Kit glanced overhead at the fat, smiling cherubs the Duchess of Cleveland had requested, thinking, not for the first time, that they didn’t really fit her. The king’s longtime mistress was known to be anything but cherubic. “Something wrong up there?”
“Not at all. It’s stunning, in fact.” Rosslyn lowered his pale blue gaze to meet Kit’s. “Mind if I look around?”
“As you wish.”
Kit lit a second candle and handed it to the man, then followed closely behind. Not that he had anything to hide. But the last of his men had just left, and he always checked everything one final time before leaving himself.
During the past few days he’d been over every inch of the apartments time and again. Nothing seemed out of place. The materials were up to standard, and there was no sign of sabotage, fire or otherwise. Apart from some understandable grumbling when Kit kept them long hours, no one on the job seemed unhappy. No one had sighted Harold Washburn, either.
Apparently the man hadn’t set the fire at Whitehall—or, at the very least, he’d heeded Kit’s warning and was keeping clear now.
“Very nice.” In the master bedchamber, Rosslyn nodded at a carved mantelpiece. “Gibbons’s work, I presume?”
“Yes.”
“You always have insisted on the best.” His walking stick tapped as he continued his rambling inspection. “Winning the post of Deputy Surveyor would be best of all, wouldn’t it?”
Kit followed the man into the dining room, watching the long tails of his lavender surcoat flap behind him. “It’s only an interim goal. I won’t be satisfied until the Surveyor General post is mine.”
Rosslyn turned to face him. “I’ll alert Mr. Wren that you’re angling to take his place.”
“Sir Christopher Wren,” Kit reminded him. “But I doubt he’ll find that a revelation.”
The earl waved an elegant hand. “I was jesting. Can you not take a jest?”
In long years of schooling together, Kit couldn’t remember Rosslyn—Lord Gaylord Craig at the time—jesting even once. “Sorry,” he said. “I suppose I’m a bit serious these days.”
“Understandable, my friend.” Rosslyn smiled. “Well, I expect I had better get back to court. Excellent job here, Martyn.” Still tapping, he retraced his steps to the entrance. “Excellent job, indeed.”
As Rosslyn walked out, Kit was only half surprised to see Rose’s mother walk in. “Lady Trentingham. I didn’t know you’d come to Hampton Court.”
“Good evening, Kit.” She watched Rosslyn’s retreating back, then turned to Kit in a swish of yellow skirts. “A friend of yours, is he?”
“An old schoolfellow. Now my rival for the post I’m seeking. He came to check out the competition.”
“He doesn’t seem to be working very hard to win the post. From what I’ve seen, he spends all his time at court.”
Kit shrugged. “An earl doesn’t have to prove himself the way a common man does.” He could be bitter about that, but he’d long ago decided not to waste his time raging over life’s inequities. Better to spend one’s energies overcoming them. “How did you get in here?” he asked. “The only way is through the privy gardens.”
He hadn’t thought to ask the same of Rosslyn.
Her brown eyes lit with intrigue. “I had the most lovely conversation with the guard at the gate. It seems he is lonely and desirous of a wife. Since by all appearances he’s a perfectly nice man, I promised to send Rose’s maid Harriet over to meet him after I complete my business here. Lovely girl, Harriet.”
“I’m sure she is.” The privy garden was supposed to be private to the king. Kit wondered if he should alert Charles that his guard was so easily bribed. “And what is your business?”
“Oh, I just wanted to see how you were faring. My husband, naturally, is anxious for you to get back to work on his greenhouse.”
“Naturally.”
“So how are you faring?”
“Without my presence here the project has fallen slightly behind schedule, but not so far that the time cannot be made up.” The bonuses he’d promised would ensure it. “Everything seems to be in order.”
“Seems?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “This nagging voice in my head keeps insisting something is wrong.” Something he was missing. No matter that his countless inspections proved otherwise, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he should reject what was on the surface.
“Hmm. And with Rose?”
He would never get used to Lady Trentingham’s abrupt changes of subject. “Rose?”
“You don’t seem to be making much progress.”
He felt his face reddening as he recalled their intimate moments in the orangery. He’d made progress, all right. On every front but persuading her to marry him. “I’m working on it.”
“Such a shame your work has kept you so occupied.”
“Yes. Well…” He might as well come out and say it. “Architecture is my life, Lady Trentingham. Though I hope to make Rose my life, too, she will always have to share my attention with my work.”
“I wouldn’t want to see her wed an idle fool…too much attention can be as detrimental as too little. But I hope you wouldn’t ignore her, either.”
“Never.” In fact, he imagined that Rose, above anything, could well prove to distract him.
She nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve been thinking about my Rose. I do believe she’s the most romantic of all my daughters.”
“Romantic?”
“Indeed. Violet, you may not know, is quite pragmatic and logical. And Lily, bless her heart, is straightforward as they come. Love, for Lily, either is or isn’t…though if a being is alive, she’s likely to place it in the former category.” She smiled, the soft smile of a loving mother. “But Rose…”
“You’re saying a bit of romancing might be in order? Along with the…the…”
“Seduction, yes. It would certainly not be amiss.”
“Yes. Well. I think I’m finished here for now.” He tucked the sketch of Rose into the building’s plans and began rolling them up together.
