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 to Kit 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, 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
