“Wait till you hear the words,” Rose said with a grin.
FORTY-THREE
THE MEN HAD adjourned to Lady Trentingham’s perfumery. Ford tinkered with the distillery he’d made for his mother-in-law, searching for a reported leak. Rand sat in a green brocade chair, sipping brandy.
Kit paced.
The contraption Ford was working on, and the large utilitarian table on which it sat, looked out of place in the otherwise elegant room. Kit ran a hand down the silk and linen brocatelle wall-coverings. “How is married life?” he asked Rand.
“Splendid,” Rand said, looking nauseatingly relaxed.
Feeling decidedly unrelaxed, Kit gazed up at the black and gold cornice around the plastered ceiling. A fine display of workmanship. Something like it would look magnificent in the apartments he was building for the Duchess of Cleveland at Hampton Court, not to mention in his own house in Windsor.
“You should try it,” Rand added.
“Marriage?” Kit looked down to his old friend. “If I have my way, I will.”
“What?” Rand half bolted out of the chair.
“Sit,” Kit said.
Frowning, Ford removed a lid and disconnected a copper tube. “Whom are you hoping to wed?”
“Your sister-in-law. Rose.”
Ford looked up, astonished. “Rose?”
“Rose?” Rand echoed. He gulped a swallow of brandy. “I knew you found her attractive, but—”
“She saved my sister’s life,” Kit said flatly. “And she yearns to travel, as do I. Not only that, she can speak the language when we get there.”
Ford looked at him through a large glass bulb that was part of the device. “When you get where?”
Kit examined the marble fireplace. “Rome, Florence, France…wherever.”
“If all you want is a translator, you can hire a linguist.” Rand set his goblet on a small inlaid table. “I’ve students who would jump at a chance to spend a summer—”
“I love her,” Kit said simply. “She’s fun and beautiful and bright, and…something in her calls to me.”
Ford straightened and exchanged a look with Rand. “He said the L word.”
Rand nodded. “So I heard.”
Kit rubbed the back of his neck. “I wanted success. Security. But now my sister’s married a pawnbroker—what kind of security is a life like that? Yet she’s happy. And just when success may be slipping away from me—when I need that Deputy Surveyor post, that knighthood—”
“Whoa,” Ford said, looking lost. “Does any of that really matter?”
“I don’t know anymore.” Kit ran his fingers across a rack of little glass vials, all neatly labeled. LAVENDER, LILAC, MUSK. He plucked out the one that said ROSE. “All I know is I cannot stand the thought of failing to win her.”
Ford replaced the copper tube with a little snap. “Try seduction. It worked for me.”
“I am trying that. With her mother’s blessing, no less.”
Neither man looked surprised to hear that. “With Lily,” Rand said, “it only took getting to know each other. Once we knew each other, we knew.”
“I do know. And she knows, too—I’m sure of it. Only she won’t admit it because she wants to marry a damned duke. My only ray of hope is that his grace is reportedly a lousy kisser.”
The other men laughed. “That sounds promising,” Rand observed. “Has she refused your proposal?”
“I haven’t asked. What’s the point?”
“You might be surprised by her answer.”
“It’s one thing to wish it.” Kit’s fingers tightened around the glass vial. “Another to go heart in hand and ask.”
“True.” Ford nodded solemnly. “You could be asking to have that heart crushed.” His expression said he was a veteran of such a defeat.
Kit unstoppered the vial and breathed deeply of the oil. Rose. “Violet didn’t say yes the first time you asked?”
“Hell, no. Nor the second, either. Or the third. Or the nineteenth.”
As they all laughed again, feminine laughter drifted from upstairs. Rand smiled. “Our ladies are enjoying themselves.”
“Where is everyone else?” Kit wondered suddenly.
“Jewel and Rowan are probably off somewhere planning a dastardly prank.” Ford straightened, dusting off his hands. “And the younger children were put to bed.”
“But Lord and Lady Trentingham—”
“Have gone to bed, too,” Rand informed him with a waggle of his brows.
Kit glanced at the clock on the mantel. “Is it not a bit early?”
“They haven’t seen each other in more than a week.” Rand looked to Ford. “If you hadn’t seen Violet in ten days, what would you be doing now?”
“Taking her to bed,” Ford said with a decisive nod.
“But Lord and Lady Trentingham have grown children,” Kit protested.
“So?” Ford shrugged as he replaced the distillery’s lid and stepped back. “They’re Ashcrofts.”
“Warm blooded,” Rand added.
“Hot blooded,” Ford corrected with a grin. “Which is an excellent incentive to marry one.”
FORTY-FOUR
CHRYSTABEL stretched luxuriously beneath the rumpled counterpane in her bedchamber. “Ah, that was nice.”
“Just nice?” Joseph asked, his voice filled with feigned hurt.
“Very well. It was spectacular.”
“That’s better.” He tweaked the sensitive crest of one breast, smiling when she gave a delighted squeal. “This was the longest you’ve ever been gone from me.”
“You leave me for several weeks every year when you go to Tremayne.”
“That seems different somehow.”
“Because you’re the one leaving and busy.” She knew he had to go, that Tremayne, a castle near the Welsh border, was as much his responsibility as Trentingham or his duty to Parliament. But that didn’t mean she liked it. “Now that the girls are grown, perhaps I’ll come along. And bring Rowan,” she said, warming to the idea. “After all, he’s now Lord Tremayne. He should learn the ins and outs of running the estate.”
“An excellent plan, Chrysanthemum.”
Joseph’s eyes were closing, as was wont to happen after loving exertion. And, as usual, her own body felt alive, her brain wide awake. She’d never figured out what made them so different.
“I’ll have to leave again, though,” she said mournfully. “Soon.”
He snuggled against her. “Hmm?”
“Rose is so close to making the right decision. Another few days at court ought to convince her there’s no one there meant to share her life.”
“Mmm.” He threw
