“I can manage it myself, although I cannot fathom why the maid unpacked everything. I brought enough for a two-week stay, but not here.”
“She wasn’t privy to your plans.” She took the garment and folded it neatly, thinking it felt a bit scandalous to be touching his clothes. “As soon as some of these people leave, more help will be available.”
Lady and Jasper watched from the sill, holding a noisy conversation. “What could a squirrel and a bird possibly be discussing?” Rand asked rather peevishly, then didn’t wait for her to answer. “I told Ford I’d be back in an hour. He wants to work some more on the translation.”
“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
