If a Lady Lingers

by Anna Harrington

  “Why, a school, of course.” She smiled to hide her embarrassment. “What else?”

  Mrs. Jones knocked on the open door to announce the arrival of tea. Thank goodness! This conversation certainly needed a change of direction.

  Whitby stood in gentlemanly politeness as Mrs. Jones carried in the tray. Mrs. Jones winked at Daisy in encouragement, then quickly left so the meeting could continue.

  Daisy poured him a cup of tea. She was more grateful than she wanted to admit to be able to reset the conversation and start again. “So Mr. Whitby—”

  “Hugh.” His hand brushed hers as he accepted the cup and saucer, then returned to his seat across from her. “Please call me Hugh.”

  “Mr. Whitby,” she insisted. His offer of familiarity startled her, and now was not the time to ponder why her fingers tingled where his had touched hers. “Tell me about your project. What features are you hoping to have in the house?”

  “I want it to be a grand place, safe and welcoming.” Resting the tea on his knee, he leaned forward, and his eyes practically glowed. “For the boys and me. A house where they can adjust to their futures and where I can live instead of renting bachelor’s rooms. You know…a home.” He helped himself to one of the lemon biscuits from the tea tray. “If it works, I’m hoping to build a second house for the girls, perhaps on the same square. Wouldn’t that be grand to have them all together so close? Your father would design it, too, of course.”

  She couldn’t breathe at the implication behind that. A second commission! She cleared her throat and brought them both back down to earth by saying, “Building two houses is going to be quite expensive for a charity school.”

  “True, but I recently came into money.” He took a bite of the biscuit and said through the crunching, “My late uncle William.” He snapped off another bite between his front teeth. “Had no children of his own. Always liked me a great deal, though. Better than all my brothers.” He popped the last bite into his mouth. “Irked my father, too, I daresay.”

  “Your father?”

  He somehow managed to nod while taking a sip of tea. “Baron Whitby.”

  Her arm jerked in surprise, and she nearly spilled tea on herself. He was a baron’s son?

  “But I assure you that my father has nothing to do with this. It’s all my idea.” He reached for a cucumber sandwich and added, “And Mariah’s, of course.”

  She smiled tightly. “Ah…your wife.”

  “Mariah?” He snorted laughter at the idea. “Heavens no! She’s married to Lord Robert Carlisle. But she’s my best friend and helps me run Gatewell. The school was her idea, in fact, but she lets me help.” He grinned sheepishly. “But I’m keeping her away from the new house. I want this project to be all mine. She knows I’m building it, of course—couldn’t keep something like that secret from her prying—but I want to surprise her with how grand it will be, how perfect for the children.” He took a bite of the sandwich, then gestured wide with his long arms and said between chews, “I want a townhouse that’s bright and light, with big rooms, lots of windows—nice rooms for the servants, too. I want everyone to feel as if it’s their home, not just an extension of the school or the place they work.”

  She jotted down his wish list, then read back over it. Her heart pounded at the possibilities. “Your uncle left you money, you said?”

  “A great deal of money.” He grinned at her hesitation. “No expense spared!” Then he popped the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and somehow managed to keep smiling even as he devoured it, only to frown during the last few bites. “But all the corner lots were already leased. Mine is part of the middle terrace which limits what your father can do with it, I suppose.” Then his expression turned downright grim, and he heaved out a heavy sigh. “I’m giving him a difficult challenge.”

  One Daisy relished! This would be her chance to finally make real the ideas she’d been mulling over for some time now, ideas that would break away from the tyranny of the terrace box. Excitement pricked at her toes.

  “Actually,” she ventured as she slowly set her cup aside, not wanting him to sense her enthusiasm for his project, “I can suggest some ideas that I think you might like.”

  Before he could rise to his feet again, she’d moved around the tea table to the settee, and her hand went to his arm to keep him seated. She ignored the surprised look that fluttered across his face, opened her book, and flipped to the pages she’d been working on. They held all her ideas for transforming a boring London terrace house into something grand, bright, and airy while maintaining the same narrow frontage and typical five bays.

  “The main difficulty with terrace houses is the lighting, of course,” she explained as she rested the book between them so he could see her plans. “How do builders construct on a large scale when a house can only be two rooms deep because they can’t place any windows on either side? So architects have compensated for narrow lots by building up. But that’s limited to how many sets of stairs the owner wants to climb, usually only allowing for three stories, with perhaps an additional room in an attic and a basement for the kitchens. On a square like yours, the architect and builder are further limited because the owner won’t let you build higher than the houses next to yours.” She sighed at the rules of Neo-Classicism which seemed as if they’d never die out. It was the nineteenth century, for heaven’s sake! “Because of symmetry.”

  He leaned toward her to peer into her book, and she caught the faint scent of bergamot. It was surprisingly nice.

  “All the terrace houses I’ve ever seen have been like that,” he said.

  “But they don’t have to be. Look here.” She tapped her finger on a sketch. “Instead of stacking the rooms on top of each other in a two-room deep square, they can spread behind the house in an L-shape like this, giving each room plenty of light. Depending on how deep your lot is, you can add an extra room per floor by doing this.” She flipped the page. “Or this—change the shape from an L to a U, eliminating the rear service yard for a central courtyard. Once you let go of traditional thinking about what a townhouse should be, the possibilities become—”

  “Endless!”

  She laughed. “I was going to say exciting.”

  He grinned at her. “That, too.” He took the book and looked carefully at her sketches, then turned the page before she could stop him. “What’s this?”

  Her heart skipped. It was her dream house. The set of original ideas she’d jotted down one boring rainy afternoon last year when she’d let her mind run wild with possibilities.

  “Nothing important.” She reached for the book. “Just some silly ideas.”

  But he refused to let her take the book from him. “These are yours?” He let out a low whistle as he flipped through the pages. “Deuces, they’re grand!”

  “But they’re not for a townhouse like yours.” Her face flushed with equal measure embarrassment and pride. “Not really.”

  She made another grab for the book, which he deftly moved out of her reach.

  “Tell me about them.” His eyes shone earnestly. “Please do. I’d love to hear about what inspired you.”

  She bit her lip in indecision even as her heart somersaulted at the temptation. No one had ever asked to see her house plans before, not even her father.

  Until now.

  That it was Mr. Whitby who was the first, this very odd client of all people, surprised the daylights out of her. Yet he was serious about her work. That is, as serious as a man dressed like a fruit salad could be, she supposed.

  “Well,” she started tentatively, even though he urged her on with an excited nod, “this floor plan is based upon putting all the work rooms, kitchens, and cisterns beneath the house, all the way to the far end of the property. Just a small sliver of the traditional rear yard would be left for those things that can’t be put beneath the house…access for the night soil men, for example. For that matter, most of what was previously needed in a service yard can be done away with altogether,
considering all the services that can be hired out these days. Gentlemen don’t even need their own horses and carriages with the number of hackneys available in London.”

  He let out a low whistle of appreciation. “Golly.”

  Her cheeks heated with pride. “The world is changing, Mr. Whitby. Why, soon we might not need cisterns in houses at all. Think of it—all water and waste simply carried to and from in pipes!”

  “That would sure be something if it ever came to be,” he agreed. Then he frowned at her sketch. “But if all the work areas are underground, how do the servants see to work?”

  A good question. Most people didn’t care about the comfort of their servants. What mattered to them were the rooms above where they lived. “First, we put large windows in the access area beneath the front façade. Then, instead of having a rabbit warren of little work rooms, the basement is mostly open space and lit with gas lamps throughout.” She said thoughtfully, half to herself, “You’d be surprised at how much light a single well-placed lamp can emit. All the new squares will have a gas supply. If you’d like, we can even put gas lighting throughout your house, along with sinks and water closets.” She looked up and met his gaze—he’d been watching her. But oddly, that didn’t bother her. “You will putting in pipes and subscribing to a water service, won’t you?”

  “Oh, yes!” He stopped suddenly, mid nod. “That is, if your father thinks it’s a good idea.”

  Your father…not her. That stung more than she wanted to admit. “It’s definitely a good idea. I think you’ll want a fixed tub in your dressing room, too.” When he blinked at the idea, perplexed, she flipped through the pages to show him the new bath room she’d been designing. “It’s the latest thing. A round tub that you can sit in with a water tank above that rains down over you, and the water all drains away through pipes into the cistern in the basement. It’s called a shower tub.”

  “A shower tub,” he repeated, his voice tinged with awe. “La, that’s brilliant!”

  “Isn’t it, though? The water source comes from the roof cistern. To have hot water, though, the servants will still haul it up from the kitchens and pour it into that little reservoir there on the ceiling. But the fixed drain cuts their work in half because they don’t have to carry the water all the way back down. Why, you could even have a wash basin with running water in the same room.” And a flush toilet. Oh, she longed to have a house with one of those! “And a subbasement for storage.”

  “Perfect,” he murmured, his eyes not leaving her face.

  Heat rose in her cheeks. He was making her uncomfortable…although not necessarily in an altogether bad way. “Mr. Whitby, if you would please focus on—”

  “Because we’re going to need lots of storage space.”

  Her face flushed even more, this time in self-embarrassment. Oh, she was a goose for thinking he was making advances! He was only speaking of cellars.

  She forced a smile. “We can certainly do that.”

  “Excellent!” He clapped his hands together and then flipped back the pages to her dream house. “But tell me more about this. Lots of rooms, you said, and lots of light.”

  “It’s built in a U-shape which adds two extra rooms on each floor and a small courtyard. The stairs are centered beneath a glass dome to let light into the interior—” She caught herself as her excitement swelled and shook her head. “But these are only concepts, you understand. Only my imagination running wild.”

  “That’s what makes them so exciting!” This time his clapped hands were accompanied by a bright laugh. “Exciting and excellent—I can’t wait to hear how you and your father will work these innovations into my house. Coming here was the right decision.” An infectious grin lit his face, and she couldn’t help but smile back. “We’re going to build a marvelous house together, Miss Daring.”

  I hope so. Two of them.

  He stood. “So I’ll leave you both to it.”

  He gave her a bow so low that she feared he might topple over. She scrambled to her feet to catch him, only for him to straighten with a wide grin. He handed her one of his cards with his direction on it.

  “You will send information to me regarding the retainer and when the initial sketches will be ready, won’t you?” His question sounded more like a plea.

  “Of course.”

  He bounced to the doorway, then paused to pick up the hat and gloves he’d left on a chair when he’d arrived and turned back to her. “The lovely Miss Daisy Daring,” he said quietly, his wide grin fading into a dreamy smile. “Build me a grand house.”

  Then he was gone, leaving her to gape after him.

  Rather, almost gone. He poked his head back into the room. “By the by, how long does it take to build a house?”

  “What you’re asking for—basement, frame, interiors… Six months, I should think.”

  “Six months,” he murmured. Happiness beamed from him as if he’d just been told he’d won the lottery. “Wonderful!”

  Then he was gone.

  Daisy stared after him, blinking, her book still lying open in her hands and her forefinger pointing at a sketch. Good heavens, had that conversation really just happened? Her mind swirled. What had they agreed to, exactly? After all, on the tip of her tongue poised all the reasons why she couldn’t possibly build this particular house for him…

  Yet a slow smile spread across her face, one nearly as bright and big as his grins had been. “Why not?”

  She snapped her book closed and rushed upstairs to the drafting table. She had a dream house to plan!

  Hugh Whitby practically skipped as he hurried out of the townhouse and down to the waiting carriage. His heart soared, his pulse pounded, and every inch of his skin tingled with awareness and excitement. All because of her. The lovely Daisy Daring.

  He allowed himself only a brief pause at the carriage door to glance back over his shoulder. Of course, he wouldn’t see her. She was too serious and business-like to stand at a window and watch him leave. Still, he couldn’t help hoping—

  “Well?” His best friend Mariah Winslow Carlisle called out impatiently from inside the carriage. He’d insisted that she wait here because he’d wanted to arrange for the house on his own. Oh, she knew what he was planning—she was his best friend, after all, and he couldn’t keep secrets this large from her…well, any secret, actually, because she had a way of seeing and hearing everything and then prying to get answers when she couldn’t—but he wanted the completed house and its details to be a surprise for as long as possible. “Is Mr. Daring going to build your house?”

  “Better.” He grabbed the doorframe and swung himself onto the bench seat across from her with a self-pleased grin. “I’m going to marry his daughter.”

  “I see.” She thanked the tiger who closed the carriage door and signaled to the coachman to drive away. “And does she know this?”

  “Not yet. The time wasn’t right to tell her.”

  “No, I suppose it wasn’t,” she replied, deadpan. “After all, you were gone less than twenty minutes.”

  “Enough time to know that she’s the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.” He removed his beaver hat and played with it in his hands. He needed to keep busy or he’d simply burst with excitement. Never had he felt the same shock of electricity at meeting a woman as he’d just experienced with Daisy. Never had his mind ran wild as it leapt ahead to days and months and years together. Never had he met a woman like her. “I know it sounds utterly daft, but it was love at first sight. For me anyway.” Laughter bubbled out of him. “Oh, she’s remarkable, Mariah! Brilliant, talented, kind…simply perfect.”

  “You discovered all that in just twenty minutes?”

  “Yes! One—” He held up a single finger. “Brilliant—she knows simply everything about architecture and building houses. What other woman knows those kinds of things?” A second finger went up. “Two, she’s a most talented artist and designer. She showed me her sketches—better than Reynolds and Lawrence.” />
  “Aren’t they oil painters?”

  He ignored that. “And three—” All five fingers went up this time. “She’s kind-hearted to a fault.”

  Mariah frowned. “What makes you think that?”

  He grinned. “She didn’t toss me out.”

  Or make fun of his clothes, the way other women did. Or his bright red hair that he could do absolutely nothing about. And, he reminded himself, she and her father were the only architectural firm of the eight they’d visited so far who’d agreed to work with him. The other men had all laughed when he’d told them what kind of work he wanted done, how many bedrooms, and for whom. Those architects had all said the same thing—they built houses, not hotels for urchins.

  Although, in retrospect, Whitby hadn’t really given Daisy and her father much chance to decline his project. He needed a house for the children of the Gatewell School, her father wanted the work, and Whitby wanted to spend more time with Daisy.

  A win for everyone.

  “She sounds remarkable,” Mariah commented.

  “Oh, she is.” But he couldn’t keep the grief from his face when he added, “She lost her mother when she was young.”

  Mariah nodded, her eyes instantly glistening. She completely understood the importance of that, because both she and Whitby had also lost theirs when they were young.

  Yet concern darkened her face. They’d been best friends for several years, and he recognized that worried look when he saw it, which she often gave him. “But she might not feel the same way about you.”

  “Only because she hasn’t had time yet to realize exactly how good we’ll be together.” He slapped his hat onto his head and leaned back against the velvet squabs. “I’m going to marry her.” He held no doubts about that. He was as certain of that as he was of his own name. “And I want you to be my best man when I do.”