“Have you asked Valentine to help?”
“No,” Rebecca said, shaking her head. “And I have no plan to. He has more than enough to worry about without my own troubles.”
“Jemima!” Her mother’s voice carried down the hall and Jemima sighed, rolling her eyes at Rebecca.
“I best go. Mama wants to invite one of the neighbors over tomorrow, and she insists that I add my name to the invitation. But please, Rebecca, give Valentine a chance. Tell him the truth of it all. You never know what good could come of it.”
“I will,” Rebecca promised. “I’m not sure when, but I will.”
“Good,” Jemima said with a teasing grin, “because I am terrible at keeping secrets.”
“Jemima!” Rebecca laughed as her friend left the room.
She took a seat with a sigh. She was terribly relieved to have someone to share the truth with, although now she was fretting about speaking with Valentine. He had told her a few times now that one of the qualities he most admired about her was her straightforwardness, her willingness to always be there to support others.
But she had been selfish. She designed in part to help her father and maintain his legacy, true, but there was more to it. She worked because she loved it. Taking a pencil to paper and letting her ideas run free through her drawings brought her more joy than nearly anything else, and she didn’t want to let it go.
If Valentine — or his mother — ever named her as a fraud, then she would never work again. Nor would her father. They would lose everything — his good name, their work, any future income, and her ability to do what she loved.
Yet the closer they grew, the more apparent it was that she needed to tell him, and she would.
She just had to find the right time.
“Mr. Lambert, I am pleased that we could reconvene,” Valentine said as he and the architect sat across from one another in the drawing room. “I am sure we can come to an understanding.”
The truth of it was that if anyone had insulted him so in his former life he would not likely have been quite as determined to find a resolution. But this was Rebecca’s father, for one, and a respected architect, for another.
So he would be polite, civil, and work through this.
“I’m sure we can,” Mr. Lambert said, though his gaze was off in the distance.
Valentine opened his mouth to continue, but just then, there was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” Valentine called, expecting a footman with a drink for the two of them.
But it was Rebecca, looking as splendid as always. She held out house plans toward them, then began to explain.
“Father, you forgot these in the long gallery. These are the revisions you made following your previous discussion with his grace.”
Mr. Lambert looked at her oddly.
“I do not recall making such revisions.”
“Oh, Father, don’t be silly,” she said, a desperate expression on her face. “Of course you did. Here you are, your grace.”
She passed him the drawings, but didn’t leave the room. Valentine unfurled them and began to study them, delight leaping into his countenance at what he would say. The complex had been made simple, the grandeur elegant now instead of what would be, in his mind, quite expensive.
“This is perfect,” he said, a smile growing on his face as he looked between father and daughter. “Mr. Lambert, these are—”
“Rubbish!” Lambert said, and Valentine’s head tilted up.
“Pardon me?”
“What we did before was much better. These are rubbish. But,” he threw his hands in the air, “if this is what you want, then so be it.”
He sighed as Valentine stared at him and then at the plans. Something wasn’t right. It just didn’t add up. There was no way that Mr. Lambert had—
But then he lost his sequence of thought when his mother appeared in the doorway.
“Valentine!” she said, her face wreathed in smiles and his stomach became rather queasy. Those were the smiles she usually wore when they were out in polite society — when she was trying to prove herself as mother to a duke, despite her rather common beginnings.
“I have a surprise!” she said. “Lady Rothwell is here to visit. They are but a short ride away. And she has brought her daughter, Lady Fredericka. Jemima will be joining us in a moment, but I thought perhaps that you and I could entertain them until she arrives?”
Valentine rose, furious with his mother for not providing him with any warning of such a visit. But then the woman and her daughter entered, and he had no choice but to nod in greeting and be as polite as was expected of a man of his station.
“Good morning,” he mumbled, stealing a look over at Rebecca. Her eyes had widened and the corners of her lips had dropped. What was the matter with her?
He followed her eyes to Lady Fredericka. She was a pretty thing. Quite tiny, with brown hair piled high on her head, her eyes a warm brown. She did seem friendly, at least. Then he looked over at his mother, who was smiling as though she had been named Queen of England. Lady Rothwell’s expression was near matching.
And then he realized what this was about, and what had so dismayed Rebecca.
His mother was making a match for him.
“Lady Rothwell, Lady Fredericka,” he finally managed. “This is our architect, Mr. Lambert, and his daughter, Miss Lambert. They are staying with us—”
“To complete my father’s work, but he is now finished,” Rebecca said, clearly choosing to ignore the open-mouth stares of the women at the fact she would interrupt a duke, but she needed away from this room as quickly as possible. “We will be returning to London tomorrow.”
“Re— Miss Lambert,” he said with a silent warning as it felt as though he had been punched in the stomach, “perhaps we should speak of this later?”
“Yes, let us do that,” Mrs. St. Vincent said, clapping her hands together. “Would you mind excusing us, Mr. Lambert, Miss Lambert?”
“Of course,” Rebecca said, gathering her father’s things, though Valentine didn’t miss the silent anger and dismay emanating from her. “Good day. It was a pleasure to meet you both.”
And as she sailed to the door, Valentine was powerless to do anything but watch her go.
18
Rebecca rushed around the long gallery, furiously blinking away the tears that threatened to fall. She refused to allow them. She had known what the outcome of this brief interlude with Valentine would be. He had to marry a woman of his own class now. A woman who would integrate him within the nobility, who would have a dowry that could restore the dukedom to its former glory.
The only role she played within that scenario was ensuring that his homes were befitting of the Duke of Wyndham and would properly impress all who visited.
She had placed all of her tools in a large bag and was half-dragging, half-carrying it out of the room to leave it by the entrance when she stumbled into someone. She just about went flying backward when a hand came out to steady her.
“I say, are you all right, Miss Lambert?”
Rebecca looked up to see a warm smile from underneath questioning brown eyes.
“Lady Fredericka,” she said, righting herself. “My apologies. I was just—”