Lily (Flower Trilogy) (10 page)

“You’ re so lucky,” Rose told Judith, snapping Lily out of her reverie.

She closed her eyes momentarily, then opened them with new determination. She shouldn’t be thinking such disloyal thoughts.

Settling into the window seat, Judith sneezed again.

“Pardon me,” she said with a sniffle. Then her voice dropped a notch. “I’m lucky about the wedding,” she mumbled, “but I’m not feeling so certain about the wedding night.”

Lily’s heart ached for her friend, and she forgot her own troubles. She sat beside her, taking her hands.

“You’ll be fine,” she told her, putting all the confidence she could muster into the words. “All brides are nervous.”

“Do you think so?”

“Goodness, I’m sure of it.” Feeling nerves of her own again, she slanted a glance to Rose, then looked back to her friend. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

“Absolutely. But I’ve seen Lord Grenville, and—”

“I didn’t mean to pry,” Lily rushed to clarify. “I just wondered if you believed. In the abstract.”

“Yes. Oh, yes.” Judith had always been a romantic.

“That’s why I—”

“
I
believe in love at first sight,” Rose interrupted. “I fell in love with Lord Randal the very first time I saw him.”

Despite her worries, Judith grinned. “You fall in love with every man you see.”

“I do not,” Rose protested. “Only the handsome ones.

Like Rand.”

Rand, Rand, Rand. Lily rose and paced back to the doll, staring at its pale blue magnificence. She would never feel right wearing a wedding dress before Rose was Lady Somebody.

“There are cakes downstairs,” Judith said into the sudden silence.

Lily was all too happy to escape the discussion, but no sooner had they reentered the drawing room than Rose revived it. “Mum,” she asked, “do you believe in love at first sight?”

“What nonsense.” Lady Carrington’s chins trembled with indignation. “Love grows between two suited individuals. ’Twas that way for me, and ’twill be the same for my Judith and Lord Grenville.” She brushed crumbs from her mouth and motioned her daughter closer. “Come here, dear. Have a cake.”

Judith took two. Apparently her illness was not affecting her appetite.

“Mum?” Rose pressed.

Chrystabel set down her teacup. “I do believe in love at first sight,” she said firmly. “I experienced it with your father.”

Lady Carrington harrumphed.

“Of course,” Chrystabel continued undaunted, “dear Joseph took some convincing. I’ve yet to meet a man who believes in love at first sight.”

Lily knew one. One who was trying to convince
her
.

“Nonsense,” Lady Carrington repeated as she reached for another cake.

Lily’s mother smiled charmingly and changed the subject. “Have you heard the latest?” she asked, lifting her cup. “Two more of my introductions are culminating in marriages. Lady Eleanor Randolph is betrothed to Lord Ducksworth. And you’re not going to believe this.” She paused to sip for effect. “I’ve managed to match the eternal bachelor.”

Lady Carrington’s eyes widened. “You don’t mean . . .”

“Yes.” Chrystabel nodded proudly. “Lord Percival Newcombe.”

“No!” her friend gasped, a cake halfway to her lips.

“To whom?”

“Joseph,” Chrystabel said as she slid into bed beside him that night, “do you believe in love at first sight?”

He came up on one elbow and eyed her warily. “Is this a trick question?”

“No.”

“Then no. I don’t believe in love at first sight.”

“No?”

“Yes? Is yes the right answer? I’ve never thought about it, my love.”

She laughed. He was such a man.

Chrystabel loved the nights, the precious hours spent alone together in their thick-walled bedchamber. There, where the sound of her voice competed with nothing but an occasional crackle from the fireplace, her Joseph could hear her perfectly.

And he knew how to touch her perfectly, too. How to make her feel perfectly wonderful . . .

He rolled closer and reached to untie the ribbons that secured the top of her night rail. “Does this have something to do with Lily and Rand? Are your plans not working out?”

She sighed, delightfully distracted by his fingertips brushing her skin. “I’m certain he desires her.”

“Love at first sight?”

“Maybe. Do you remember how he looked at her, even four years ago?”

“No. I don’t remember.” He slipped the gown from her shoulders. “I’m not sure I even noticed.”

Of course he hadn’t. He was a man. “Well, it was quite obvious he was drawn to our Lily then, and ’tis even more obvious now. Surely you’ve noticed it now?”

“Not really.” He lowered his lips to her neck, kissing the sensitive hollow while he worked the night rail lower.

“Even since I pointed it out?” she asked breathlessly.

“I have eyes only for you, Chrysanthemum,” he murmured against her skin. “Only you.”

She shivered, half charmed, half exasperated. “Well, Lily is not immune to him, either—of that I am sure. But despite all my efforts to get them alone together, the poor boy isn’t making much progress. After I noticed Rand runs every day by the river, I told her Snowflake needed some exercise, but—”

“Poor boy must not have my talents,” her husband interrupted, cupping a breast. Making skilled use of his thumb, he pulled back to grin at her indrawn breath. “Are you sure he’s good enough for Lily?”

“You’re incorrigible,” she said. But she didn’t remove his hand, instead arching her back in blatant invitation. “I told you, did I not, that Violet told me that Lily promised Rose that she’d stay away from Rand? Besides feeling bound to that ridiculous promise, Lily is genuinely concerned for Rose. I can see it in her eyes, in her attitude.

She’s afraid to put her own happiness before her sister’s.”

“Give it some time, love. She’ll come to her senses.”

He lowered his mouth to where his fingers had been.

“But Rand’s house will be ready soon,” she choked out on a gasp. “He’ll be leaving.”

“Give it some time,” he repeated against her tingling flesh. “If he wants her, he’ll be back. You didn’t win me in a day.”

Oh yes, she had, she thought with a secret smile as she helped him wiggle her out of her night rail. It just proved her finesse with men that he hadn’t noticed.

Once in a great while, a man had to get drunk. And it was always better to do that with a friend.

Sitting in Ford’s laboratory, Rand stared at an almost blank piece of paper. He blinked hard to make out the words. “We’ve been here all night and only translated one sentence,” he muttered, finding himself fascinated, in an odd, detached sort of way, at hearing the slur in his own voice. “We will never finish. You will never make gold.”

“What’s a few more years when these words have been waiting for four hundred?” Ford reached across the cluttered table for a decanter of brandy, impressing Rand when he didn’t knock over any of the assorted paraphernalia. He filled Rand’s beaker for the third time. Or maybe the fourth. Rand had lost count. “So you’re in love, are you?”

“Maybe. Probably not. I cannot be sure.” Rand paused for a sip, trying not to speculate on what chemical concoction the beaker might have held the day before. “I think so.”

Topping off his own beaker, Ford nodded. “You’re in love.”

“She won’t have me. ’Tis that older sister of hers.

Rose.” Rand took another sip—or rather a gulp that he’d intended to be a sip. “She keeps pointing out how Rose and I are more suited,” he complained. “Rose sings and can speak Italian. As though I’m looking for those qualities in a lover.” Then another thought occurred to him—

one that made the liquor seem to sour in the pit of his stomach. “What if she is only using that as an excuse?

What if she won’t have me because I’m only a professor?

She lives in a bloody mansion, and I—”

“Lily is not like that,” Ford rushed to interrupt. “She cares about her animals. She cares about other people.

She does
not
care where she lives.”

Rand nodded—slowly, to keep the room from blurring—as he tried to believe that. He almost succeeded.

“Then why does she keep bringing up Rose?”

“Guilt,” Ford said succinctly.

“Guilt?”

“Look, we all know Rose wants you—”

“Every woman wants me,” Rand said with a wide, drunken grin. He was intelligent, he was financially stable, he was charming, he was tall and—from what women had told him—apparently easy on the eyes . . .

and as much as he hated to admit it, he had the title
Lord
in front of his name. No woman had ever turned down Rand Nesbitt.

Then his expression fell. “Except Lily.”

“Guilt.” Taking his time about it, Ford drained his beaker. “She doesn’t want to steal you from Rose.”

“Rose doesn’t have me. Therefore Lily cannot steal me from Rose.” Rand felt inordinately proud of that observation. “Those two statements make rational sense, do they not? And I’m a professor of linguistics, not logic.”

“You’re brilliant,” Ford said dryly. “But you’re forgetting something.”

“What’s that?” Rand asked, marveling at the way the words sounded once they’d left his mouth.
Whazzat.
Had he said
whazzat
?

“The way women’s minds work. Or don’t, as the case may be. Would you care for some more brandy?”

Rand held out his beaker. “I think I need it.”

Ford refilled his own, too, then leaned back in his chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “Listen,”

he said, rolling the beaker between his palms, “it matters not whether Rose has you. The salient point here is that Lily knows Rose desires you, and she’s unwilling to hurt her sister by taking what Rose considers hers—never mind that you’re not and never will be—because Lily is putting her sister’s feelings before her own. She will not allow herself to marry—”

“Who said anything about marriage?”

“Hold your tongue and listen. Lily will not allow herself to marry before Rose, most especially to a man Rose wants for herself.”

Rand sipped more brandy as he attempted to absorb that convoluted line of reasoning. He was truly amazed.

“How the hell do you know all that?”

“Violet told me. And she also said that Lily made Rose some harebrained promise to stay out of her way, which further complicates matters.”

“Did Violet give you a solution?”

“She said it was hopeless. But that’s where she’s wrong.” Ford leaned forward, narrowing his eyes as he focused on Rand’s. “Listen, my man. It is time for you to take your own advice.”

Rand sat up straighter and then waited until the world stopped spinning around him. “Advice? About love? I’m not even sure I believe in it. I’ve bloody well never given advice—”

“When Violet didn’t want
me
, remember? You helped me devise a plan. And it worked.”

“I did?” He blinked, trying to recall. “I must have been gloriously drunk.”

“You were,” Ford assured him. “Now, listen. Seduction was the key. You must make Lily desire you so very much that she doesn’t give a damn about her sister. Her lust for you can overcome her loyalty to Rose. If you give it your best, it will work, my friend. Take it from a man with experience.”

Rand rubbed the ends of his hair, warming to the idea.

It sounded like an excellent plan. Certainly an enjoyable one. He would put it into effect starting tomorrow.

But for now, he felt like he was going to be sick.

The burn of overworked muscles. The sound of his own labored breath. The rhythm of his feet on the turf.

All worked to clear Rand’s mind . . . but disturbing thoughts insisted on creeping in anyway.

He’d stayed indoors yesterday, fuzzy-brained and out of sorts, the pounding in his head quite enough without the jarring beat of a run. He hadn’t felt up to putting the seduction plan into action, either. It had been years since he’d indulged in drink like that—for good reason. This recent bout would serve to ensure he drank moderately for another decade at least.

Still, he’d managed to make progress on the translation—enough, in fact, that he and Ford had come to the sad conclusion that
Secrets of the Emerald Tablet
held no secrets to making gold. Over the past few weeks, Ford had tested every formula Rand could find, with results ranging from hopeful-but-disappointing to all-out laughable.

Now there were no more formulas. There was no point in laboring to decipher what little was left of the text.

“I’m sorry,” he’d told Ford when they’d closed the book last night.

“I always knew this was a possibility. Hell, the mere idea of making gold was too good to be true. I’m sorry you wasted so much time on it.”

Rand had shrugged, even that small movement hurting his aching head. “You know I’m always up for a good puzzle, and I enjoyed this one thoroughly. Besides, it gave me a sound excuse to escape all the construction.

Kit should be finished by now.”

Now there was no reason for Rand not to go home to Oxford.

Except Lily.

Today, sunlight sparkled off the Thames, and the fresh air felt good in his lungs. Pounding along the banks, his feet seemed to be saying,
se-duc-tion, se-duc-tion, se-duc-tion.

He laughed at himself; what a pathetic case he’d become. His next breath was a huge one, drawn in through both mouth and nose, meant to cleanse his body and head. But with it came a faint scent that made alarm slither down his spine.

Fire. He stopped and turned, scanning the horizon.

There it was. Slightly inland and to the west, dark smoke puffing up to smudge the clear blue sky.

Trentingham was over in that direction, he realized with a jolt of panic.

A moment later he was running faster than ever in his life.

Yesterday Lily had awakened with the sniffles and a scratchy throat, so she’d stayed home while Chrystabel and Rose went out calling. Today, she’d awakened coughing and sneezing and could barely drag herself downstairs to tend to her menagerie. After completing her chores and almost nodding into her breakfast, she’d crawled back into her night rail and collapsed into bed for a much needed nap, half expecting not to open her eyes again before dark.