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The necessity had slipped Daniel’s mind. “I was waiting for your opinion.”
“Next to the kitchens,” she declared.
“Because the fires are always lit there, and they will warm the water.” He remembered that.
Carson looked at Miss Pendleton and then back at Daniel. His expression was bemused. Possibly, most likely, he’d never met a young lady like her, Daniel thought. And he’d probably never encounter another. She was enchantingly unique.
“But we don’t want to interfere with the cooking,” she replied. “That wouldn’t do.”
They trailed after her as she headed toward the back premises, rather like staff officers supporting their commander on an inspection, Daniel thought. A startled housemaid stood against the corridor wall as they passed, arms full of clean linens. In the kitchen, the cook and her helpers stopped work and turned to bob curtsies and stare. Macklin’s lad Tom rose from a chair in the corner, in the act of biting into a buttered scone. “Good day, Mrs. Jensen,” said Daniel to the cook. “We’ve come to examine the rooms hereabouts. I’ve decided to put in a bathing chamber at Frithgerd, and it needs to be near the kitchen fires.”
The cook looked confused. “Bathing, my lord?”
“A tub,” he said. “With pipes for hot water.”
The cook looked at the hot-water reservoir on her closed stove and frowned.
“How?” asked Tom. The scone had been devoured in three huge bites. The lad’s homely face was bright with curiosity.
Before Daniel could reply, his housekeeper arrived in a rush. Word of their incursion was obviously spreading through the house. “I wasn’t told that you needed anything, my lord,” Mrs. Phipps said. Reproach tinged her tone.
Daniel repeated his announcement.
“Bathing chamber.” His housekeeper repeated the words as if they were in a foreign language.
“It’s a new invention,” said Miss Pendleton. “The very latest thing.” Gesturing with the roll of plans, she gathered the attention of everyone in the room. “Water will be pumped up to a tank in the attics,” she continued. “Mr. Carson will fit pipes to bring it down to a smaller tank next to the fire, where it will be heated, and then brought into the chamber. After that, it will be a matter of simply turning a spigot and running a hot bath.” She made a twisting gesture with one hand. All eyes followed it. “And no one will have to carry countless cans of heated water upstairs to fill a tub again.”
“Champion,” said Tom.
“I don’t believe it,” said Mrs. Phipps.
Miss Pendleton turned to the housekeeper. “I daresay some visitors won’t wish to come down to bathe and will still prefer the old way.”
“I should say so,” she muttered.
“People will be traipsing naked through my kitchen?” asked the cook. She frowned at Daniel as if he was proposing to shed his clothes here and now.
He met Miss Pendleton’s eyes, ready to laugh, and encountered a look that turned his thoughts in quite a different direction. Might she come and make use of his new bathing room? Surely she would wish to test her creation when it was finished. And what if she wanted company in that steamy luxury? The unprecedented, outrageous idea made his breath catch.
She looked away. “Not naked,” she answered, her voice a bit high. “In their dressing gowns perhaps. But we’ll make certain they don’t disturb you here by choosing the right location. What is on the other side of the chimney?”
That was the ticket, Daniel thought. Keep pressing forward before objections could pile up.
“A set of storerooms, miss,” answered Mrs. Jensen.
“We should look at those. This way, is it?” Before anyone could protest, she was through a brick archway and gone. Daniel went after her, with Henry Carson, the housekeeper, the cook, and Tom on his heels. The narrow corridor on the other side was immediately overcrowded.
A row of four small chambers backed up to the great chimney. “We use these for storing things that need to be warm and dry,” said the cook. “Flour and such.”
Miss Pendleton paced to the small window at the far end and looked into the fourth storeroom. “This would do,” she declared. “We could close off the corridor here.” She drew an imaginary line on the floor with one foot. “And open up a new entrance here.” She patted the rough plaster of the wall opposite the rooms. “I wonder what’s on the other side.”
Daniel visualized the geography of his home. “That would be the blue parlor, I believe. Where we put the trunks.” This wasn’t the worst news, as the room wasn’t much used. But he hadn’t realized they’d be ripping through walls.
“That’d let us run the pipes down the outside of the house from the attic,” said Henry Carson. He looked relieved. As well he might, Daniel thought, if he’d been wondering how to fit pipes through thick walls and ceilings.
“Much easier,” agreed Miss Pendleton. She stepped into the storeroom. Daniel followed. “Oh good, there’s a window here,” she said, waving at the small opening. She put a hand to the far wall. “It’s warm.”
Daniel mirrored her pose. The bricks were indeed warm from the kitchen fires. He looked down at the storm—in the guise of a lovely young lady—that he’d unleashed on his peaceful dwelling. Her answering gaze was eager, arrested, and then intensely arousing.
