Read Online Rose (Flower Trilogy) by Lauren Royal - Free Book Online Page B

that this book is meant to instruct one in how to accurately draw buildings. But even though I cannot learn what it sets out to teach, I enjoy studying the pictures.”
    “Rose can read Latin,” Mum said.
    Rose avoided her mother’s gaze, instead looking longingly inside the bookshop as they passed. “May we stop here on the way back, Mum?”
    “Perhaps.”
    “We can stop now, if you wish,” Kit offered, pleasantly surprising Rose. She thought fleetingly that were it the Duke of Bridgewater walking beside her, she wouldn’t have dared show an interest in books.
    ’Twas freeing to be with a man she didn’t care about.
    “Later,” Mum said. “I am anxious to see the house.”
    Finally they came to the end of the street. On the bucolic River Thames, swans glided majestically. Rose gazed across the Windsor Bridge toward the charming town of Eton. “Where do you live?” she asked Kit.
    “Right here,” he said, gesturing toward an imposing redbrick house that sat beside the river.
    No, not a house. A mansion.
    She consciously closed her gaping jaw. “It looks like Rand’s house.”
    Her mother smiled. “Rand’s house is white, not brick.”
    “But the style in which it is built . . .” Rose looked toward Kit, knowing he would understand what she meant.
    “It looks nothing like Windsor’s dining room.”

    “The dining room reflects Charles’s preferences, not my own.”
    “I like yours much better,” she murmured as he led them under a small columned portico and into the house.
    She paused on the threshold, admiring the clean, modern lines of the entry hall. The black marble floor was studded with small white marble diamonds. Smooth, pale stone walls were set off by classic dark oak molding. A high ceiling led to a corridor beyond, where Rose glimpsed a series of archways that vaguely reminded her of a vaulted cathedral.
    As she’d said, it reminded her of the house Kit had built for Rand in Oxford. But better. Not to mention at least twice the size.
    Kit Martyn was quite obviously a wealthy man.
    “Mr. Martyn.” A butler dressed in dark blue hurried to meet him. “Welcome home. Shall I have Mrs. Potts prepare dinner for three?” His inquisitive pale blue gaze swept Rose and her mother.
    “Thank you, Graves, but I don’t believe the ladies are staying long.”
    “As you say, sir.” The butler took himself off.
    “You wanted to see the house?” Kit asked, directing the question to Chrystabel.
    “We’d love to,” she assured him.
    He led them through to a drawing room, all white paneled walls and a gray marble fireplace. The furniture was upholstered but not fussy, the windows large and tall, allowing sunshine to flood the room.
    “I prefer natural light to candlelight,” he told them.
    “Would you care to sit?”
    “No,” Rose breathed. “Show us the rest, please.”
    He shared a smile with her mother.
    Rose’s favorite room on the ground floor was the dining room, a complete contrast to King Charles’s in its simplicity. Other than wide crown molding, the ceiling was smooth and white—at night it would reflect the light of the single carved oak chandelier that hovered over the round table.
    The walls were covered with dark oak paneling, rich and simple except for a few ornately carved sections above the fireplace.
    “Sixteenth century, all of it.” Kit waved the book he still held, indicating the wood that graced the walls. “I rescued it from a house I renovated—the owner wanted something more extravagant.”
    Rose turned in a slow circle. “Something more like Windsor Castle’s decorations?”
    “Very much.”
    “That owner has no taste,” she declared.
    Kit grinned. “Would you like to see upstairs?”
    A small, exquisite stained-glass window threw colored light onto the curving staircase. “Another item I rescued,”
    Kit said, waving the book at it, too. The bedchambers upstairs were not simply sleeping rooms, but suites—and there were many of them.
    His