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She wanted to see where this relationship with Anne could lead.
“My intentions are my own, good sir,” Letty said. “A lady never kisses and tells.”
He bellowed with laughter. “Perhaps a lady doesn’t, but I thought a miss would be more than happy to reveal her all.”
“The miss may have revealed, but her lips are firmly sealed.” She mimed locking her lips and dropping the key in her brandy glass.
“You may keep your secrets from me, Letty, but I hope you don’t keep them from the duchess. You both deserve happiness.”
They did, didn’t they? Even if that happiness was fleeting, one was alive to embrace every moment of it that they could grasp to their bosoms.
“You have not only a soft heart, but a wise one.” She set her glass down and rose. “Thank you for the indulgence. Now I am restored and ready to seek my happiness. I bid you good day, sir.”
She strode out of the library, feeling more confident. The sooner she finished Anne’s bedchamber, the better. She wanted to show Anne that she cared about her, and she wanted to do it by making her most private space the most comfortable and sumptuous that she could manage.
It was time to forget about her problems and take what she could for herself.
Chapter Nineteen
Letty sat on a stone bench in what was once the statuary but was now empty of all adornment save for the immovable pedestals and benches that were placed at even intervals through the long room. She wasn’t finished with the second-floor bedchambers yet, but she had stolen down here with a cup of tea to check that the workers had done the job well of moving everything out.
It was nice to have a moment to herself. Robert’s visit yesterday had taken a toll on her. He hadn’t been at the apartment when she had returned last night, and she hadn’t seen him this morning either. She also hadn’t seen Anne since then, though she wasn’t confident if she wanted to talk to her about Robert and his wild accusations.
She took another sip of tea, trying to focus on the job at hand. Letty was pleased to see that the first floor was now a maze of empty hallways and alcoves, with barren walls and floors. But it still hadn’t dissuaded Hawthorne from staying, and Anne had flatly refused to hear any of her ideas for potential themes for the new rooms.
It was a shame, because Letty was brimming with ideas.
When she started the job, she had thought it would be a simple matter of filling the rooms with riches. Maybe it was because she had spent months drawing up plans for bedchambers and dressing rooms and private sitting rooms, but now she wanted to personalize the public rooms of Hawthorne House—which was the exact opposite décor approach of the other great houses in Mayfair.
She wanted to evoke an emotional response from visitors to the estate with designs that suited the dukedom in its grandeur, butalso celebrated the specific inhabitants of the house. She had never thought to do such a thing before, but the people in this house were becoming dear to her. Letty wanted to give them something special.
One room would signify the rebirth that she was seeing in Anne. The walls would be painted as a beautiful dawn morning, in gradient colors from softest peach at the ceiling to radiant magenta at the baseboard. The room would be filled with modern furniture and sculpture, its modernity signifying the new life that Anne was carving out for herself.
Another room would be designed around the idea of fire, for the passions that flared between them, and another for ice to remember the winter that they met. She couldn’t help but insert memories of their time together into the designs. This winter was changing her, and she wanted to mark it down. She wanted hints of their relationship to last in architecture if it couldn’t last forever in the real world. She had laid out dozens of sketches in her sketchbook and filled it with notes for fabrics and materials.
A shadow fell over her page, and she gasped out a swear.
Hawthorne chuckled. “Apologies, Miss Barrow. I came to see what wonders you have wrought thus far in our humble abode, but you seem to have removed far more than you have replaced.”
She didn’t care for the interruption but couldn’t deny that the duke had the right to enter any of these rooms and to investigate as he chose.
“This isn’t what I would call ‘humble,’” Letty said.
“This isn’t the most marvelous of our estates. Hawthorne Towers is the real masterpiece. Though the chateau that I own in Paris is grander than any of our British imaginations could dream up, I’m afraid.”
Letty wished she could see it, but she bit her tongue.
“You know, I have a great many treasures in storage. You should come with me and bring some of them back here. These rooms are looking sadly empty, I think.”
Letty stilled. It would be wonderful to see what art he had collected. Before she had emptied them, the galleries had favored landscapes and hunting scenes, which she didn’t think suited thecurrent duke or duchess. The statuary had housed nothing but marble busts of Hawthorne ancestors.
She was tempted. “The duchess has charged me with the bedchambers first, Your Grace,” she said, swallowing her ambition. “Perhaps at a later time we could discuss the galleries.”
He glanced outside. “I am on my way now to the docks, actually, as I’m expecting a shipment from France. I’m in the process of bringing over my collection. Would you care to join me?”
Her heart pounded. This was a rare opportunity.
Even though she was at the estate far more than her own apartment these days, it wouldn’t do for Letty to forget her true purpose. She didn’t belong here as part of the nobility, sipping lemonade and gossiping over biscuits. She didn’t want to be like Phin, fretting over his usefulness or lack thereof. She was here towork, and she was proud of it. If viewing art with Hawthorne helped with the house renovation, should she not take the opportunity?
