A Grand Design Part 6

"Ventilation? Not a bit of it," was Angus's jovial response. "We're to have the wall down entirely."

Ambrose rubbed his hands together and grinned. "The next as well. In fact, you've come at just the right time. We've been waiting all morning to get on with it."

True enough, Cate thought. They had arrived bright and early, urged into workmanly vigor by the promise of the day's activities. Only the combination of MacGoun's peppery command and Cate's foresighted hiding of certain tools had kept them from going at the demolition job like eager schoolboys.

Apparently Angus had found the ma.s.sive hammers.

He retrieved a pair now from where he had propped them outside the door. One he jauntily swung as if it were nothing more substantial than a walking stick. The other he pa.s.sed to a blank-faced marquess, who, to his credit, neither flinched nor dropped the thing onto his foot.

He propped the heavy head on the floor. "And this is meant to . . ."

"Go through the rest of this wall here," Uncle Angus announced as if it were nothing more than common sense. The marquess's brows shot up into impressively high arcs.

Again, Cate debated stepping in, but Uncle Ambrose forestalled her. When he explained, " Tis a new innovation, this, running rooms together like a grand mole hole," she relaxed a mite.

It wasn't precisely how she would have opted to describe the concept, but at least Ambrose seemed to have the idea firmly in his head. She decided to let him go on with the explanations.

She regretted that decision not a minute later.

"Mole hole. I see." Tregaron nodded. "You mean to say that it will be one long room."

"Aye."

"From here all the way to the front of the house?"

"Ah . . ." Ambrose peered uncertainly through the hole to the one in the next room's far wall. "Er . . ." Waving her arms to get his attention, hoping she would not attract the marquess's as well, Cate nodded vigorously. "Aye!"

"Completely open one to the next?"

"I, er . . ." Ambrose shoved one hand into his already wild hair and twisted. Cate swept her arms inward and out like a mad orchestra conductor. When that didn't seem to work, she pointed at the room's entrance. "Door!" Ambrose bellowed. "Oh, aye. There will be sliding double doors joining the rooms. With the grand windows at this end and a ... er ..." Cate held one hand, palm in, in front of her face. "A mirror at that end. You leave the doors open during the day for ... ah ..." Cate rolled her eyes as she gestured to the window. "Light! Close 'em for privacy, warmth, and so on."

Cate had belatedly recalled that this particular alteration might not have been altogether clear in the drawings. And that the lack of clarity had perhaps been rather deliberate-in case the design had seemed too odd and been rejected by the marquess before he could see how very perfect it was for his house.

Tregaron, whose hammer handle had been waving beneath his fist like the tail of a bad-tempered cat, was utterly still now. Cate found herself holding her breath. The uncles were both staring at the marquess, rapt. Gordie, eyes wide, stood like a statue in the doorway. Even Lucy, who had been posing and fidgeting, hating not being the center of Tregaron's attention, was still now. Waiting.

"You are going to knock down my walls," he murmured. "All the way down." Then, after an agonizingly long pause, he actually smiled. It wasn't much of a smile, to be sure. More a quick baring of very nice teeth, Cate noticed. And she decided it was rather a nice smile for all its brevity. "What a marvelous idea. Yours, sirs?"

For an instant, Cate thought her uncles were going to take credit for the innovation. She realized almost immediately that the pause was due only to the fact that Ambrose had completely forgotten the name of the brilliant man who had actually created the concept.

"Repton," she said soundlessly. Ambrose blinked at her. "Repton!" she mouthed again.

"Reptile!" Ambrose shouted.

The marquess blinked.

"Repton," Cate said wearily, aloud this time. "You have been painting Cleopatra again, haven't you, Uncle. You have asps filling your head. Uncle Ambrose," she announced to Tregaron, "does marvelous cla.s.sical studies in what little spare time he has away from here, my lord."

"Indeed? Perhaps you will allow me to commission a work from you, sir," Tregaron offered. Cate a.s.sumed he was being polite and that whatever table or canvas her uncle produced would go the way of most of his art-into the attics. Ambrose was grinning like a madman.

Angus was bouncing on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. "Have you the need for a sculpture or two, m'lord?Cate ... er ... we've thought it best to do away with the cherubs."

"Have you?" This time, Tregaron's flas.h.i.+ng smile lasted a full second. Cate's pulse gave an odd s.h.i.+ver. "Fancy that. Well, Mr. Buchanan, if I am correct in a.s.suming you sculpt, we shall discuss the matter at another time."

Angus joined his brother in beaming from ear to plaster-dusted ear. Then he shouted, "Go fetch us another hammer, Gordie! There's a good fellow. We're to take a wall down." As the younger man scuttled off, Angus turned back to Tregaron. "Well, off with the coat, lad! You'll get no decent work done with that thing on you."

If anyone had commanded the Marquess of Tregaron to disrobe since his infancy, Cate would have been very much surprised. She was fairly certain no one had ever pressed him into work. And by all appearances, he was going to both refuse and give Angus, who truly believed he was bestowing a gift upon the much younger man, something of a set-down. Tregaron's brow had furrowed dangerously, his mouth thinned.

"I do not think . . ." he began. Then, "If the ladies would be so kind . . ."

It took Cate a moment to realize he was very politely telling her and Lucy to remove their delicate sensibilities and female posteriors from the room so he could remove his coat. Her jaw dropped. He was going to do it. He was going to take off that obviously expensive coat and attack a plaster wall with the uncles.

She wanted to refuse, didn't want to leave him alone with Angus and Ambrose. Then Tregaron cleared his throat, fixed her with those fierce eyes and she knew she had no choice. "Come along, Lucy," she said, her reluctance even greater than her now leaden-footed sister. "We'll leave the gentlemen to it."

She might have been mistaken, but she thought she felt the marquess's eyes on her as she walked from the room. She certainly did not mistake the odd tingling that went running up and down her spine.

Shaken nerves, she told herself. Only to be expected after that little drama.

Gordie met them in the hall, ma.s.sive hammer in hand. "Watch them," Cate commanded. "Do not leave them alone with the marquess for a minute. I'll be in the drawing room if I am needed."

"Aye, miss." Gordie dragged his hand across his forehead in a familiar gesture. " 'Twas a close one, that."

"It was indeed."

Cate made her way down the hall on slightly unsteady legs. Lucy followed. "I thought I would quite die with the giggles back there, Catey, first when Gordie nearly spilled all and then when Uncle Ambrose -"

"Lucy." Cate gave her a quelling glare.

"Well, I did. It was ever so diverting." At her sister's hiss, Lucy shrugged. "You could tell him.

Perhaps he would not mind."

Cate stopped in her tracks. "Perhaps he would not mind," she repeated. "Perhaps not. Perhaps, unlike any man I have ever met outside our family, he would not mind knowing that it was not two men responsible for the fate of his house, for every inch of the designs, but one woman. Me. Perhaps, upon learning that fact, he would not mind having been deceived. Perhaps, unlike the likely rest of the arrogant, dissolute bunch among which he moves, he would not send us packing home to Scotland or, more likely, tossed into gaol for fraud. Perhaps . . ."

Whether it was the concept of imprisonment or being sent back to Scotland, Cate did not know, but it certainly touched Lucy. "Oh, you mustn't tell him, then, that it's you who is Buchanan and Buchanan, Catey! You mustn't tell anyone! It will remain our family secret."

"Yes, our family secret."

The problem, of course, was that Cate had little faith in a Buchanan secret staying so. She was not a natural pessimist, but she'd gone too long, since she'd taken over the business with the Maybole estate to be precise, expecting several walls of secrets to come tumbling down on her head, on her family's heads. They'd had more than their fare share of reprieves.

She flinched as the first hammer thudded l.u.s.tily into the wall behind her.

Chapter 6.

Tregaron was convinced he had little bits of wall down the back of his trousers. How the stuff had made its way there defied explanation, but he was certain that there were very few inches of his skin that had not been dusted. And other than his face and hands, he had not been able to clean much of anything. He itched.

Several feet away, Gryffydd was stretched in utter contentment, belly on Lady Tregaron's plush parlor rug, legs pointing straight out in front and back in a position Tregaron had never seen managed by any canine but these little Welsh herders called corgyn. The animal was snoring lightly, happy as a stoat.

Tregaron's grandmother had refused to touch Gryffydd, insisting that not only was the beast's newly grey coat rather alarming to view, but that it would do untold damage to her clothing and furniture. Tregaron had done his best to dust the animal off, but only a bath would remove the detritus of the afternoon's interlude. Not wanting to disappoint his grandmother by forgoing their regular visit, he had opted to call on her first, stay only long enough to explain, then head back to the Albany and countless ewers of hot water. This scheme, like so many other, had promptly gone awry.

Lady Tregaron was having none of it. She'd rolled her eyes, clucked her tongue, and insisted that a maid spread a bath sheet over the chair before Tregaron sat. She had not, however, allowed him to make a hasty exit. She had also refused to have Gryffydd too close. And she'd complained with impressive lyricism when the witless gudgeon of a girl, as she'd phrased it, set a plate of ginger biscuits on the floor, rather than the table. Her grandson opted not to comment that such complaints were much better made promptly and to the offending party, rather than when the maid was long gone from the room and the plate had been summarily emptied by one delighted dog. He'd hidden his smile and held his tongue.

"Two walls?" the dowager demanded now, for the third time. "You?"

"I did not do it alone," her grandson informed her once more. "The Misters Buchanan did a great deal of the actual destroying."

Lady Tregaron sniffed. "Outlandish, I say. Architects and marquesses side by side, going at walls with hammers. In my day-"

"In your day, madam, you would have hefted a hammer and joined in."

A faint smile crossed the lady's lips. "Well. I might have done. Perhaps."

"It was rather alarmingly entertaining."

"Yes, I expect it was. And I suggest you remind yourself of that thought tomorrow when you feel as if someone has taken a hammer to you."

Tregaron smiled. "Ah, Grandmere, you wound me with your conviction that I am such a weak creature, a veritable soft custard."

"I think you no such thing, and you well know it. You are a fine specimen of a man, Colwin, if a rapidly aging one."

He felt too generally pleased with himself to argue over his age yet again, or to agree that yes, he quite probably would ache like the devil the following day. He'd had an absolutely marvelous time, hammering away at the walls, and did not care to sully the memory with logic.

It was time, he'd decided, to find some sort of physical activity. In Wales he had walked and ridden relentlessly, not having much else to do. But he would become soft in Town if he did not change his ways. He could walk and ride extensively here, too, he supposed, but it was all so stop-and-start in the London crowds that much of the healthy benefit was lost. Perhaps he would purchase a spot in one of the duelling or boxing clubs. If they would have him, of course.

"I must say, I am glad to see you becoming involved in something." His grandmother's voice cut into his musings, which had turned just grim enough to spoil the pleasant glow left from his entertaining and strenuous attack on the wall. "So, tell me about these Buchanans. Three brothers, you said?"

"Two. And two nieces."

Tea arrived then. It had amused Tregaron that his dog's comfort had been seen to before his own, but he did not begrudge Gryffydd the attention. He was, too, so pleased at the prospect of a cup of tea that it hardly signified that he'd had to wait. He was convinced there was a coating of plaster dust on every inner surface as well as outer, most notably his throat. Gordie, the funny little Scot with the apparent nervous condition, had provided ale, but it had only temporarily washed away the grit. It had served much better to further flame the Buchanan brothers' enthusiasm for the whole destructive process.

His grandmother eyed him shrewdly as she poured the tea. "Nieces?"

"Mmm." The first swallow was heaven. "The Misses Catherine and Lucy Buchanan."

"And they are to be found in your house every day?"

"Oh, I think not." Tregaron eyed the sugar-dusted tarts and decided against taking one. It looked altogether too dry for his taste. "I believe they drop in every so often to visit their uncles. I imagine there cannot be a great deal of daily entertainment available to two country ladies of moderate birth and limited means."

"Poor, are they? And not in the least pretty, I daresay. Scotswomen can be so terribly reminiscent of small rodents."

Englishwomen, in Tregaron's opinion, were just as likely to be reminiscent of large equines.

"As it happens, the younger Miss Buchanan is possessed of very good looks." An understatement, to be sure, but Tregaron did not care for the look in his grandmother's eyes. His going into raptures over the fair Lucy's glories would not be wise. "Someone contrived to get the pair of them invited to the Hythe fete. I wager the girl will find herself married to some well-heeled young buck by the end of the Season."

Apparently rea.s.sured that her grandson would not be shackling himself to a young lady of beauty but little other merit-and Scottish to boot-Lady Tregaron queried, "And the elder?"

"Catherine. She is . . ."

He was not particularly surprised, but was displeased nonetheless, to find he was at a loss for words with which to describe Cate. He could picture her well enough, those endless limbs, sparking eyes, and ma.s.ses of wayward hair. What he could not seem to do was get a firm grip on her character.

"Catherine Buchanan is most certainly not a beauty."

"Ah, well, a sweet and clever girl, then, I should imagine. Plain creatures with beautiful sisters usually are."

Tregaron gave a bark of laughter that startled him as much as it did his grandmother and the sleeping dog. "Cate? Clever, yes. Sweet? Good Lord, what a concept. She is as sweet as a green lemon."

She was tart, indeed, sometimes positively sour, but to be fair he had to concede that she was also intelligent, vibrant, and anything but dull. A man was never bored in Cate's presence.

"I do not believe I have ever met a young lady quite like the elder Miss Buchanan."

There was a sharp snick as his grandmother's teacup met with its saucer. "You admire her."

Did he? Tregaron rubbed thoughtfully at one knee, where he'd somehow managed to make a hole in the fine wool of his new breeches. "Perhaps. As one admires a tenacious pit bulldog or the sheer presumption of a summer rainstorm. I should not choose Miss Buchanan as a friend, I think."

"Hmph," was his grandmother's inscrutable response.

It occurred to Tregaron that Cate would most certainly not choose him as a friend, either. In fact, he had caught the better part of her opinion of him in general, as a suitor to her sister in particular.

Possesses a rather vile degree of arrogance, boorishness, and condescension, she'd said of him. Rumored to have disposed of his wife.

He wasn't sure which statement was worse.

Nor did he understand why he cared. He had lived for so long now with his grim reputation. And once he had ascertained that there would be no trial, that his peers, much as they might want to, would not openly accuse him, he had stopped even contemplating a.s.serting his innocence. He wasn't actually innocent, and the unpleasant truth would not serve much of a purpose at all.

He'd found that not caring much was convenient, if not always comfortable. Better to be feared than loved, old Machiavelli had told his prince. Well, that made perfectly good sense to one marquess. He simply found being feared and reviled something of a bore. Merely a bore.

He yawned. "So, am I invited for dinner tonight?"

"As a matter of fact," Lady Tregaron replied, "Georgiana Otley has organized an impromptu dinner party and has requested my presence. I would so like to attend, but you know how I cannot abide the London streets at night. Always so crowded, and heaven only knows what sort of ruffian one might encounter lurking about, ready to dive through one's carriage window."