He shrugged. “Only when my older brother was nearby.”
“Was your brother naughty like Rowan?” Rose asked.
“Rowan?” A strange expression passed over Rand’s face. “No, he was nothing like Rowan.”
Lily lifted Beatrix into her lap and hugged her. She had a hunch she didn’t want to know more about this brother. With such unpleasantness awaiting him at home, who could blame Rand for staying far away? Still, the thought of not seeing one’s family for years and years…Lily couldn’t fathom it.
She saw a loneliness in Rand that made her chest constrict. He was like one of her stray animals, abandoned, hurt, and forgotten. But a splint wouldn’t fix Rand’s hurts. Lily hated seeing his pain, but there was nothing she could do except be kind to him and wish for the best.
And, perhaps, help him find happiness with someone who loved him. With someone who would marry him and give him the sort of family he deserved.
With Rose.
TWELVE
NO SOONER HAD the carriage door opened than Ford whisked Rand upstairs to the attic. “How was your stay at Trentingham?”
“Fine.” Rand looked around at the chaotic jumble of scientific instruments that littered Ford’s laboratory. “Is there nothing I can do downstairs, where the damage—”
“It’s all being handled. I’m in the middle of something here—I’ll be with you in a minute.” Ford added a noxious-smelling substance to some cloudy fluid in a beaker. “Fine, was it?”
“Actually,” Rand admitted, “it was rather awkward. Will the guest room be ready for me to sleep here tonight?”
Ford stirred the mess with a stick made of glass. “If you can live with a bare, damp floor.”
“Bare and damp won’t deter me.”
“Very well, then.” Ford nodded. “I must let this sit until tomorrow. Let me go get the book.”
Rand plopped onto a chair and rubbed his face, feeling enormously relieved to be moving back here this afternoon. Trentingham Manor was lovely, but at Lakefield he ran less risk of making an utter fool of himself.
He was no longer certain Lily found him repulsive—despite last night’s scene in the parlor, she was acting as friendly and kind as ever—but that didn’t mean he was comfortable living under one roof with two Ashcroft daughters. He felt much safer at Ford’s house. More in control. Less likely to find himself seducing someone, being seduced, or saying something stupid.
I’ve thought about you for four years…
“Here it is,” Ford said, setting the book on the table and taking a seat beside him.
“It” was Secrets of the Emerald Tablet, a small, brown leather volume that appeared to be of little consequence. Ancient and handwritten in a cryptic code, it looked like a simple diary. But it was much more than that. It was purported to hold the key to the Philosopher’s Stone—the secret of how to make gold.
Ford had found the book years earlier and brought it to Rand to translate. When the task had proved a difficult one, they’d set it aside for a time. Now Rand looked forward to the challenge.
It would take his mind off…things. People. One person in particular.
“Awkward,” Ford echoed thoughtfully, moving closer with a scrape of his chair. His laboratory was a homely space, huge but hardly luxurious, cluttered as it was with every toy a scientist and alchemist could desire. “Violet’s mother is generally expert at setting her guests at ease.”
“And her daughter is expert at upsetting them.”
“Rose?” Ford chuckled. “She can be rather forward, but I assure you she’s ultimately harmless.”
“Rather forward hardly begins to define Rose. But I meant Lily.”
“Lily? But Lily’s so nice. What could she possibly have done to upset you?”
Rand just shrugged, not feeling up to sharing his humiliation just yet.
Besides, the question of what Lily had done to him—was doing to him—was still up for debate.
THIRTEEN
DOWNSTAIRS, LILY and Rose had joined their oldest sister in her cheerful turquoise drawing room. With the three of them together, it felt just like old times.
Almost. Violet, of course, was married now, and a mother of three herself. Although she lived close by and they got together often, Lily did miss the nights when they’d all gathered in one of their chambers, gossiping and giggling away the hours.
She watched Beatrix wander the room, poking her little black nose here and there as she searched for something familiar. Suddenly Lily wished for the old and familiar, too. “You should come home to sleep one night, Violet.”
“At Trentingham?” Violet stopped pacing, which meant tiny Rebecca started snuffling. The babe seemed to prefer constant motion.
“I’ll walk with her,” Lily offered. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on her niece.
When Rebecca was settled in Lily’s arms, Violet dropped onto one of the turquoise velvet chairs. She lifted her spectacles and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Why should I stay the night at Trentingham?”
“A sleeping party. It would be like the old days.” As Lily walked back and forth with Rebecca, her gaze swept over little Marc asleep in a cradle. She smiled to see Rose playing with Nicky on the floor, his miniature English warship in fierce conflict with her Dutch one. “I know you rarely let your children out of your sight, but you do have nursemaids. They could relieve you for one night, don’t you think?”
Violet seemed to contemplate that odd idea for a moment before she grinned. “Perhaps I could find time to read a book.”
“No,” Lily said, then reconsidered. If solitary time to read was what her sister needed, she wouldn’t deny her. “Of course you could read, if that’s what you want. But I was thinking we could spend the night together. The three of us, like we used to.”
Rose looked up with a wicked smile. “And read Aristotle’s Master-piece?”
“Not that,” Lily said quickly, remembering the hours they’d all spent together stealthily reading the
