Rand strode forward to stamp it out. “What is it you have there?”
Rose brushed at her red satin skirts. “It doesn’t matter,” she said even more parentally. “He’s well aware that he isn’t allowed to play with fire.”
Too parentally, Lily decided. It was one thing to display a love of children by offering to help Violet, quite another to scold like a shrew. Especially considering Rowan was Rose’s younger brother, not her child.
“But what is it?” Rand bent closer.
Rowan handed him the paper. “It has phosphorus on it.” If Rand looked surprised at hearing a boy of eleven use such a word, Lily wasn’t. Rowan spent hours every week in Ford’s laboratory. “And this,” he said, pulling another of the slim wooden sticks from his pocket, “has sulfur on one end. Ford’s friend, a man named Robert Boyle, has discovered that the two together make fire. Phosphorus has a very low burning point,” he added importantly.
Although Lily wasn’t at all sure what that had to do with making fire, Rand nodded thoughtfully. “Brilliant. May I try?”
“Boys will be boys. And apparently men will be boys, too,” Rose said in a tone Lily thought unwise for a woman hoping to marry one.
Lily shot her a warning glance, then turned to her brother. “Did Ford give you these things?”
His face reddened. “He showed them to me. Mr. Boyle is thinking about selling them. It’s a good idea, isn’t it? I’m thinking he could make a lot of money.”
“I’m thinking Ford would be unhappy if he knew you’d taken such dangerous things home.” Her brother shuffled his feet. “I’m thinking,” she added softly, “that Ford would feel terrible if you burned yourself because he made the mistake of showing you something interesting, believing you were old enough to know better than to play with it.”
“I guess I should give the things back,” Rowan muttered.
Rand drew the wooden sliver against the paper, smiling as it sparked. “I’ll return them.” He reached out a hand. “Have you any more of the sticks?”
Rowan dug in his pocket, handed over a few more slivers, then turned and ran for the house.
ELEVEN
AN HOUR LATER, Rose banged on Lily’s door. “Lily? Lord Randal wants to leave.”
Lord Randal again. Excusing her maid, Lily went to admit her sister. “May I suggest, Rose, if you wish to win the man, you might call him by the name he prefers?”
Rose shrugged. “I think Lord Randal has a nice ring to it. But I know you’re trying to help, Lily, and I do appreciate it.”
Lily wished her sister’s words sounded more convincing.
“Are you ready?” Rose added.
“Nearly.” Beatrix at her heels, Lily went back to her dressing table to fetch the hat that matched her smart blue riding habit. “Aren’t you going to change?” she asked, eyeing her sister’s low-cut, bright red gown.
“I like this dress. I told Lord Randal I’d prefer to take the carriage.”
“Oh.” Lily set down the hat. “Shall I change, then?”
“Good God, why should it matter what you wear? I told you, he’s growing impatient. Now, you must let him climb in first—”
“He’s the man. He’s going to hand us in.”
“Just leave it to me. Then you must allow me to enter next so that I can sit beside him. You’ll sit across.”
“You’re trying too hard.” Beatrix jumped up onto the dressing table, and Lily stroked her fur. “Just be your usual beautiful, charming self—”
“I cannot leave this to chance,” Rose interrupted. “Lord Randal is the only man I’ve ever truly loved.”
From where Lily was standing, her sister’s emotions ran more to desperation than love—with perhaps a little lust thrown in for good measure. But she did allow that with all the two had in common, true love was likely to develop, given time.
“Whatever you say, Rose,” she said. “I’ll follow your lead.”
Beatrix went with them and was first into the carriage. Rand, of course, insisted the ladies get in next. He settled himself beside Lily, and for a few awkward minutes, Rose alternately glared at her and aimed flirty smiles at him.
Rand appeared to be avoiding Rose’s heated gaze, staring out the window instead. He hummed the same tune Lily remembered from the night before, perhaps in an attempt to fill the silence.
Suddenly Rose sniffed the air. “Sulfur,” she said disapprovingly. Parentally. True, she was displaying her intelligence by recognizing the chemical, but hadn’t she said men didn’t care to be mothered?
Lily nudged her with a foot and gave a little shake of her head.
Perhaps getting the message, Rose looked to Rand with indulged amusement. “While you were waiting for us, did you play with the fire-making things? After you told Rowan you’d return them? Did you use them all up?”
Rand appeared anything but chastised. “What does Ford need with a scrap of paper and a few bits of wood? I’m sure he has more, and I think young Rowan has learned his lesson.”
Boys would be boys, Lily thought, then rushed to change the subject before her sister made the mistake of saying that again out loud. “How is it that a marquess’s son became an Oxford professor?”
“Yes,” Rose put in, “how on earth did that happen?” Her tone implied that, regardless of how it had happened, she was hoping he’d go back to being plain Lord Randal, not a professor of anything.
Rand, however, just shrugged. “I’m a second son. An all-but-disowned second son.”
“Surely not,” Lily said.
“Perhaps not officially, but I might as well be. I couldn’t wait to get away from home, and once free, I never wanted to go back.”
Even Rose looked genuinely concerned. “Did your parents mistreat you?”
“From what little I can remember, my mother treated me wonderfully, but she died when I was six. My father, well…let me just say that his dogs received more of his attention than I did. He noticed me only when I was in trouble.”
Lily imagined him young,
