by Lauren Royal
Rose planted her feet. “I’m not finished talking to Lord Randal.”
Slender Rose was no match for Judith’s solid build. “Oh, yes, you are.” Undeterred, Judith tugged her through the door.
“You’re supposed to be my friend,” Rose protested loudly as she found herself dragged through the gardens.
“I am your friend.” Judith’s voice was getting fainter. “And as your friend, I insist on saving you from further embarrassing yourself.”
Their voices faded. Lily and Rand were left alone. The cool, shaded summerhouse seemed filled with an expectant silence.
Rand sneezed.
“I’m sorry,” they both said together.
He cracked a smile. “What are you sorry for?”
“I’m sorry you had to put up with my sister’s nonsense.”
“I’m sorry you had to overhear it.”
“I’m sorry I made you ill.”
His smile widened. “Ah, but I’m not sorry I kissed you.”
“I’m sorry you’re not kissing me now.”
“I’m sor—what?”
He blinked and took a step closer, and she rushed into his arms.
Whatever had been holding her back had suddenly vanished, like the moon on a cloudy night. Promise or no, Rose didn’t deserve Rand, not after she’d called him a mere professor. Not after she’d tried to bribe him and then trick him into marriage. If Lily had thought she was angry with her sister before, now she was really learning the depths of that emotion.
But she didn’t want to think about Rose now. Not when Rand was right here, holding her close, not when she finally felt free to touch him without feeling like she was betraying her sister.
She raised her hands to his face, feeling the slight roughness on his cheeks. She slid her fingers into his hair, the short strands soft and slippery as silk. He wore no fragrance but just smelled like Rand. Clean and warm. His scent made her head swim, more enticing than the costliest perfume.
She went on her toes to press her lips to his, but couldn’t quite reach. He was so tall, and she was too short.
“I never dreamed you would ever come to me for a kiss,” Rand said, sounding stunned. “Shall I meet you halfway?”
She laughed, the noise joyous to her own ears. Her heart felt light enough to escape her chest and float away. Rose had put Rand in a very awkward position, and Lily had overheard it, and somehow, that had changed everything.
When their lips finally met, the moment felt like a gift, an instant that would live in her heart forever. The kiss sang through her veins, and Lily knew for certain she was in love.
She could no longer deny that she wanted this man more than she’d wanted anything else, ever.
She parted her lips, inviting him in, sinking into the velvet warmth of his caress. What started out sweet and tender turned reckless and hungry, his mouth slanting over hers, his tongue sweeping inside, making her dizzy. A happiness burst in her—a happiness that made her feel as though she could touch the stars in the sky.
He kissed her eyes and her cheeks and her chin, the wild pulse in her throat, the skin revealed by the wide neckline of her silver-trimmed gown. Her hands sneaked beneath his midnight blue surcoat and around him, skimming his thin cambric shirt to feel the sleek muscles she’d seen yesterday. Her legs threatened to buckle under her, and she pressed herself closer, wanting more.
She’d felt something, a magical something, from the first time this man had touched her. Now, suddenly, the kisses weren’t enough. Her heart beat madly, and she ached for more of his touch. When he began easing down her bodice, instead of protesting, she arched, wordlessly offering herself to him like some forbidden fruit.
Rand knew the moment she gave herself over. He sensed desire singing through her body, heard need in the soft moan that escaped her lips. At that moment, he suspected she’d let him take her right there on the hard brick floor.
And at that moment, he also knew he couldn’t do this. He dropped his hands and stepped back.
They gazed at each other, their unsteady breathing the only sound in the small, round building.
He wanted her. He wanted her so much that he hurt. But he would wait. Because his need for her now went beyond the physical—even more than he wanted her body, he wanted her heart.
Love. Ford was right, this had to be love. It wasn’t a comfortable emotion, but it was there, and it wouldn’t be going away. Rand needed Lily—her sweetness, her faith in him, the way she made him feel—more than he needed to breathe. And he wanted, more than anything, to make her feel cherished in return.
He couldn’t remember ever putting anyone else first, before himself. It could only be love, no matter that he’d believed it would never happen for him.
Never say never, he thought with a rueful laugh.
Readjusting her gown, Lily looked flushed and beautiful—and disconcerted. “Why are you laughing? Why did you stop kissing me?”
He couldn’t explain it. The plan had been working. He and Lily were bound by a certain something—magnetism, Ford would call it—that he’d never felt with any other woman. He could win her, he knew, with the plan.
With seduction.
He was glad it had worked for Ford. But the plan, both times, had been conceived in a drunken haze. And the sobering reality was that no matter how much Rand’s body begged him otherwise, seduction was not the way he wanted to win Lily.
Strong as it might be, there was so much more between them than lust. When she agreed to be part of his life, he wanted that decision to be made with her head and her heart, not just her body.
He moved closer but kept some necessary distance by placing his hands on her shoulders. “I want you to play a song for me.”
“Pardon?” Unsure she’d heard right, Lily searched his intense gray eyes. Her senses were still spinning. Her knees were still weak.
“I want you to play a song. On the harpsichord. And I’ll sing.”
“Now?”
“Now. Right now. In your family’s drawing room. Will you do that for me, Lily?”
She nodded, too confused to bother asking why. Right now, there was little he could ask for that she would refuse.
He took her hand to leave, but before she could even register how good it felt to have his fingers linked with hers—before they cleared the door—her father walked in.
“Have you seen my ironclad spade?”
Struggling to control her heart rate, Lily took a deep breath and quickly scanned the dim summerhouse. There was no spade. There wasn’t anything in here, in fact, save the narrow wooden benches attached to the circular wall.
“It’s not here, Father. Why don’t you ask the head gardener?”
“Hmm,” he said. “I was hoping it would be in here. Perhaps I should ask the head gardener.” Muttering to himself, he turned and left.
Rand sneezed, using his free hand to block it. “Pardon me,” he said.
“You are falling ill.”
He shrugged. “Your father didn’t hear your suggestion.”
“I never expect him to hear anything. If he does, I consider myself lucky.”
“He wouldn’t have said a thing had he found me alone with Rose, would he?” Sounding incredulous, Rand raised their still-joined hands. “He didn’t even notice I was here.”
“Well, what did you expect?” Lily grinned. “You’re not a flower.”
TWENTY-FIVE
IN THE FICKLE way of summer, the sky had clouded up while Rand and Lily were in the summerhouse. Beatrix, Lady, and Jasper appeared and followed them back to the house. Claiming he didn’t want an audience, Rand maneuvered to get through the door without allowing them inside.
The animals went around and entered through one of the drawing room’s windows instead.
Lily sat at the harpsichord and arched her fingers over the keys, then hesitated. Her nose was dripping. She pulled the handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabbed.
“Go ahead,” Rand said. “Blow.”<
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Love, she supposed, meant being able to blow your nose in front of the man. So she did, even though she was no timid nose-blower.
It didn’t seem to scare him away. In fact, in the middle of her blow, he sneezed again, and then he fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his own nose, too.
“We’re wrecks,” Lily said, thinking it felt strangely wonderful to comfortably share an illness. She faced the keyboard again. “What do you want me to play?” She suspected the tune she’d been practicing for him wasn’t what he had in mind.
He thought for a moment. “Do you know the one that starts ‘Let’s love and let’s laugh’?”
Like so many popular songs, it had no title, but she did know it. She nodded.
He leaned against the harpsichord. “Then play it, please.”
When she did, his gaze locked on hers as he began to sing.
“Let’s love and let’s laugh,
Let’s dance and let’s sing;
While shrill echoes ring;
Our wishes agree,
And from care we are free,
Then who is so happy, so happy as we?”
Although there were three more verses, he stopped singing, still holding her gaze. She played a few more bars and then stopped, too.
For a moment, the room was so quiet she could hear the clock ticking on the mantel.
“Did you hear that, Lily?”
He wasn’t referring to the clock. “The words?” she wondered. Let’s love. Could he mean…
Her heart skipped a beat, and she nearly missed what he said next.
“The words fit us, don’t they? But no, I didn’t mean the words. What did you hear?”
“What did I hear?” she echoed faintly, feeling confused. But her heart began pumping a little faster. “It sounded good. You sound good. You have a wonderful voice.”
He stepped closer. “But my voice doesn’t sound nearly as good alone as it does together with your music. It doesn’t sound as complete.” His gaze still held hers in thrall. She could lose herself in those eyes. “I want that with you, Lily. I want you to provide the melody for my songs. And I, the words to your tunes.”
He seemed to be talking about more than music. Her blood rushed even faster. Did she dare to hope she could hold on to this newfound happiness?
“Don’t say anything,” he said, still watching her. “Not yet.”
Lady chirped in the window, and Jasper chattered, and Beatrix wound around Rand’s legs.
Yet he had eyes only for Lily.
“I’m just a professor,” he said.
Rose’s thoughtless words had affected him. Hurt him. For a moment, Lily felt a degree of anger toward her sister she hadn’t thought possible. “Rand, you aren’t just anything. Not to me.”
He slid onto the harpsichord’s bench and shifted to face her, taking her hands. “I want you to listen. I am just a professor. I live in a house. Once it’s finished it will be a very nice house, but just a house all the same, not a mansion like Trentingham. And it isn’t perched on land that stretches as far as the eye can see. It sits in the middle of a town with other buildings all around it.”
Was he asking her to marry him, or explaining why he couldn’t? “I don’t care—” she started.
He stopped her by squeezing her hands. “I’m a second son. I may have the word Lord in front of my name, but that’s only a courtesy title. I’ll never sit in the House of Lords like your father. I could attend court if I wished, and London balls, but the fact is, I don’t. Or I haven’t,” he corrected himself. “I’m willing to go to such events if doing so would please you, as long as it’s not during term time.”
This was a prelude to a proposal. Her breath caught, and she coughed in reaction. “I don’t care,” she repeated. “Rand, I—”
“I’m not finished.” He coughed, too, then furrowed his brow, as though he was trying hard to remember everything he wanted to say. “You should know that I earn a nice living. But you should also know that it’s been years since the marquess supplemented my income.”
“The marquess?”
“My father. But like I said, I do well enough.” When his gaze swept her gown, she felt as though he were disrobing her with his eyes. “I expect I can afford to dress you in the lovely manner to which you’re accustomed,” he added with a grin.
She smoothed her periwinkle skirts. “I’d wear sackcloth to be with you,” she said quietly. “You just sang of love and laughter. Money cannot buy that. Besides, I do have a marriage portion. Three thousand pounds.”
Three thousand pounds was a more than respectable dowry, considering the average shopkeeper earned less than fifty pounds a year. But Rand didn’t look as though he cared, as though the money mattered at all.
At their feet, Beatrix started hiccuping, and he leaned to pick her up. “What of your animals?”
It was startling to realize she hadn’t considered them, even more startling to see Rand—an avowed dog person—with her cat on his lap.
He absently stroked Beatrix’s striped fur. “I do have a garden,” he started; but then a corner of his mouth curved up in a rueful half smile. “Well, I don’t expect your father would consider it a garden, but I’ve a patch of land behind my house. I can ask Kit to toss up a shelter of sorts…but it won’t be the grand animal home you’ve been envisioning.”
The fact that he cared about her dreams made tears prick in her eyes. “It sounds perfect, Rand, enough for the strays I have now. And once I come into my inheritance…well, I always envisioned building here at Trentingham, anyway. I can hire local people to care for the animals.” It was what she did for the weeks when she and her family went to London, and the employment, however temporary, had always been appreciated. “Perhaps I’ll be able to visit—”
“Of course you will. Oxford isn’t far, and I expect you’ll want to see your family often.”
“A positive statement,” she observed, risking a tiny smile. “Does that mean you’re finished trying to talk me out of…”
She couldn’t say the rest of it. He hadn’t, after all, formally asked her to marry him. And the possibility was so shockingly new to her, she hadn’t yet thought it over. So she let the words hang there, waiting.
It seemed like forever.
“Yes,” he said at last. He squeezed her hands again and leaned near, until his mouth nearly touched hers. His eyes were so close she could see flecks of black and steel blue in the gray. His breath teased her lips, making them tingle. “Since I’ve apparently failed to talk you out of it, what do you say, sweetheart? Can we play and sing together for the rest of our lives?”
His words were calm and measured, as though he were proposing a business arrangement.
But his heart was in those amazing eyes.
Unlike Rose, Lily admired Rand’s success in the face of his family’s disapproval. That strength was one of the things she loved about him—through good times and bad, a woman could depend on a man like Rand. But she knew him better than Rose did. She knew that beneath the self-sufficiency lurked a hurt little boy who needed someone to hold him.
Did she want to be that someone? Was she willing to do it at the expense of her sister? Could she, for the first time in her life, be selfish enough to put herself first?
She remembered Rose’s behavior in the summerhouse and knew the answer was yes.
And she didn’t even have to say it. He read her response in her eyes, and both joy and relief leapt into his.
Then their lips met, and her heart took flight. She’d never thought she could feel such happiness. He was everything she’d wanted, and she hadn’t even known it. He kissed her over and over, and she wished he would never stop.
A part of her wondered if this was really happening, because it felt like a magical dream. A fantasy come true.
When he finally pulled away, he uneasily eyed the assorted creatures who’d been watching. Appearing startled to find Beatrix on his lap, he set her atop the harpsichord.
“I certainly hope they don’t expect to witness our wedding night,” he said wryly.
She blushed and laughed, then laughed even harder when they both began coughing.
Life was wonderful, even with a stuffy nose.
TWENTY-SIX
WHEN LILY AND Rand told Chrystabel they had news for the family, her eyes sparkled with delight.
“Since your father’s already in the gardens,” she said, “why don’t you find him and then wait by the twenty-guinea oak? In the time it would take me to explain why I want him to come inside, I can gather everyone else and meet you there.” A wide smile on her face, she hurried off.
It didn’t take long to find Lily’s father, who happened to be weeding a flower bed near the oak, using a hook and a forked stick. Lily decided to let him continue puttering.
She and Rand waited beneath the tree. “I should have told Rose first,” she suddenly realized, knowing her sister was going to be devastated. A stab of sympathy took her by surprise.
Rand shot a glance to her oblivious father before wrapping an arm around her waist. “Because of your promise?”
“You knew?”
He squeezed, drawing her closer. “Your mother would never forgive you if you told your sister first.”
“True,” Lily murmured, realizing a second truth: She didn’t want to tell Rose first. She didn’t want to deal with her own anger or her sister’s.
“Hey.” He tilted her face up and touched a finger to the dent in her chin. “You’re supposed to be happy right now.”
“I am,” she said and smiled.
Next Rowan hurried out to meet them under the gigantic oak. “Benjamin couldn’t fish,” he said with a pout. “Mum said you have something to tell us?”
“Yes,” Lily said, “we do.”
“So what is it?”
She tweaked his nose. “You’ll have to wait for everyone else.”
With a small huff of impatience, he leapt to catch the lowest bough that branched off the huge, twisted trunk.
“It’s a big tree,” Rand commented, looking like he didn’t quite know what to say to Lily’s little brother. She supposed that living at a university, he hadn’t much experience with eleven-year-old boys.
