Chapter 21
They met Evangeline in the hall and went up the stairs, still unfinished but lit by a beautiful skylight above.
Her aunt paused to exclaim over the beauty of it and the way it allowed natural light into all floors, but Joan marveled at how much care Tristan was taking.
The house wasn’t merely being restored, it was being almost rebuilt.
He was eradicating what had made him unhappy and making the house his own, right down to the floorboards and mechanisms. She had seen and heard of modern improvements, but never seen so many collected in one place.
She trailed her fingertips along the oak banister, trying not to wonder if he pictured his modern, welcoming house filled with a wife and family.
They went through all the rooms. Evangeline joined them as they went up to see where the greatest damage had been, where the air was thick with fresh sawdust and the limey smell of plaster.
Tristan pointed out the improved bell system, which ran all the way into the servants’ quarters.
He showed them the addition being built out at the back of the house to allow for water closets on every floor.
He demonstrated the water pumps in the servants’ closet upstairs, enabling water to be drawn easily and quickly for the bedrooms. He showed them the main drawing room overlooking the Square, where the floor was being relaid in an intricate parquet pattern because the old boards had been burned by loose coals and warped by the flood.
“I have rarely been filled with such envy for a house,” Evangeline told Tristan as she watched the workmen fitting floorboards together. “I shall shamelessly copy this design in my own house.”
“I give full credit to Mr. Davies.” Tristan motioned to one of the workmen, who looked up and doffed his cap.
“Indeed! Mr. Davies, how long will it take to cover this whole floor?”
Tristan drew her away as Evangeline questioned the workers. “You must help me choose the furnishings,” he said.
Joan laughed as he led the way to the master bedchamber. “I’ve no idea! You must have some preferences of your own.”
“I do,” he assured her. “Mechanical improvements, and things I prefer changed. Servants’ quarters where the servants can stand upright, for instance. But the finer points—draperies and carpets and such—elude me.”
“Anyone can choose those,” she tried to say, but Tristan shook his head.
“You’re wrong. Anyone can, but not everyone can choose them well, to make a house warm and welcoming. I care for that more than for creating a grand palace for entertaining.”
Joan didn’t know what to say. He was looking at her in such an intense, direct way . . .
“This is the master’s bedchamber,” she said. “Your bedroom.”
“There’s no bed in here yet.”
She wet her lips. “But there will be.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “In a few weeks. What should I see when I wake?”
Me, she thought on a sudden burst of longing. Oh, help. She was falling in love with him, and picturing him in his bed, forging a home out of this once dark and gloomy house, was not helping her peace of mind.
“Er . . . deep blue,” she said softly. Blue was her favorite color. “With patterned bed hangings.”
“What sort of pattern? Chinoiserie?”
“No.” She tried not to think of it as her room, or her bed. “Something natural, as if to bring a bit of the garden indoors.”
His eyes lit with a slow smile. “Excellent suggestion. Thanks to you I shall have the whole house finished in half the time.”
She gave a startled little laugh. “That still seems a long time from now.”
“Don’t underestimate my determination. I want it done sooner.
” He paused. “I often get what I want.” Joan waited, at once hopeful and anxious, but he turned away.
“This room was almost untouched by the water. Only the windows needed repair. I expect it will be painted within a week—blue, thanks to you.”
She let out her breath. “When will you take up residence?”
“Soon. Very soon.” He crossed the room to a door in the far corner. “I have something else to show you. This is the most impressive room.”
Joan followed him, feeling very impressed already.
And this room was no different. It was small but bright, painted a brilliant yellow with a row of casement windows running almost the length of the back wall.
But they were high, so high she could just see out of them while standing. And right beneath them . . .
“What do you think?” Tristan asked.
“Is this a room for—for bathing?” Joan eyed the tub. It was rather large.
“Of course.”
“A whole room for bathing,” she repeated.
“Why?” It wasn’t unheard of for country houses to have rooms for bathing, or even whole bathing houses.
But that was in the country, where houses had plenty of space to expand and rooms to spare.
This was a London town house, and not an exceptionally large one at that.
“Because of this.” With a flourish he opened the doors of a large cupboard in the corner.
Joan stared at the mass of metal within. “What is it?”
“It’s a water heating system. This tank fills with water from a collection device on the roof.
” He rapped his knuckles against it, and it gave a resounding glug.
“It’s quite ingenious; rainwater fills it with just enough for a full bath, and then the rest runs down into the main cistern in the courtyard.
When you light a fire in the stove beneath it, the water is heated, all at once.
Then you open this valve”—he turned the lever mounted on the wall as he spoke—”and heated water flows into the bath.
” And right before her eyes, water streamed from the mouth of a lion’s head mounted on the wall just above the tub.
“Is the water really warm?” Joan stripped off her glove and put her fingers in the water still pouring out the lion’s mouth. It felt cold to her.
“It has to be heated first. See, there’s a specially built stove here.
” He opened the grate beneath the water tank.
“In half an hour, this entire tank of water can be heated. And if you work this agitator, it can take even less time,” he added, grabbing a handle near the top of the tank.
“It stirs the water so it heats evenly. That was my idea.”
“Your idea!” she exclaimed. “You designed this?”
He laughed. “No, just the agitator.” He turned the valve, and the water running from the lion’s mouth slowed and stopped.
As they watched, the water drained out a hole in the bottom of the tub.
“Far superior to carrying buckets up and down from the kitchen. This apparatus only requires one servant, to stoke the fire and work the agitator, and takes less time. And then the water drains out into the sewer at the end, saving more labor.”
“Yes, I see what you mean.” She looked around the room with considerably more respect. It was an extravagance to be sure, but a very appealing one. Joan quite liked the idea of bathing in a tub of toasty hot water; Janet frowned on such things, saying brisk water was best for young people.
And Tristan was extremely proud of this room; he opened other cupboards to display shelves for linens and toweling and soap. “The chimney from the stove rises right behind the linen cupboard, enabling it to warm the towels. A warm towel after a bath on a cold March day is just the thing.”
“I can imagine,” she said longingly.
“I hear a man over in Ludgate has invented a new shower-bath, to enable one to bathe standing up, with water pouring down like a waterfall,” he went on. “I hope to get one.”
“Standing up!” She laughed. “You could stand in your tub and have your man pour the water over you.”
He grinned. “What would be the appeal of that?”
“If there is nothing mechanical about it, it cannot be appealing?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m quite content to have a servant pour the water, thank you.”
He didn’t say anything. His exuberant grin slowly faded even as his attention seemed to sharpen. Joan found herself caught by his gaze, and suddenly remembered how very alone they were. The house was quiet around them; the workmen must be taking a rest.
She wet her lips. “What are you thinking?” She meant to break the tension, but instead her voice came out low and husky.
He put his hand on the edge of the tub. “I was thinking what you would look like, bathing in this room. How your skin would glisten when wet. How your hands would glide over your body as you washed. How flushed you would be from the steam.”
Oh sweet heavens. It was just the sort of thing that would happen to Lady Constance. Joan’s heart leapt and raced. She was being seduced. Not even Tristan could say such things—he was picturing her in his bath!—and not know what it would sound like.
She gripped her hands together to hide their sudden trembling. “That’s very forward.”
“To picture it? Or to say it?”
Neither one of them had moved, but the room seemed to be shrinking by the moment.
“To say it, of course.” What should she do?
Joan desperately wanted him to kiss her; she had wanted him to kiss her downstairs, too.
There was no point in denying that any longer, but the problem was, she didn’t know how to be seduced.
Lady Constance would do the right thing, but she had no idea how to proceed.
“I’ve long since admitted defeat on controlling what anyone else thinks. ”
One corner of his mouth turned up. “I’m the one who admits defeat.
You have controlled my thoughts almost from the moment we met on your brother’s doorstep.
” She gave him a wary look. That might not be such a good thing, given what had passed between them then .
. . but the focused desire in his face stopped her from saying anything.
“I wanted to strip you out of your horrible frock that day, and I thought about kissing you as a way of winning our argument. I even thought of reading you some prurient poetry in that bookseller’s shop, just to see you blush. ”