“Your shirt?”
“Yes, it had some… stains.”
“I see.”
Rebecca was quite confused by this entire encounter, but who was she to question a duke?
“I, ah, best be going now,” she said, slowly inching around him, doing all she could to not slide her body over his as she sought the door. Relief swept over her when she found the handle, and she turned the knob open, allowing light to enter once more though she didn’t look back. “I shall see you in the parlor,” she managed, before slipping out the door and nearly running out of the bedroom, along the corridor, and down the stairs.
Valentine stood there in shock, staring after the beauty. One look at her and he had turned into a blithering fool.
It was this entire new situation, he told himself. He was having a difficult time learning how he was supposed to interact with his peers, his servants, and… whoever this woman was. As she had escaped his room so quickly that he nearly wondered if she had seen a mouse, he realized that he had no idea who she was or what she was doing in his bedchamber. Apparently not a gift, he realized with a rueful laugh.
He was right in that his soiled shirt had been taken away, but he knew it would take him a great deal longer to dress himself than with the help of his valet. With company about he was expected, as a duke, to always be fully dressed in a waistcoat and cravat, as uncomfortable as they were. He walked to the door, throwing it open.
“Archie!” he bellowed, but instead of seeing his valet approach, a tall, distinguished gentleman he had never seen before was wandering down his corridor. What in the…
“Hello, sir,” the man said, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Ah… I’m not entirely sure,” Val said, scratching his hair, which had been cut fairly short upon his arrival in London. He missed his usual longer locks. “Just who are you?”
“Why, I am Albert Lambert, of course.”
“Lambert — the architect. Right,” Val said, frowning. What kind of architect had he hired? “I thought you were awaiting me in the parlor.”
“The parlor? We finished the parlor weeks ago!” Lambert said, further confusing Val. “We must now continue with the ballroom.”
“That will be the last of it,” Val said. “We must make sure we build my sister a proper laboratory first.”
“Laboratory?” the man repeated back to him, a frown marring his face. “I wasn’t told of a laboratory.”
“Yes, well, I will explain everything when we discuss the project further,” Val said, relieved when he saw Archie approaching down the hall. “I will be down to meet with you shortly, Mr. Lambert. My apologies for my tardiness.”
He stepped back into the room, Archie following him with a questioning look, as Mr. Lambert nodded and strode away in the other direction.
My, but this was a strange day.
3
Rebecca tapped her foot as the duke finally entered the room and took a seat next to his mother. The four of them now — finally — sat around the small table in the middle of the room, the duke and his mother in mismatched chairs, Rebecca and her father on a worn sofa across from them.
She looked up, catching the duke’s eye, and he quirked an eyebrow at her, causing a bit of heat to rise in her cheeks.
Her quick glimpse of him before he had entered the dressing room and shut the door behind him, encasing them in darkness, had primarily been directed at his chest, which had lain bare before her eyes.
To be fair, Rebecca hadn’t seen many men without clothing on. But she knew much of architectural planes and lines, of exquisite sculptures and works of art.
Which this man was.
From his chiseled shoulders down his bulging biceps, back to his chest which seemed as though it had been etched in granite, he was a vision. She had no idea what he did to achieve such physique, but had she been asked, she would have suggested he continue it.
Now she had a much better view of his face. He was blond, like his sister, though his hair was a darker shade than hers. His dark-blue eyes were deep set, his nose prominent, but unnaturally so. Rebecca guessed that it had been broken a time or two. She assumed some might say it detracted from his looks, but she had always been attracted to the unconventional — the anomalies in stone, the façade that didn’t quite fit the rest of the neighborhood, the ability to bring the natural world indoors, with all of its unique qualities.
His lips, which reminded her of a man who smiled often, quirked once more, reminding her of the secret they shared.
“Valentine, how lovely of you to join us,” his mother said, her smile wide as she placed a hand on his arm when he took a chair next to her. “I know how busy you are with all of your ducal responsibilities.”
“That was no excuse to keep Mr. Lambert waiting. And… I am not sure I caught your name,” he said, meeting Rebecca’s eye. She pursed her lips to keep from smiling once again at his nonchalance.
“I am Rebecca Lambert,” she introduced herself. “I assist my father with secretarial duties. Taking notes and that type of thing.”
She lifted her notebook and pencil to show him.
“Very good,” he said with a nod. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Lambert. I apologize for our fleeting meeting upstairs.”
Rebecca’s heart stopped. The duke had encountered her father? She looked back and forth between them for a sign that anything was amiss. He and Dexter had finally reconvened with her in the parlor and the butler had seemed rather flustered. She wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, though her father had looked around the room with some confusion.
“I thought we had finished this already,” he had murmured before she had looked him in the eye and quietly reminded him of why they were there. Recognition had quickly returned, and she had smiled at him encouragingly, though she remained somewhat concerned.
“All is well,” her father said simply, and Rebecca sighed in relief, though her shoulders remained tight and she hoped they could finish the meeting quickly, in case her father’s memory fled once more.
Rebecca opened the sketch pad so that it would seem that there was a reason as to why she was the one asking questions.
“Now, your grace, what can we do for you?”
“As you can see,” he said, waving a hand around the room, “this house is…”
“A travesty!” Rebecca’s father said, a finger in the air.
Rebecca tried to inconspicuously bring his hand down.
“Ah, yes,” the duke said with a short bark of laughter. “It is, in a way.”
“But we would like you to return it to all of its glory!” Mrs. St. Vincent exclaimed, as prone to pronouncements as Rebecca’s father seemingly was.
“Er, yes,” the duke said with a quirk of his lips as Dexter re-entered the room and passed him a roll of papers. “We have the plans from the original architect—”
“Not needed!” Rebecca’s father said, shaking his hand in front of him. “I do not work from the plans of another.”
“But, perhaps, it would be helpful, Father, for you to have the originals,” Rebecca said softly. “Then you can see what was done in the past.”