Rose (Flower Trilogy) (18 page)

Chrystabel reached for the drawing and nodded. “Why did he not build it?”

Kit waved a hand. “He has more important projects by far. Besides, I’ve a suspicion Charles wanted to see me spread thin. Projects at Windsor, Whitehall, and Hampton Court all at once . . . plus my own. ’Tis a test, you understand? If I can complete all three of the Crown’s projects successfully, and on time, he will know he’s found the right Deputy Surveyor.”

“And the fire threatened this deadline,” Rose said.

“Seriously. But fortunately ’tis a small project, and the damage could have been worse. I hope to overcome my bad luck a second time.”

He was still tense, his answers clipped, his gaze settling too often on his sister. Rose tried again. “Hampton Court is a larger project, isn’t it?”

“The largest of the three. New apartments for the Duchess of Cleveland—”

“Barbara, the King’s longtime mistress,” Ellen interrupted, apparently having recovered some spirit. Derision laced her voice. “
He
is allowed to have whatever lovers he wants.”

Kit turned to her with a lethal raised brow. “Charles married where he was advised to. If you wish to take Thomas as a lover after you wed a nobleman, that will be between you and your husband.”

Ellen glared. Kit stabbed another bite of chicken. Rose shifted on her petit-point seat.

She and her siblings squabbled, of course, but they rarely harbored true animosity. She wished these two would get along. “Is Charles wanting large apartments for the duchess?”

she asked.

He chewed and swallowed. “Larger than my house. He wishes their five children to have rooms there as well. I can be certain he will be scrutinizing this project most of all.”

“Did Wren do those plans, too?”

“No, I did. Top to bottom, start to finish, the building is mine. Thankfully, nothing has gone wrong with it.”

“Yet.”

He set his jaw. “When I’m finished with Harold Washburn, he’ll not be making any more trouble.”

Chrystabel pushed back from the table, looking at Ellen.

“Shall we begin your first cooking lesson? Something sweet to complete supper?” When Ellen shrugged and began to rise, Chrystabel looked to Rose. “Perhaps you can entertain Kit while we work. A turn in the square might be nice.”

“Kit must leave,” Ellen said. “He needs to get to Windsor.”

Kit pulled out Rose’s chair. “ ’Tis late already. I believe I’ll return to Whitehall tonight and leave early in the morning.”

For a moment Ellen stood there openmouthed.

“What?” Kit asked.

“You plotted all along to get me and my luggage here, didn’t you? No wonder you didn’t bring your own things.

You had no intention of leaving for Windsor at all.”

“We came tonight because we were invited. And I’ve urgent business in Windsor that I intend to take care of tomorrow. It matters not whether I travel there tonight or tomorrow morn. But believe what you wish . . . you will, anyway.” He sighed. “Come along, Rose. I can use some fresh air.”

Outside, torches burned brightly before each of the houses around St. James’s Square, bathing the space between them in a pale, hazy glow. As they crossed to the fenced center, Rose felt Kit’s hand warm on her back.

He slipped his other hand into his pocket and pulled out a small rock. “ ’Tis quiet,” he said, turning it over and over with his fingers.

“Until recently, I wouldn’t dare come out at night.” She paused to open the gate. “There were no rails—the square was just a big open area between the houses, used as nothing more than a receptacle for offal and cinders, not to mention all the dead dogs and cats of Westminster. Squatters lived among the filth, and there were thieves galore.”

Kit gestured to all the stately three-story redbrick and stone homes. “Is this not the address for dukes and earls?”

“Very much so. ’Twas a travesty.” The gate banged closed behind them as they started walking. “Once Parliament approved their application for permission to put up rails and plant trees, the dukes and earls wasted no time seeing it done.”

The dirty pavement had been replaced by soft grass and wide, curving paths with benches scattered throughout.

Young trees rustled in the light breeze. When Kit slung his free arm around her shoulders, she couldn’t bring herself to pull away.

Her will seemed to vanish whenever he touched her.

He was still playing with the rock. “What is that?” she asked.

He looked down as though surprised to see it there. “A piece of my first building,” he said with a small, sheepish smile. “A little chunk of brick.” He handed it to her.

It held the warmth of his body and felt smooth, though she knew it must once have been angular. “Was it a church?

A mansion? A theater?”

A rueful laugh broke the quiet of the night. “ ’Twas a warehouse. But I assure you, ’tis the most beautiful warehouse to ever grace God’s green earth.”

“I’m sure it is,” she said, imagining a redbrick warehouse with triangular pediments over the windows and white marble columns flanking the doors. Smiling, she handed back the chunk.

He sobered as he slipped it into his pocket. “Will you watch over my sister?” he asked quietly.

“Why? Do you expect Ellen will run off and elope?”

She’d meant the question to be facetious, but he took it seriously. “From here? No. She’ll not have time to get a message to Whittingham and pull such a trick before I return.” His voice dropped. “I’m just worried for her. She’s not herself.”

“You care.”

“Of course I care.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Did you doubt that? She’s my sister. I love her.”

A horse clip-clopped around the square with a carriage creaking behind. “You two quarrel all the time.”

“Not all the time. Only since she met Whittingham.”

“Have
you
met Thomas?”

“Briefly. Long enough to know he doesn’t have horns.

But I want better for Ellen.” Kit hesitated a moment while the coach squeaked off down King Street. “I’ve worked hard so she can have better.”

Eleven thousand pounds’ worth, and Rose had no doubt that kind of money could win Ellen the sort of man Kit was envisioning. The Civil War had left many good families land-rich and cash-poor.

But Ellen was her friend, and she’d promised her support. “Thomas is actually quite nice. And, from what I can tell, a very astute businessman.”

“He’s a pawnbroker.”

“He’s educated. If you’d talk to him, you’d discover that.”

“He’s still a pawnbroker. There’s no security in a life like that. My parents wed for love alone, then couldn’t protect their own family when times got hard. I can buy Ellen a man with land and the King’s ear—”

“There’s no security in any life,” Rose pointed out.

“Look to your own projects for the proof—going along fine one day, ruined the next. Titled men can be ruined, too. It happens all the time.”

Kit was silent a moment, then he stopped walking and turned her to face him. “You said ’tis as easy to fall in love with a titled man as one without. Have you changed your mind?”

Frustration was evident in his voice, but he also sounded hopeful. Which was absurd. They would never be anything but friends.

“Of course not,” she said quickly.

“Oh,” he said. “I see.”

“You see what?”

“
You
wouldn’t settle for less, but Ellen and I, we’re different. An educated pawnbroker is good enough for her, and as for me, I’m good enough for kissing, but nothing else.”

He was confusing her—and worse, he was making her sound terrible. Although she couldn’t imagine how Kit and Ellen had managed to become so close to her family so quickly, she
liked
them—and she didn’t think herself any better than they.

Did she?

Kit’s fingers tightened on her shoulders. “Rose?”

Her thoughts were in chaos. She tried to twist away, but he held her fast. His gaze commanded hers, gray in the darkness. “Perhaps that was exhaustion speaking,” he said.

“I’ve not slept in two days. Should I say I’m sorry?”

He didn’t look sorry, and she didn’t know. If he’d touched a nerve, maybe that said more about her than it did him.

“Why do you kiss me, Rose?” he demanded softly.

Apparently she had more to think about than just the Duke of Bridgewater. She took a ragged breath. “You are very good at kissing.”

The tension eased from his face; his sudden grin flashed white in the night. “I like a woman who says what she thinks.” His hands slid from her shoulders down her arms, slowly, until finally he locked his fingers with hers. “I am good at other things, too.”

When he drew on both her arms, she didn’t have to sway forward. But she did, landing against his solid chest. A warm shiver rippled through her. “Show me what you’re good at,” she whispered.

“My forthright Rose.” He searched her eyes for a moment, so intense she saw glints of green even in the darkness. “I’ll show you,” he promised right before his mouth met hers.

Heat that had simmered all through supper burst into flame now. His kiss was wild and demanding, and she gave as good as she got. Somewhere in the back of her mind she despaired of ever finding this with anyone else, but as their tongues tangled, all thought fled, replaced by fiery sensation.

“You’re a quick study,” he murmured appreciatively, trailing his lips beneath her chin, backing her up to a bench as he went. They both sank down to it, Rose sprawled wantonly with Kit half on top of her. He unfastened her cloak and grazed the tops of her breasts, first with his hands, then his mouth. Her shiver had nothing to do with the cool night air. His touch was magic.

Laced tightly into her bodice, her breasts ached. Wanting more, she reached to unfasten her stomacher. “I want you to touch me,” she whispered.

“Here?” He skimmed a finger inside her neckline.

She trembled. “Yes, there.”

While she worked the tabs, he pressed little kisses to her cheeks, trailed the tip of his tongue to an ear, caressed the delicate shell.

“Kit,” she breathed.

“Let us take these off, too.” He slipped the rubies and pearls from her lobes and whisked them into his pocket. “I don’t remember you wearing earrings.”

Finished with the stomacher, she attacked the laces beneath. “They were a gift from Gabriel.”

“Gabriel?” His mouth moved to where the jewelry had been, suckling her soft flesh. “The angel?”

“The duke. Bridgewater.” She could melt, she thought.

She could melt right here.

“The man has taste,” he said dryly. “I’ll give him that.”

“
I
chose them.”

“I should have known.” He chuckled, a burst of warm air beneath her ear. She’d never dreamed the skin there was so sensitive.

Then her bodice was open, and he cupped a breast, rubbed a thumb over the peak. “Good God,” she murmured, arching up.

“I promised you I was good,” he allowed. “But God?”

She was beyond finding humor in anything he said; beyond anything but reveling in these new sensations. The ladies at Court had appeared to like this, and now she knew why. Kit’s caresses sent currents racing through her, made her pulse speed, incited a heaviness low in her belly. A warmth that turned into a searing heat when he replaced his hand with his mouth.

Her fingers clenched in his hair, holding his head captive. “More,” she whispered.

“More?” He licked his way to her other breast and lavished it with similar attention. She pressed her mouth to the top of his head, moved her hands to explore his back. Hard planes with ridges of muscles; the body of a working man.

She hadn’t really touched Gabriel, but somehow she knew he’d be soft.

She shoved both hands under Kit’s surcoat and pulled at his shirt, wrenching the bottom from his breeches. As her fingers worked beneath it to encounter bare flesh, he responded with a low groan. “Rose . . .”

“More.”

He was warm, so much warmer than she. Firm. Her palms burned against his skin.

“More?”

“More.”

He lightly bit a nipple, at the same time reaching down to encircle one ankle with a hand.

What, she wondered dizzily, was so erotic about an ankle? And one covered by a stocking, no less? She didn’t know, couldn’t know, but his fingers around her leg seemed to shoot heat up higher, while the suckling on her breast drove her to the point of distraction.

She was melting inside. “A thing of beauty,” she breathed aloud.

“Oh, yes.” His lips trailed up to kiss her mouth, his hand sliding up, too, a breath-stealing glide over silk. And higher, over her garter, his tongue tracing her lips while his hand skimmed warm on the skin of her thigh.

All her air rushed out in a shudder. “Good God.”

And higher, until he cupped where her ache suddenly centered.

The ache was more than an ache; ’twas a need, an all-consuming need so exquisite it bordered on unbearable.

She felt herself damp beneath his hand, and she squirmed, wanting more. More.

Wanting something inside her to ease that exquisite ache.

Might he slip a finger inside? She knew not where such a scandalous idea came from; surely men did not do such a thing. Another part of their bodies was meant to fit there.

Words from
I Sonetti
flitted through her head.
Such pleasure I feel with my yard in your hand, I shall explode . . .

She reached to the front of his breeches.

“Bloody hell,” he said, sitting up and jerking his hand from beneath her skirt in the process. His eyes closed momentarily, then opened as he hurried to rethread her laces.

“We must go back inside.”

She sat up, too, disoriented and bereft. “Did you not like that?”

“I liked it too much.” He kissed her softly, apologetically. “You have no idea what you do to me, Rose.”

She had an idea, because he did it to her, too.

But she knew better than to say that aloud.

Rose and Kit returned to the house to find Chrystabel and Ellen laughing, a smudge of flour on Ellen’s nose.

Kit stayed just long enough to down two servings of the apple fritters they’d prepared. Just long enough to lock gazes several times with Rose . . . just long enough to surreptitiously touch her a few times beneath the table.