Nothing, she reminded herself savagely. She’d made a promise. One she wished she’d never made—was sorely tempted to cast aside—had already violated in spirit if not in letter—but a promise nonetheless. The fact that it was a foolish and battered promise did not diminish her obligation, nor minimize the damage she would cause to both her sister and herself by breaking it.
“I’m tired,” she said, which was an understatement. “Could you possibly leave now?”
He didn’t. Instead, he walked over, leaned down, and pressed his lips to hers. His eyes remained open, daring her to object.
She didn’t. She melted immediately. He tasted of Rand and salt, but also of the smoke he’d encountered rescuing her strays.
When he drew back, he looked blurry, and she felt disgusted with her weakness. In a daze, she blinked her eyes to clear them. “I don’t understand.“
Completely uninvited, and apparently forgetting his stained breeches, he flattened white lace and sat beside her on the bed. “Understand what, my sweet?”
She blinked again at the endearment. “How can you want to kiss me when I’m ill and ugly and lying in this stupid white room?”
“You’re not ugly.” He grazed his knuckles along her heated cheek. Despite being overwarm, she shivered. “You’ll always be beautiful to me,” he said in a way that convinced her he meant it.
Unless she was simply delirious with fever. But his startling gray eyes looked perfectly sincere.
He’d said he was falling in love with her. She still remembered that. She’d been thinking about that all week, at times even getting angry—her, Lily, angry!—with Rose for so stubbornly standing in her way.
But Rose would never, ever forgive her…
“I missed you,” she blurted out without thought. “This past week, I’ve missed you.”
Rand’s fingers stilled as he gazed at her in surprise.
Had anyone else ever missed him? Really missed him? He seriously doubted it. He had friends, of course—Ford and Kit the best of them—but they all had busy lives. They could spend months apart without truly missing one another.
For Lily to miss him seemed a great gift. An honor he could only hope to deserve.
“I missed you, too,” he said after a moment, because he couldn’t think of a way to put it better. He kissed her again, hoping his lips would tell her what he couldn’t seem to put into words. Feeling the heat of her skin, he made it a brief kiss, but no less heartfelt.
“Rand?” Lily murmured weakly when he pulled away. Her eyes flicked open, squeezed shut. And then she uttered, “I’m sorry, Rose,” in a pained whisper.
Refusing to register the rejection in her look, he brushed a damp curl from her forehead. “I’ll come see you again tomorrow afternoon, Lily. I hope by then you’ll be feeling better.”
As he rose and quit the room, he remembered Ford saying he had to show Lily he loved her. And his unhelpful advice: That’s your problem, my friend.
Closing her door behind him, Rand ran his tongue over his teeth.
If running into a burning building hadn’t been enough, what else could he possibly do?
TWENTY-THREE
THE NEXT DAY, Lily was feeling somewhat better and refused to stay in bed. Having always believed that looking better made one feel better, she chose a pretty periwinkle gown. When her maid dressed her hair, she asked her to wind silver ribbons through the curls to match the trim on her dress.
None of this, of course, had anything to do with the fact that Rand had said he’d be paying a call.
As her maid was finishing up, Rowan wandered in, looking much worse than she felt. His black hair stuck up in places, as though he’d been plowing his fingers through it, and his eyes appeared dark and haunted.
Lily nodded permission for the maid to take her leave, then turned to face her brother. “Rowan, what’s wrong?”
“I’m just…” He came closer and began playing with a perfume bottle on the dressing table where she was seated. “Did you tell Father and Mum about the fire-making things I took from Ford’s laboratory?”
“No, of course I didn’t.” She rubbed a hand over the back of his head, smoothing his mussed hair. “That was between us.”
His narrow shoulders relaxed, then tensed again. “How about Rose? Did Rose tell them?”
“Not that I know of. Why are you so worried about this? It was a mistake, and you learned not to take things, didn’t you? Everyone makes mistakes.”
The bottle made a rhythmic noise as he ran it back and forth on the marble tabletop, its gold painted designs glinting in the sun from the window. “I thought…well, I thought maybe Father and Mum would think I started the fire with the fire-making things. But I didn’t have any of those things, I swear. I gave them all to Lord Randal, and I haven’t taken any more from Ford’s laboratory. Truly, Lily, I haven’t.” His hand stilled as he met her gaze in the mirror. “I…I just don’t want anyone to think the barn burned down because I was playing with Mr. Boyle’s fire-making things.”
“Nobody thinks that. Has anyone said that to you?”
He shook his head.
“Nobody is blaming anyone for starting the fire. These things happen, and we’re all happy that no one was hurt. It was an old barn that Father was planning to replace anyway.”
He looked relieved—almost—before he resumed playing with the bottle, making circles this time. “You know what you said about making mistakes? How everyone makes mistakes?”
“Yes, everyone does.” Goodness, did she know. She may have made the worst mistake of her life promising Rose.
“Well, I made one,” Rowan said. “A really bad one. I thought something would be funny, but it wasn’t. It went wrong, and it wasn’t funny at all.”
Her promise had gone wrong, too. Horribly wrong.
But knowing her brother, she was sure his mistake had been nothing like hers. Lucky for him, he wasn’t old enough to make such a monumental mistake. A mistake serious enough to ruin
