by Lauren Royal
“Perhaps we should get to know each other, then.” He sipped thoughtfully from a goblet of Madeira. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Red. Why?”
He met her eyes. “Color can say a lot about a person.”
“Oh, yes?” She took a swallow of the sweet wine. “What do you suppose red says about me?”
“I imagine that you’re decisive…and perhaps a bit daring.”
She liked that description. “What’s your favorite color?”
“The clear blue of a summer sky.”
“But your bedchamber is red,” she remembered.
“Red is also a color of power,” he said, leaving her to ponder the significance of that.
Was he powerful in the bedchamber? What exactly did that mean? She felt her pulse flutter a little as she contemplated—
“Do you prefer sweet or savory?” he asked, interrupting her musings.
“Pardon?” She blinked and swallowed.
“To eat. Sweetmeats or real meats, which is it?”
“Oh, sweets, most definitely,” she told him, relieved to be on a different subject. Enjoying this game, she eyed a cherry tart one of his serving maids had placed on the table. “But I’m not passionate about it.”
He raised a brow. “Passionate?”
Feeling herself blush, Rose was certain he’d taken her statement the wrong way. “Violet’s sister-in-law, Kendra—she’d have a wedge of that tart on her plate already. She always eats dessert first. In case she wouldn’t have room for it later.”
“Hmm. I appreciate a passionate woman.”
Her cheeks grew even hotter. “And you? Sweet or savory?”
“Give me a hunk of beef any day.” He speared a piece of meat and popped it into his mouth. “Which do you enjoy more, Christmas or your birthday?”
“My birthday. It’s mine alone.”
He sipped, looking amused. “But Christmas is a time for sharing.”
“Exactly.” Two could play this game. “What’s your favorite book?”
His eyes narrowed as he considered. “The Odyssey.”
“Homer’s Odyssey? In Greek?”
“Hell, no. George Chapman’s version.”
“Homer’s is more poetic.” She swallowed the last bite of the buttery carrot pudding. “Why do you like it?”
He set down his fork. “Odysseus faced terrible obstacles, but he persevered and triumphed in the end. I admire that sort of man, that sort of success.”
He sounded very serious. “He did it for love,” she reminded him.
“For his wife, Penelope, yes. She waited for him twenty years.”
Though Rose dreamed of such enduring love, she couldn’t imagine waiting twenty years for anything. “Penelope was more patient than I.”
He smiled. “What’s your favorite book?”
“Aristotle’s Master-piece,” she said without hesitation, even though it was a scandalous marriage manual. It seemed she could tell him anything. “I learned quite a bit from that book.”
“Did you?” That brow went up again, making her wonder if he knew what the book was about or if he assumed it was Aristotelian philosophy. But his thoughtful expression didn’t give him away. “Musically,” he asked, “do you prefer instrumentals or songs?”
“Songs. I love to sing.” To demonstrate, she trilled a few notes, then grinned when he smiled. “Do you sing?”
“Not where anyone can hear me.” Still smiling, he sat back and twirled his goblet between his palms.
“My turn,” she said, focusing on the pewter cup. “Red wine or white?”
“Red. Most definitely red. It’s richer, deeper, more complicated.” He fixed that wicked gaze on her. “And you? Red or white?”
“Champagne,” she said, feeling like she’d just sipped some.
“Rare and expensive. It fits.”
Her face heated again. “The bubbles tickle my senses.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but then apparently thought better of it. “Are you early to bed or late to rise?” he asked instead.
“Both,” she admitted with a chuckle. “But that’s about to change. Last night I was so early to bed, I have no idea what time the court festivities ended. Do you know, or did you seek your bed beforetime, too?”
“I never sought my bed at all. I had work that kept me there throughout the night.”
Her jaw dropped. “You haven’t slept?” She began to rise. “I must leave you to get some sleep, then. Although my mother’s heart was in the right place when she suggested I read to you, she was clearly unaware of the circumstances.”
He rose and helped her to stand, his hand warm on her arm through the thin silk of her purple gown. Her skin seemed to prickle underneath.
“I would have you stay and read,” he said. “If you’re finished with your dinner, we’ll adjourn to the drawing room.”
“But you must be exhausted—”
“Think of it as a bedtime story, then.” When she laughed, his eyes glittered green in response. “Honestly,” he added, “tonight will be soon enough for me to rest. I’m accustomed to keeping long hours when a project demands it.”
And that was just the point, wasn’t it? she thought as she let him guide her into the light-flooded drawing room. The people in her life had no demands that would keep them up all the night—or at least none they hadn’t put on themselves. She had nothing in common with this man.
But despite that—despite herself—she liked him. His ease, his self-confidence, his quick sense of humor. In fact, she liked him a little too much. She felt uneasy when he was too close.
When he fetched the book and sat beside her on the pale moss green settle, she briefly considered moving to a chair. But considering they needed to work from the same book, that would be silly—not to mention insulting.
She took the book from him. “‘Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum,’” she read aloud, “which means, ‘Perspective in Painting and Architecture’ by Andrea Pozzo.”
“Just as I thought,” he said, reaching to open the cover and flip pages.
She caught a whiff of his scent again—the same mix of frankincense and myrrh that she remembered him wearing at Lily’s wedding. It was woodsy and masculine and made the champagne bubbles dance in her stomach, no matter that she’d been drinking Madeira instead.
She’d have to see if she could duplicate it in Mum’s perfumery. Perhaps the Duke of Bridgewater would like some.
“See here,” Kit said. “There’s a sketch of how to properly mount paper on a board for drawing. I’ve done it, but I couldn’t tell what to do after that.” Rising, he strode across the room to a desk and lifted a piece of wood with sheets of parchment tacked to it. “What does that page say?”
“To the lovers of perspective,” she translated. “The art of perspective does, with wonderful pleasure, deceive the eye, the most subtle of all our outward senses…”
While she read, Kit grabbed an inkwell and quill and wandered back to sit beside her.
She turned the page. “This section is called ‘Explanation of the lines of the plan and horizon, and of the points of the eye and of the distance.’” She read on, turning the Latin into English as she went. “That you may better understand the principles of perspective, here is presented to your view a temple, on the inner wall of which…”
With quick, precise motions, he sketched the lines of the classic Greek temple pictured beside the Latin words. He nodded as he followed her translated instructions, adding a man—tiny, as fit the proportions—standing before the structure with its high, arched windows.
“Let me see,” she said when she’d finished reading the page.
He set down the quill and turned the sketch board to face her. “What do you think?”
“It’s lovely.”
“Just lovely?”
“Well, you’ve drawn it skillfully, of course.”
He smiled. “It’s a perfectly proportioned structure. Can you see the way
the arched windows echo the arches in the rest of the building? A true thing of beauty.”
If she couldn’t quite appreciate the structure itself, she couldn’t help but notice his enthusiasm. “You find buildings beautiful.”
“Not all buildings, but the well-designed ones.” He cocked his head, piercing her with those all-seeing eyes. “What do you find beautiful?”
A little flutter skittered through her, but she ignored it. “Are we back to playing the getting-to-know-each-other game?”
“Tell me. Beauty is…”
“Oh, flowers, jewelry, rainbows—”
“No. Not what others find beautiful; what you find beautiful. For example, this curve of cheek to chin”—he reached a long finger to trace along her face—“is a thing of beauty.”
She shivered.
“Tell me,” he said softly.
Your eyes, she thought. Your voice, when you talk like that. Your ideas…
“Flowers,” she repeated aloud. But then she added, “When they’ve just been kissed by the rain.”
He nodded solemnly. “What else?”
“Children’s laughter.”
“And?”
“The sun reflecting off the Thames at dusk.”
He seemed to be staring at her mouth. “Yes.”
Her lips tingling, she licked them. “And my sister, playing the harpsichord. Even more beautiful when her husband sings with her.”
Kit nodded again. “Rand has an incredible voice.”
“Yes, he does.” And it didn’t hurt anymore to think of him as Lily’s husband.
“How about,” Kit suggested, “the first blade of grass that pushes through the ground in the springtime?”
“Oh, yes.” She’d never thought of it before, but a blade of grass could be a thing of beauty.
“Church bells ringing through the fog.”
“Fog,” she repeated. “Tendrils of fog creeping over the rooftops of London.”
“The fog in London?” Laughing, he picked up his sketch board and ripped off the top sheet of paper. “Perhaps we’re getting carried away. Read on, please.”
She hesitated a moment, wishing the game could continue. “‘Figura Tertia—The Third Figure.’ The delineation of an oblong square in perspective…”
FOURTEEN
KIT SKETCHED while Rose read all that pleasant long afternoon.
And the longer he spent with her, the more he wanted her.
Rose was much more than just a pretty face. He’d known that, somehow—known it in his gut before he’d even really known her. But now he knew for sure.
“You’ve never seen these buildings,” she commented after translating the text accompanying several more figures. Eleven, or maybe twelve—he’d lost count. “In person, I mean. Have you?”
“No.” He placed the sketch board facedown on the table and stuck the quill into the inkwell. “I’ve always dreamed of traveling abroad to study the classical buildings, but”—he couldn’t help but laugh at himself—“I don’t know how I’d communicate.”
“I’ve also never been outside of Britain.” She shifted to angle toward him, her dark eyes growing hazy. “I’d dearly love to go to Italy—to travel anywhere, really, where I could see the world and try speaking the languages I’ve learned to read and write.”
“How many?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She lifted a shoulder in an elegant shrug. “I’ve never counted. Ten, eleven…maybe more. You get to a point where new languages become easier, where the words and grammar parallel ones you already know.”
“You get to that point,” he said, then smiled when she laughed.
She was charming in that easy dismissal of her abilities. And she shared his dream, to travel. Although it was clear she wasn’t talking about traveling with him, Kit couldn’t help but remember her mother’s matchmaking hopes and think that such a talented wife could assist him not only in the study of architecture, but to go far in other ways.
And Rose was kind, too—willing to sit with him all day and patiently translate his book. He enjoyed her quick laughter, her ready wit.
She returned his smile, displaying adorable dimples. He wanted to kiss those little indentations, one on each side, then settle warm on her mouth.
“You must have done well in school, though,” she said, startling him back to reality, “in order to get where you are today.”
He shook his head to clear it. “I did fine in my other subjects. I had to.”
“What do you mean?”
“My parents both perished in ‘sixty-five—”
“The Great Plague?”
“Yes.” That year of horror. “Did it not affect your family?”
“We went off to Tremayne, an estate my family owns near Wales. We were safe there. Isolated.”
“We weren’t,” Kit said succinctly. “My father was a carpenter, my mother a secretary and housekeeper for a local widowed noblewoman. They owned no land; we had no place to go.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you miss them terribly?”
“I did, but it’s been twelve years. My sister, Ellen, was but six when they died. She remembers very little of that life.”
“But you remember your parents well.”
He nodded. “My mother was the daughter of a cleric, and she taught us how to read. My father taught me how to build. They were good people.”
Not that that had saved their lives. The few titled families in the area had escaped before falling ill, but common folk like the Martyns hadn’t any choice but to stay behind. Kit and Ellen had survived, but their parents had not.
The Martyns, Kit had resolved—what remained of them—wouldn’t be left behind ever again.
Leaning closer, Rose laid a hand over his. “What happened after they passed on?”
“I was sixteen and determined to care for my sister, but we had no income, after all. Alone in our tiny cottage, we nearly starved.”
Her fingers tightened on his, and she leaned closer still, swamping him with her rich, floral scent. “Oh, Kit…”
He waved off the sympathy. It would do him no good. He’d long ago learned to face life’s problems and work toward solutions. Wallowing in self-pity got one nowhere.
“When my mother’s employer, Lady St. Vincent, returned to Hawkridge after the danger had passed, she felt great remorse for having left our family behind. Accordingly, she took in Ellen and sent me to Westminster School. She saw to it that I was made a King’s Scholar and promised to send me on to university if I did well. So I did,” he concluded simply.
He’d been given a chance in life, and he hadn’t been about to waste it.
“Did she follow through with her promise?”
“Indeed, she did. She sent me to Oxford, and not on charity, either. She paid my expenses and made sure I was treated as well as the best.”
He waited a beat, hoping Rose would say he was the best, as good as all the titled lads at school. But she didn’t, of course. She hadn’t been raised in a world that believed that.
Glancing down to their connected hands, she looked startled and pulled hers back. “You enjoyed your years at Oxford,” she said. “I can hear it in your voice.”
“I was anxious to finish and get on with life, but the years were hardly a trial. Rand was there, a Fellow already—we’d been friends since childhood. And a few students from Westminster School ended up there, too. Gaylord Craig—”
“The Earl of Rosslyn?”
From the tone of her voice, he gathered she didn’t like the man. “You know him?”
“I met him last night. He’s your friend?”
“Of a sort. We were never close, but I always got on with everyone.”
“I’m not surprised,” she said, sounding as though she meant it.
Perhaps he was making inroads, he thought with an inward smile.
When she licked her lips, he wanted to kiss off that delicious sheen. “Someone’s here,” she said.
He
heard footsteps on the marble in the entry, and the low murmur of Graves’s voice followed by one with a higher pitch.
“That will be my sister, Ellen,” he told Rose, rising. “Will you excuse me?”
FIFTEEN
AS ROSE WATCHED Kit leave the room, closing the door behind him, a clock somewhere in the house struck the hour, chiming six times.
Where had the afternoon gone? The bookshop would have closed by now, and she’d wanted some reading material to pass the long, empty days at the castle. Court would be commencing soon, and she’d wanted time to rest. And she needed time to choose a gown and ready herself.
Mum must have been very tired, because surely she’d have come to fetch her if she wasn’t still napping.
Voices sifted through the drawing room’s closed door. Rose couldn’t tell what Kit was saying, but he didn’t sound happy. She couldn’t understand his sister’s replies, either, but Ellen was clearly giving as good as she got.
Rose hadn’t even met Ellen, and she liked her already. Smiling to herself, she idly reached for Kit’s sketch board and turned it face up.
Her heart skipped a beat. Stunned, she could only stare. He hadn’t been drawing Greek temples or Roman theaters. He’d been sketching her.
And he’d captured her perfectly.
Transfixed, she couldn’t tear her gaze away. The woman gazing back at her wasn’t the flirting Rose, the one with the big smile. Instead her lips curved as though she shared a secret. And her eyes glittered not with forced gaiety, but with simple pleasure in what she was doing.
Translating a book. Sharing a quiet afternoon.
It wasn’t a painting, nor a work of careful artistry. The black ink on white gave no hint that her gown was a rich purple, her cheeks were pink with carefully applied cosmetics, her lips were dyed red and ripe. The drawing was plain and stark. True.
It was the Rose very few people ever saw.
How had he seen the real Rose? she wondered. And what had made him sketch her while she was describing how to draw classical buildings?