. As for Kit, love wasn’t high on his list of priorities.
A luxury, love was, and one Kit felt quite capable of living without. After all, love had done his parents no favors. They’d been happy together, content with their simple lot in life—and both ended up in early graves.
That wasn’t going to happen to Kit or his sister.
For twelve years—through school, university, and a quickly rising reputation—he had dedicated himself to one goal. The Deputy Surveyor post was almost within his grasp.
He couldn’t fail now.
“YOU LOOK melancholy,” Rose’s mother said later that evening. Standing with Rose in her perfumery, Chrystabel picked over the many flower arrangements on her large wooden worktable, plucking out the marigolds. “Why the long face, dear? Are you sad to see your creations destroyed?”
“Of course not.” Rose added a purple aster to a pile of flowers and some ivy to a bunch of greens. She looked up and forced what she hoped sounded like
