by Lauren Royal
“Ford will have to understand.” She re-folded the last pair of breeches and placed the stack back in his trunk. “He can wait.”
Rand snorted. “I suppose he’s waited for four years. Another couple of hours won’t kill him.”
I’ve thought about you for four years…
Lily shook the words from her head. Last night ought to be the last thing on her mind right now.
She looked away as he came near to dump an armful of stockings in the trunk. Heat was rising in her cheeks, and her hands trembled slightly as they untangled the lump of stockings. If she meant to keep her resolve, she’d have to quash these feelings before they got out of hand.
“Rose is hopeless at packing, too, you know,” she said conversationally. “You two truly have a lot in common.”
“Are you disdaining my skill at packing, madam?”
She felt an instant of remorse before noticing the smile playing at the corners of his lips. An answering grin appeared on her own. “Are you alleging you have any, sir?”
What was it about him that made her so bold? She was hardly ever pert, not even with her own family. But with Rand, these things somehow tumbled out of her mouth.
“Why don’t you show me, then?” He offered a clean but rumpled shirt. “Instruct me in the art of folding, o wise Professor Ashcroft.”
Their fingers touched when she reached for it, and his hand was warm and much larger than hers. The shirt smelled like him, like soap and a hint of musk. Her skin prickled. Unable to meet his eyes, she looked down to see that he hadn’t relinquished the shirt. In fact, he seemed to be using it to draw her closer, and try as she might to uncurl her fingers, they wouldn’t do as they were told.
She barely had time to realize she was about to get her first kiss before it was happening. His lips met hers gently, feather-light, soft and warm as the finest whisper of down. But that whisper alone was enough to make her head swirl. Wanting to feel more, she rose on her toes to press closer.
Rose. She’d promised Rose. She couldn’t do this.
Pulling away in a panic, she was horrified to realize the door was wide open. Why, anyone could have walked by and seen what they were doing! How could she be so stupid? Not to mention thoughtless, shallow, uncaring—
“I have to leave,” she said, stumbling toward the doorway, nearly tripping over her own skirts. She was shaking all over.
Lady tweeted from the window, and Jasper answered with a chirp, alerting Lily to their presence. How long had they been watching? she wondered vaguely, but a hundred other questions and doubts stampeded through her mind, making her stomach want to rebel. How had she let this happen? How could she have betrayed her own sister?
And how in heaven’s name would she ever forgive herself?
FIFTEEN
IT WAS A WEEK later, when Lily was exercising her horse, Snowflake, that she spotted Rand running along the bank of the Thames.
He’d avoided her all that time. Or she’d avoided him. Or both—she wasn’t sure. But now, riding toward him, her heart began to race…and it wasn’t from the exertion of the gallop.
She slowed deliberately, both Snowflake’s gait and her own breathing. She was determined to appear indifferent toward him, though she’d given up attempting to feel indifferent. Each day this week, Rose had contrived some excuse to visit Violet. And each day, when Rose had returned from Lakefield looking injured and disappointed, instead of sympathy, all Lily had felt was relief.
That’s how Lily knew her feelings for Rand were real. They’d changed her.
And not in a way she liked.
But as Violet was always telling her—and anyone else who would listen—humans were rational beings, capable of rising above instinct and emotion to make their own decisions. And since Lily loved her family more than anything else on earth, she knew the rational decision was not to act on these feelings. Right and wrong might seem murky to her of late, but, for her own sake if not for Rose’s, family loyalty had to come first.
Not that it was an easy decision. She hadn’t forgotten that kiss.
Above plain buff breeches, he wore a loose white shirt unlaced and open at the neck, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. Tied back into a queue, his glorious hair streamed on the wind behind him, shimmering in the sun. His unfashionably low-heeled boots pounded along the grassy bank in a rhythm measured and unceasing.
He ran, she thought, like a wildcat, lithe and sleek.
She knew the moment he saw her. There was a telltale stumble in that perfectly smooth motion. And a matching hitch in her heartbeat.
He stopped and leaned over, hands to bent knees, panting hard as he waited for her to ride closer. When she did, he straightened and looked up at her, using a hand to shade his eyes.
His face was flushed; his shirt clung damply to his skin. That piercing gray gaze swept her from her toes on up. When it met her eyes, searching, it seemed almost as though he were seeing her for the first time.
Holding her reins in one hand, she self-consciously smoothed her yellow riding habit with the other.
“Good day, Lily.”
She swallowed tightly. “Good day.”
“I’m finished running,” he said, stating the obvious. But she had the oddest feeling that he spoke of more than exercise. Moving beside her white horse, he reached to help her down. “Will you walk with me? I like to do that after I run.”
There was no harm, she supposed, in walking. But when his hands spanned her waist to ease her to the ground, they caused a disturbing jolt of sensation. And she felt his fingers rest there longer than necessary before he stepped back.
She deliberately looked away, taking Snowflake’s reins and looping them over the branch of a scrubby tree.
A sparrow fluttered from the sky and alighted in the sparse foliage. Rand looked up, then raised a questioning brow. “Lady?”
“Yes. She thinks she’s protecting me.”
“She thinks I cannot defend you without her help?” His laugh sounded strained. “How dare she insult my masculinity.“
To the contrary, Lily suspected Lady was acknowledging his masculinity—protecting her from Rand rather than in spite of him. But she certainly wasn’t going to encourage him by saying so.
They turned and walked along the riverfront, settling easily into a comfortable tempo. Keeping far enough away from him that he couldn’t take her hand, Lily focused on the water. Swans glided majestically, and faint laughter drifted from a river barge whose passengers were enjoying the summer sun.
“Do you run often?” she asked, then realized she knew the answer.
Here was the reason he looked so browned and sleekly muscled. Apparently not all academics spent their days locked away in research.
“Often enough,” he said. “It helps me think.”
Surprised, she turned her head to look up at him. “How can you think while you run that hard?”
“Not during.” Wanting to explain, Rand met her gaze and smiled. “After. Like now. When my body is pleasantly worn-out and I can feel the breeze cooling my skin.”
It had always done that for him, the running. It wasn’t only the speed. It was the strain of pumping muscles, the sound of pounding feet, the delicious gulps of air rushing in and out of his lungs. The rhythm. It all combined to clear his head—to fill his head—leaving no space for worry or concerns. When he was running, he was only running.
And when he stopped, he could always think more clearly. Life seemed simpler. Problems seemed surmountable. Solutions seemed to materialize out of thin air.
But this time, when he’d stopped, Lily had materialized. And he’d thought, quite clearly, that he must be falling in love.
The realization had nearly made his burning leg muscles give way. His heart had hammered against his ribs. Was still hammering against his ribs.
He wasn’t sure he was ready for love, wasn’t sure it was meant for him. Wasn’t he happy the way things were? He’d escaped his personal nightmare and made a lif
e for himself. A good life, a comfortable life, a life in which he didn’t have to answer to anyone.
A lonely life, a little voice whispered.
Lily watched Rand shake his head as though to clear it. ”How long have you been at Oxford?” she blurted out.
“A decade—since I was thirteen. I couldn’t wait to get out of my father’s house, so I jumped at the chance to enter early. He doesn’t approve of what I’ve become, but he cannot tell me what to do any longer.”
“Did he expect you to assist him with his estates?” She knew that Rowan would do that someday, but it was different for Rowan—someday he’d be Lord Trentingham, while Rand would never be more than Lord Hawkridge’s younger brother. “I can understand why you wouldn’t want to do that, or live the life of an idle gentleman. You’d be wasting your talents.”
“I’ve no idea what he expected, but I doubt he harbored dreams of keeping me home. My leaving for Oxford was the only thing we ever agreed on. The old goat was as happy to see the back of me as I was to turn it upon him.”
He grinned as though that was supposed to be amusing, and she smiled in return. But she found it unbearably sad that he’d had to finish growing up by himself—and she sensed it made him sad, too.
No matter what, she’d always have her family and their support. She’d never realized how lucky she was. Rand had pursued his dreams, but he’d done it alone.
No one should have to be alone.
“How did it happen?” she heard him ask, and looked up to find his gaze fixed on where she was absently rubbing the back of her hand.
Swallowing, she hid the hand behind her back. “It doesn’t hurt anymore, if that’s what you’re wondering. It happened long ago.”
He stopped walking. ”But how?” Gently, he retrieved her hand, and she was too embarrassed by its ugliness to protest.
She stared down at the thin white lines. The proof of her imperfection. “A cat. Not Beatrix. And it wasn’t his fault—I was teasing him. I learned to respect animals after that. All animals.”
“I cannot imagine you disrespecting anything.”
Something in his voice made a nervous laugh bubble out of her. “I try not to,” she said, “but I’m far from perfect.”
“You’re close enough to perfect for me,” he said very seriously. His thumb drew circles on her palm, and she shivered. Her lips tingled with remembered sensation.
She licked them. “Rose…”
A puzzled frown appeared on his brow. “Rose? What about her?”
She hesitated. They were standing beneath a tree, and a flutter of wings heralded Lady alighting above them. But Lily’s sparrow friend couldn’t protect her from her confusing feelings.
She suddenly felt very tired. Tired of lying, tired of resisting, tired of the excruciating guilt. She couldn’t do it anymore. This tug-of-war had to end.
She pulled her hand away. “Rose is the reason I shouldn’t be here with you, Rand. She wants you for herself.”
“Ah, so you’re being a good sister, is that it?” To her irritation, his lips curved in a smile. Did he take this for a jest? “Let me tell you, Lily, Rose may very well want me, and I’m sorry to hurt her feelings. But I want you.”
He couldn’t, she thought.
Maybe he did. But he just couldn’t.
While Lady twittered, Lily took a step back. “You’re so like Rose. You both sing, the languages…”
Her words trailed off. Lady flew to a lower branch.
Rand seemed to consider that line of reasoning for a long moment.
When he finally spoke, his tone was laced with quiet conviction. “Maybe I am like Rose. But I don’t want someone like me. I want someone to complete me.”
His words were so earnest, his relentless gray eyes so sure, that he melted her. When he moved closer, when his hand curled around the back of her neck, when he lowered his lips to hers…all she could do was give in.
And giving in felt entirely too right.
Slowly he backed her against the tree, his mouth gentle in the beginning, like it had been the first time. But when she felt the rough bark meet her back, his lips slanted, and she found hers parting, and then, well…
Lily knew about this kind of kiss—she was, after all, the youngest of three sisters. It had sounded rather messy and not entirely pleasant, no matter that she’d been assured otherwise.
There had been no need to worry.
Her eyes drifted closed and her hands crept into his hair, feeling its silky strands damp with his sweat. That should have been unpleasant, too, but it wasn’t. He tasted of salt and somehow smelled clean and musky at the same time, and he overwhelmed every one of her senses.
“Lily?” he whispered against her lips.“I fear I’m falling in love with you.”
Her eyes fluttered open.
”You cannot be,” she said, numb with shock—and afraid it was the same for her. She tried to pull away, fought to gather her wits. This was wrong. “We…we haven’t known each other long enough for you to know that.”
“Four years.”
“No,” she argued, biting her lip. Tears threatened, but she blinked them back. This couldn’t be happening. “Not four years. Not even a month. A couple weeks four years ago, and nine or ten days now. Most of them spent apart.”
“Well, then,” he said quietly, so guilelessly she knew he believed it, “it must have been love at first sight.”
Love? The short word was far too big and real for Lily to manage. It made her heart knot and grow heavy in her chest. Blood pounded in her head, filling her ears.
If he loved her, Lily, then he’d never marry Rose, would he? What was the point of keeping her promise if Rose’s hopes were destined to be dashed either way?
For one single moment, she wanted, more than she’d wanted anything in her life, to break a promise to her sister. Then she gasped, appalled that she’d even had such a disloyal thought. Her family meant everything to her. Rand’s feelings didn’t change that.
“I have to leave,” she said, echoing her words from a week earlier. And she turned toward Snowflake and ran, Lady flying after her.
SIXTEEN
FOR THREE SOLID days, Rand did nothing but eat, sleep, work on the translation, and run. And think. And run and think some more.
At the end of that time, he still wasn’t sure how—or even if—his feelings for Lily had turned from simple infatuation to something deeper. The mechanics of falling in love seemed cryptic, as elusive as the symbols in Ford’s ancient alchemy book.
But Rand Nesbitt was a fellow who prided himself on his ability to figure things out.
Leaving Ford’s laboratory for supper, he asked, “Do you believe in love at first sight?”
“No,” Ford said flatly. “It makes no logical sense.”
“Then you didn’t feel…with Violet…”
“On first sight?” Ford’s mouth twitched as though he were holding back a laugh. “Absolutely not. I thought her rather plain and more than a little odd. Though I cannot imagine why,” he added thoughtfully.
Rand followed him down the winding staircase to Lakefield’s cozy, burgundy-toned dining room, where Violet was waiting with their children.
She didn’t look plain at all—she was practically glowing, as a matter of fact, as she handed one of the twins to a nursemaid. And as for odd, well, if that word didn’t describe Ford Chase, Rand didn’t know one that did.
When it came right down to it, who wasn’t odd, anyway?
He took a seat and waited while a footman set a plate of chicken and artichoke pie before him. “Do you believe in love at first sight?” he asked Violet.
“Of course,” she said. “But lust at first sight is more common.”
A becoming blush touched her cheeks, making Rand suspect she’d experienced lust at first sight. He felt suddenly—absurdly—jealous, wishing her sister would feel the same lust for him.
Love. He’d uttered that frightening word, risked baring his soul, offered
his heart in his hands…and had it rejected.
Lifting his fork, he shifted his gaze to Ford in an attempt to gauge his old friend as an inspiration for female lust. If he looked hard enough, he could almost understand why women might find Ford handsome, but truth be told, what he really saw was the gawky schoolboy he remembered from their first meeting at Wadham College.
This was a pointless exercise, he decided. But when he’d kissed Lily under the tree three days ago, she had kissed him back. At first, anyway. Perhaps that was reason enough to hope.
“Why are you asking?” Violet tucked a cloth under Nicky’s chin, then pulled his plate closer and put a spoon in his chubby hand. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”
“I’m not sure,” Rand said. He certainly hadn’t until recently. Besides, his first sight of Lily had been so long ago. After all this time, how was he supposed to remember what he’d felt way back then? In the intervening years, he’d probably built her up in his mind.
And on such a flimsy basis, he now found himself envisioning a lifetime of wedded bliss. Pathetic.
Violet speared a piece of artichoke heart. “Of course, love—sustainable love—is dependent on more than physical appearance.”
“Which is why,” her husband said, “love at first sight is a myth.”
“Not at all.” Her voice took on the tone of a philosopher waxing philosophical. “Love occurs when something in one person recognizes something basic and true in another. To borrow a term from my mother’s perfume-making, call it that person’s essence. One would see this essence embodied in everything the other person does—those thoughts, actions, responses, and choices that go to display her values.”
“One cannot see all of that at first sight,” Ford argued.
“I beg to differ.” Clearly enjoying this sort of debate, Violet waved her fork. “One person’s essence responds innately to another’s—it’s not a conscious response, nor one that knows time. Upon meeting a woman, some part of you will notice how she moves, gestures, talks, smiles—how she carries herself in general. Her essence—not only her surface appearance.” She focused back on Rand. “Take my sister Lily, for example.”