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 thought 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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