by Lauren Royal
“Maybe he’ll have one painted of you to replace it.”
He gave a strangled laugh. ”I wouldn’t go so far as to assume that.”
Beatrix followed them back through the sitting room and into Alban’s old dressing room, and it was empty, too. The clothes presses were gone, the walls stripped and waiting to be finished. “Kit is arranging for someone to build cabinets.” Rand took the goblet from Lily’s hand. “Newfangled ones with drawers.”
She turned to him. “It all sounds wonderful. I love it. I love you.”
“And I love you.” A smile lit his eyes as he sipped, regarding her over the rim. Without swallowing, he bent and put his mouth to hers, giving her a sweet, cold, sparkly kiss as he shared the bubbly beverage.
She swallowed and laughed. “Eleven more days and we’ll be together for good.”
“Too long.” He took another sip and gave her another effervescent kiss, the champagne still fizzing in her mouth when he pulled back to skim his knuckles along her cheek. Her skin tingled wherever he touched, and the champagne kisses were making her lightheaded.
When Beatrix began hiccuping, Lily bent to pet her soothingly. A distraction from Rand while she attempted to recover her wits. Looking up at him, she mustered a teasing smile. “Did you bring me in here to show me the renovations or to get me alone?”
“Both,” he replied with a grin. When she straightened, he took another sip and leaned over to meet her lips once again. When his mouth moved to her neck, she sighed dreamily, licking the remnants of champagne off her lips. Delicious. Rand’s kisses were delicious.
Beatrix suddenly began meowing emphatically.
“Ignore her,” they whispered together.
Meow…
Lily felt Rand’s warm hand settle on the small of her back while a chilled goblet touched the nape of her neck, making her shiver—and not from the cold. A thrill of excitement rolled through her, coupled with wonder that he would be hers. Not only today, but forever. Seeing Margery wed Bennett had made it all seem more real.
Her own wedding was next.
Meow, meow…
The mere thought made her giddy, made her heart beat wildly. She pressed closer to Rand, tilting her head until their mouths fit together perfectly.
Meow, meow, meeeooow…
A knock came at the door. “Lily? Rand? Are you in there?”
“Goodness! It’s Mum!” Lily sprung away from Rand, her pulse racing not with excitement now, but with something more akin to panic. “Beatrix was trying to warn us!” she whispered, straightening her neckline where it had drooped down one shoulder.
“Your mother?” Rand looked altogether unruffled.
More knocking. “Lily? Are you in there?”
Amusement lit Rand’s eyes. “I’ll get the door.”
“Not yet!” Her hands patted her coiffed curls. “Is my hair all right?”
“Are you in there, dear?”
“You look fine. Irresistible, in fact.” Apparently proving himself unable to resist, Rand gave her one last kiss before taking her hand and leading her into the sitting room to answer the door. Lily did her best to look composed. As the door swung open, revealing her parents, she plastered on a smile.
Mum’s gaze flicked to Lily’s bodice before settling on her face. “There you are!” she said brightly.
Too brightly.
“I was just showing Lily the rooms we’ll be using when we live here,” Rand said unconvincingly.
“We’d love to see them, too,” her mother said and walked straight into the bedchamber.
As her parents passed, Lily looked down, mortified to find one of her stomacher tabs had somehow come unattached. She whirled away, fastening it surreptitiously before joining them in the other room.
“This entire home is magnificent.” Mum crossed to a wall and ran a hand down the newly stripped paneling. “The grain is lovely.”
“I thought to paint it white for Lily,” Rand said. “But Kit suggested a pale stain might look nicer on this wood.”
Mum nodded her approval. “What kind is it?”
Her husband pulled out his pocket watch and flipped open the lid. “Half past three.”
“Maple,” Rand said, clearly suppressing a laugh.
Joseph snapped the pocket watch shut, nodding vaguely at Rand. “I expect you’ll be staying here the next week or so to supervise finishing this?”
Rand raised his voice. “The house in Oxford needs my attention, too, Lord Trentingham. Perhaps I can bring Lily along—”
“I think not,” Mum interrupted. “The bride-to-be will be at home, busy with wedding plans.”
Lily looked at her mother in surprise, having thought the arrangements more or less complete. “Mum, I think—”
“You’ll be busy,” she repeated. “If you weren’t insisting on marrying so quickly, it might be a different matter. But I’ll need your help. Now, I imagine Margery and Bennett are missing us, so let us end our little house tour here.”
As they all returned to the great hall together, Lily exchanged a frustrated glance with Rand. Were they to be kept apart entirely until their wedding?
“Elizabeth!” Mum cried, waving to a neighbor and dragging Joseph in her direction. “I’ve found the perfect man for your daughter.”
No sooner had her parents walked off than Rand swung Lily to face him. “Margery wasn’t missing us.” He aimed a pointed look to where his baby sister was half entwined with Bennett, blissfully unaware of any of the guests.
Lily nodded. “Mum is trying to keep us apart. I cannot figure why—”
“Does it matter why? She intends to make certain we don’t see each other again until the day of our wedding.”
A maid came by with fresh goblets of champagne. Rand took one and a bottle, too, meeting Lily’s eyes in a way that made her certain he had an idea that involved the sparkling wine.
An idea Mum wouldn’t approve.
Lily’s lips tingled at the thought. She took the goblet from him and downed a bracing swallow.
“If this is to be our last evening together, we must make the most of it,” Rand said, sounding as though he’d just assigned himself a mission. He cast a glance to Lily’s parents and, seeing their backs momentarily turned, grabbed her hand. “Come along.”
He hurried her into the adjoining dining room, where footmen were setting the long gatelegged table with Delftware dishes for the wedding supper. Lily glanced back into the great hall. “They’ll just find us again.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” he advised her, taking the empty goblet from her hand and setting it on the leather-topped sideboard. Still carrying the bottle, he led her into the next room.
Having peeked in here once, Lily recognized the tall, heavy oak bed. His father’s bed.
She stopped short and gaped. “We cannot hide in here! What if your father comes in to get something?”
Laughing, Rand leaned a hand on the wall.
Lily was astonished to see a panel swing open. They slipped beyond it, and Rand closed it quietly.
“A secret passage?” she said in wonder.
“Not secret.” Calmer now but no less determined, he guided her through a windowless corridor lit by plain lanterns mounted on walls painted a simple pale gray. “The house has these passages all through it,” he explained, guiding her around a corner. Here, a longer hallway bustled with servants carrying dishes and linen. “Father didn’t want the staff walking through one chamber to get to another, so corridors run behind. That way, they can duck in and out of rooms unobtrusively.”
The floors were not painstakingly polished here, but covered with long rush mats instead. With no fire to warm it, the passage was chilly. “Do all the rooms have secret doors?”
“Most of them, but the doors aren’t secret, either. They’re designed not to be obvious, but you’ll find them if you look for them.”
Lily shivered. “If there’s a door into our suite, I want it sealed.”
She tho
ught Rand smiled beside her, but the corridor was too dim to tell for sure. Rows of leather fire buckets hung overhead, making her think they must be near the kitchen. “Where are we going?”
“Out. Through the servants’ entrance.”
“Out? You mean outside? Into the rain?”
His hand squeezed hers. “No one will be coming out in the rain to look for us, will they?”
Summer rain blew in when he pushed open the door. They made a run for it, Rand holding Lily with one hand and the champagne bottle with the other. After crossing the courtyard to the outbuildings, they finally ducked into the dairy.
Though Rand shut the door against the rain, it still pattered on the roof and slashed against the dairy’s diamond-paned windows, reminding Lily of their betrothal picnic in the summerhouse at Trentingham.
“I can hardly believe it,” he said, shaking rain out of his hair. “I thought this day would never come.”
“What day?” she asked.
He adopted a solemn tone. “The day I, Rand Nesbitt, outsmarted the incomparable Lady Trentingham.”
Lily giggled, glancing around the small room. “Where are the dairymaids?”
“Inside, helping with the wedding. No one will interrupt us.” He grinned. “Even Beatrix failed to make it out here.”
The walls were plain and whitewashed. Lily turned in a slow circle, her shoes leaving wet prints on the red tile floor. Pails, pans, and strainers sat on a wide marble counter supported on legs that ended in cows’ hooves. She hugged herself, smiling at the whimsy.
“Cold?” Rand asked.
“A little. There’s no fire.”
“I’ll warm you up,” he said, the tone of his voice leaving no doubt how he planned to accomplish that end. The champagne bottle landed on the marble surface with a definitive clunk.
He took her hands and raised them to his lips. Slowly he kissed the palms and the backs and the fine white scars.
“Don’t flinch,” he murmured when she did. Looking down, he traced the webbed patterns with a fingertip. “They’re beautiful, because they’re part of you.”
Her throat closed with emotion, but she managed a shaky smile. “They remind me that I’m imperfect, which I suppose is not such a bad thing.”
“It’s a good thing you have one flaw.” He kissed her nose and then her mouth, tiny damp kisses. “I’d feel too inferior living with perfection.”
Something twisted in her heart. “There were times when I feared you’d never be living with me at all.”
“Never say never,” he murmured, raising the champagne bottle, as if in a toast. He tipped his head back and took a sip, then held the bottle to her lips. The champagne tickled as it slid down her throat.
He backed her against the counter, his hands coming around her waist to make a barrier between her and the cold marble. His lips were gentle and cherishing, slow and languid, as though they had all the time in the world.
The pitter-pat of rain blended with her sighs, blocking out everything but the two of them. Here and now, it seemed there was only she and Rand and their love.
It was a long time before he broke the kiss. But he stayed close, leaning his forehead against hers.
“This is a perfect afternoon,” she whispered.
“We’ll have more.” He pulled back to look at her with those startling gray eyes, the first thing she’d ever noticed about him. With one gentle finger, he touched the dent in her chin. “A lifetime together.”
Nothing would ever come between them again.
FOR A LONG time Rand held Lily in his arms, humming a gentle lullaby that reminded him of his mother, his gaze drifting out the window. It struck him that he was happier here in this cold, austere dairy with Lily than he’d ever been, anywhere, without her. Beyond the glass, tall old trees danced in the blustery breeze, bright green against the dark gray sky, and farther beyond that, the red brick of Hawkridge Hall loomed majestically.
This estate—all of this—would someday be his. And he belonged here, as much as he belonged in a lecture hall or huddled over a cryptic passage of ancient text.
He’d spent his childhood here craving acceptance from a father who couldn’t stand the sight of him and a brother who lived to torment him. Alban was dead now, his evil laid to rest. And as for the marquess…perhaps now he’d finally have a chance to get to know the son he’d turned his back on. Perhaps he’d even approve.
But to Rand it didn’t really matter anymore. Because now he had Lily.
He tilted her chin up for a kiss. He would never get enough of her, he thought as he grazed her eyes and her cheeks and her mouth, settling there to savor her soft lips. A kiss as gentle as the summer rain, a kiss for them both to melt into, a kiss to meld bodies and souls. And then another kiss. And another.
And another, until they heard a scratch and a peck and a tap against one of the dairy’s windows.
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Next up is Rose’s story in The Gentleman’s Scandalous Bride. Please read on for an excerpt.
If you'd like to learn more about the real people, places, and events in The Baron’s Inconvenient Bride, turn the page for Lauren’s Author's Note...
BONUS MATERIAL
Author's Note
Explore the Chase Family World
Excerpt from The Gentleman’s Scandalous Bride
Books by Lauren & Devon Royal
Contest
About the Authors
Acknowledgments
Contact Information
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Dear Reader,
Before I receive a bunch of letters claiming that mastiffs are gentle, protective, indoor, family-type dogs, I want to say that all of that is true—for today’s mastiffs. But in days gone by, the mastiff was known as a fighting dog. Caesar mentioned mastiffs in his account of invading Britain in 55 B.C., describing the huge British dogs that fought beside their masters. Soon afterward, mastiffs were bought back to Rome, where they saw combat at the Circus, matched against not only other dogs but also bulls, bears, lions, tigers, and human gladiators. Marco Polo wrote of Kubla Khan, who owned five thousand mastiffs used for hunting and war. Henry VIII gifted Charles V of Spain with four hundred mastiffs intended for use in battle.
However, by the 1920s, mastiffs were disappearing from England. During World War I, people thought it unpatriotic to keep dogs alive that ate as much in a day as a soldier. By World War II, they were nearly extinct in England, but afterward, mastiffs were imported from Canada and the United States to start new kennels. Now they are well established again, but with a change: modern breeders have bred the mastiff for gentleness and companionship rather than fighting. In his Knight’s Tale, Chaucer described mastiffs as large as steer, which sounds unbelievable until we remember that cattle were much smaller in those days. Today’s mastiffs are the same massive size, but they’re loving and sociable pets.
In 1680, Irish scientist Robert Boyle began selling coarse sheets of paper coated with phosphorus and wooden sticks with sulfur. A stick drawn through a fold of the paper would burst into flames. This device was the first chemical “match” and ultimately led to what we think of as matches today. In 1855, the first red phosphorus “safety” matches were introduced in Sweden, and paper “match books” were invented in the United States in 1889.
Bawdy songs have always been popular, and in the seventeenth century the English were more comfortable singing such verse than they tend to be today. Cromwell’s Puritan Protectorate may have driven lusty singing underground, but with the Restoration, the ballad sellers returned. These early entrepreneurs sold single-sheet songs on the street,
cheaply printed overnight to gain the most profit from each newly written piece.
In 1661, publisher and composer John Playford put together a collection of these songs and ballads and called it An Antidote Against Melancholy. In 1682, his son Henry expanded the collection and published it as Wit and Mirth: An Antidote Against Melancholy. By 1698, the book was so popular that Henry expanded it again, this time sold as Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy. It proved so successful that after Henry’s death it was published by others, and five further volumes were eventually added. By the time Thomas D’Urfey edited the final edition in 1720, the six-volume set contained more than a thousand bawdy songs.
Most of the homes in our books are inspired by real places you can visit. Trentingham Manor came to life after we saw The Vyne, a National Trust property in Hampshire. Built in the early sixteenth century for Lord Sandys, Henry VIII’s Lord Chamberlain, the house acquired a classical portico in the mid-seventeenth century (the first of its kind in England) and contains a grand Palladian staircase, a wealth of old paneling and fine furniture, and a fascinating Tudor chapel with Renaissance glass. The Vyne and its extensive gardens are open for visits April through October.
Hawkridge Hall was modeled on Ham House, another National Trust property. Known as the most well-preserved Stuart home in England, Ham House was built in 1610 and enlarged in the 1670s. The building has survived virtually unchanged since then, and it still retains most of the furniture from that period. The house and gardens are open daily from April through October. Ham House was owned by the Lauderdales, one of the most powerful families in Restoration England, and a visit gives a wonderful picture of seventeenth-century aristocratic life.
Rand’s house in Oxford was inspired by the house Edmond Halley (1656-1742) lived in while he held the post of Oxford’s Savilian Professor of Geometry. If you visit Oxford, look for the house in New College Lane near the Bridge of Sighs. The building isn’t open to tourists, but you can see the outside, including the rooftop observatory Halley added (although he never saw Halley’s Comet from it, since it made no appearance during the years he lived in the house).