“Here.” She ignored the shaking of her hands. “I’ll show you. It’s the last one. It’s unfinished.” She flipped to the right page and shoved the sketchbook in his direction.
After an agonizing moment, he stepped forward and accepted the small volume. He studied the illustration in extended silence before finally looking up. “Why is my parlor filled with drunken, cheroot-smoking women?”
“They’re not drunk,” she protested.
“They’re carrying tankards of ale and flintlock pistols. At any moment, one of them is going to slur, ‘I wager I can shoot that bonnet right off of your head’ and the next thing you know, there’ll be a bullet hole in my favorite framed kilt.”
“You have a favorite kilt?” she stammered.
“Apparently. You’ve drawn one on my wall.” He held up the sketch, eyebrows raised.
“I was going through a Scottish phase.” She waved a hand. “But if you take away the pistols and the cheroots and the extraneous kilt, this is exactly your parlor. Not how itdoeslook, but how itcouldlook.”
“If I were insane,” he agreed. “What’s your point?”
“My point is, I can do this. I can turn your library into a billiard room.”
“Anyone can turn a library into a billiard room. Step one: Get rid of the books. Step two: Install billiards. I’ve already received estimates from the best craftsmen in the area.”
“Anyone can purchase a table,” she parroted. Good God, he needed her far more than he knew. “Not everyone can create anexperience. The best table your money can buy might be the centerpiece, but that doesn’t mean just tossing it in the middle of the room.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No! Have you even played billiards? Lighting is fundamental. Daytime play is best with natural illumination. Evening play requires a custom-crafted framework of three to six oil lamps positioned at the proper angle.”
He nodded. “I remember. Ninety degrees.”
“That was buttresses, not billiards. Receptacles will catch the oil so that it doesn’t fall onto your freshly ironed baize, and the cabinetry to house your cues, maces, and ball box need to—”
“May I?” Azureford’s finger hovered just beneath the prior page.
Carole sighed. She could recognize ano. “Please do.”
Her skin crawled with invisible ants as he slowly paged back through each drawing. Occasionally his lips would quirk or a brow would raise, but he otherwise kept his silence.
“You want to do this the right way, don’t you?” she burst out when she couldn’t stand the anticipation any longer. “You said I could help you with your party. Let mehelp.”
He glanced up from her sketchbook. “How?”
“Look.” She flipped the inventory journal to a blank page and started to draw. “These walls have a fixed height and length, don’t they? The fireplace ishere, and the windows arehereandhere. We’d rip out the shelves. Presuming cabinetry like…that, and a billiard table like…that, then this is a rough approximation of how I would alter this room to maximize its attributes.”
The duke exchanged her sketchbook for the inventory journal.
She tried to make him see. “You dream of making the best possible impression on your future duchess, and I dream of being allowed to do a project like this just once in my life. To design and decorate as I see fit. This isn’t only our best attempt at making your billiard room be all that it can be, but each of us, too. We’ll grant two wishes at once. Not bad, is it?”
Her heart twisted. He was going to say no. He was still angry about her deception. She had one chance to resolve this. No matter what it took.
“Help me help you…” She took a shaky breath. “…to marry someone else.”
Chapter 7
Adam sat in the dappled sunlight of the wooden-latticed belvedere in his rear garden and tried to escape into the book in his hand. It was no use. He moved a ribbon to mark his page and glared at the pretty flowers blooming in the Quincys’ garden.
He could be disappointed that Miss Quincy’s sudden interest was due to ulterior motives, but he couldn’t be angry at her. He’d had ulterior motives of his own, did he not? Realizing he’d wished to “practice” with the entire village before removing to the Town hereallycared about could not have been any more complimentary than learning the only reason Miss Quincy kept coming over was to retrieve her sketchbook.
Truly, what if anything, had changed? Earring, sketchbook, billiard room... She still wanted something, and so did he. If she could help him reach his goal rather than flail at it awkwardly, what sort of fool would refuse the offer?
He removed his House of Lords diary from the basket by his feet and flipped to the final page. With a pencil, he added:
