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.
THREE
“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 a romantic sigh. “The wedding was beautiful, wasn’t it?”
“Made more so by your lovely flowers.” Rose had filled the house with towering creations made of posies cut from her father’s gardens. “Which is why,” her mother added, “I thought—”
“I don’t care what becomes of my flower arrangements. Honestly, Mum, it makes no sense to let the blooms wither and die when we can turn them into essential oils for your perfumes. I don’t mind in the least.” With a bit more force than was necessary, Rose tugged two lilies from the vases and tossed them onto the table. “Whatever happened to Kit Martyn, do you know?” she asked in an attempt to change the subject.
“That messenger brought news of a problem with one of his projects. He had to leave.”
“Which project?” Rose asked.
“He didn’t say. Or perhaps I don’t remember.” Chrystabel fixed her with a piercing gaze. A motherly gaze. “Does it matter?”
“Of course not. It was only idle curiosity.” A headache threatened, pulsing in Rose’s temples. “Why should I care what happens to the man’s projects?”
“You danced with him—”
“Father traded that dance for a greenhouse. It meant nothing.”
Her mother nodded thoughtfully, beginning to pluck petals from a bunch of striped snapdragons. “You just look melancholy.”
If Rose weren’t already suffering from a headache, that swift change back to the original subject might have prompted one. She lifted the lid off the gleaming glass and metal distillery that Ford had made for her mother while he was courting Violet. “It’s nothing, Mum.”
“It doesn’t bother you that your younger sister is wed?”
“Why shouldn’t I wish her happy?” She was chagrined to hear her voice crack. “I do, Mum, I vow and swear it.”
“It’s no failing of yours, dear, that Lily found love first.”
“Stuck as we are in the countryside, it’s a wonder she found a man at all, whether she loves him or not.” It was an ancient complaint, but in her present mood Rose had no compunctions against dragging it out again. “We hardly ever get to London, or anywhere else we might meet eligible—”
“You have a point,” Mum interrupted.
“Pardon?” Rose blinked.
“You heard me. You haven’t much opportunity here to meet men.” Chrystabel tossed the pink petals into the distillery’s large glass bulb. “I’m thinking that we—you and I—should attend court.”
“Court?” Rose decided she couldn’t be hearing right. One of them had clearly drunk too much champagne. “As in King Charles’s court?”
“I believe they’re at Windsor now—they do move around, as you may know.”
“What I know is that you and Father have always claimed court is no place for proper young ladies.”
“Well, you’re not so young anymore,” Chrystabel said, then came to wrap an arm around Rose when she winced. “I didn’t mean it that way, dear. But you’re one-and-twenty now, a woman grown. And I will be there to chaperone. It’s perfectly acceptable.”
It was more than acceptable, Rose knew—girls as young as fifteen
