The Address(33)

“What would you do if you’d been born a duke’s daughter, then?”

Caught off guard, she almost spilled her lemonade.

He sat up. “I’ve hit a chord, it appears.”

She shouldn’t say anything, keep quiet as she’d done for years and years. But his inquisitive look told her she wouldn’t be able to divert his attention. Not that she wanted to. She had to admit, part of her wanted to impress this man.

But would admitting that she was a bastard impress him? She took a deep breath.

“My father was the Earl of Chichester.”

Now it was his turn to sputter. “Yet I found you working in a hotel. A grand hotel, indeed, but one where an earl’s daughter ought to be paying for a room, not cleaning it.”

“My mother was his housekeeper, if you must know. He would never recognize me as his daughter.”

He grew quiet. “You deserve better than that.”

The unexpected kindness brought a lump to her throat. “Certain lines must not be crossed.”

He reached into the picnic basket and drew out a small sketch pad and a fountain pen. “I promised you I’d draw your dream cottage, and I come armed and ready. If you like, you may describe a castle fit for an earl’s daughter, and it will be yours. On paper, at least.”

“You really don’t have to do that.” She ducked her head to hide her obvious pleasure.

“I insist.”

He began by asking her simple questions, how many rooms she required, what type of stone she preferred.

When she offered up the idea of an iron bench for reading under a trellis covered with wisteria, he’d smiled. “Grand idea. I knew there was something about you, the minute I saw you up in that dreadful office with a tiny window. You didn’t look like you belonged. And that look you give.”

“Which one is that?”

“When you need someone to do something they don’t want to do. Don’t deny it. I’ve seen you give it to Daisy a dozen times. One eyebrow goes up.”

She laughed. He had figured out her secret weapon.

He continued on as he drew. “Speaking of moving up in the world, here’s an example for you: What about our esteemed builder, the late Mr. Clark? He built himself up from nothing, and ended up owning half of the Singer sewing company and our beloved Dakota.”

“Like the sewing machine in the basement?”

“The very one.”

“I’m quite fond of Singer sewing machines. To no longer be a slave to the needle is a magnificent thing. However.” She hesitated but continued on when Mr. Camden indicated his encouragement. “We both know Mr. Clark wasn’t accepted by high society. Like London’s peerage, in New York you are either on the list or not.”

“In a hundred years, Mrs. Astor’s list will be mocked. These demarcations are no longer important. Eventually, the entire lot will have intermarried themselves into oblivion.”

The forcefulness of his words shocked her.

He leaned up on one elbow. “May I ask you a rather personal question?”

“What might that be?”

“What became of Mr. Smythe?”

“He never existed. It’s for work purposes only. The tradition of lines and lines of housekeepers, probably going back to the Middle Ages in England, is to be a Mrs. The irony being that if a housekeeper did marry, she’d be out of a job.”

“Better off to remain unmoored to another person. Look at Mrs. Camden. She is a member of the land-rich, cash-poor aristocracy, and where does that get her? With an obnoxious American as a husband who refuses to play the silly games. You have so much ahead of you, having taken the leap to come to this country. I hope you’ll take advantage of it.”

His confidence in her future thrilled her. What could she become, if she really tried?

“May I ask how you became involved in architecture, Mr. Camden?”

“You certainly may.” He continued drawing as he spoke. “My stepfather, a brute who worked in a grain mill, never liked my artistic leanings. He liked to say I might as well have been doing needlepoint. I drew everything. Flowers, faces, whatever was in front of me. One late Saturday afternoon my friends and I, troublemakers all of us, snuck into a mansion that was being built outside of town. It was an empty shell; the framing had been completed but little else. Inside, I found a set of plans, and while the other boys ran around playing chase, I studied the drawings like they were a treasure map. Which they were. I was entranced, and took them with me when we left.”

“Did you get caught?”

“Of course. My stepfather dragged me back to apologize, and the foreman insisted I work as a site rat for a month to atone.”

“Sounds awful.”

“Oh no. I was in heaven. Picking up nails, bringing the workers water, watching as the one-dimensional design came to life in three dimensions. Extraordinary.”

He blotted the drawing before handing it over to her.

The delicate pen strokes captured a handsome cottage with three gabled windows above a trellis dripping with wisteria. A wooden door with a solid knocker was offset by a large window carved with diagonal muntins and a smaller round window on the other side. The asymmetry lent the building an unexpected jauntiness. She asked him to sign it, and he did so with a flourish before rolling it up for the ride home.