And he knew how to touch her perfectly, too. How to make her feel perfectly wonderful…
He rolled closer and reached to untie the ribbons that secured the top of her night rail. “Does this have something to do with Lily and Rand? Are your plans not working out?”
She sighed, delightfully distracted by his fingertips brushing her skin. “I’m certain he desires her.”
“Love at first sight?”
“Maybe. Do you remember how he looked at her, even four years ago?”
“No. I don’t remember.” He slipped the gown from her shoulders. “I’m not sure I even noticed.”
Of course he hadn’t. He was a man. “Well, it was quite obvious he was drawn to our Lily then, and it’s even more obvious now. Surely you’ve noticed it now?”
“Not really.” He lowered his lips to her neck, kissing the sensitive hollow while he worked the night rail lower.
“Even since I pointed it out?” she asked breathlessly.
“I have eyes only for you, Chrysanthemum,” he murmured against her throat. “Only you.”
Half charmed, half exasperated, she shivered. “Well, Lily isn’t immune to him, either—of that I’m sure. But despite all my efforts to get them alone together, the poor boy isn’t making much progress. After I noticed Rand runs every day by the river, I told Lily that Snowflake needed some exercise, but—”
“Poor boy must not have my talents,” her husband interrupted, cupping a breast. Making skilled use of his thumb, he pulled back to grin at her indrawn breath. “Are you sure he’s good enough for Lily?”
“You’re incorrigible,” she said. But she didn’t remove his hand, instead arching her back in blatant invitation. “I told you, didn’t I, that Violet said Lily promised Rose she’d stay away from Rand? Besides feeling bound to that ridiculous vow, Lily is genuinely concerned for Rose. I can see it in her eyes, in her attitude. She’s afraid to put her own happiness before her sister’s.”
“Give it some time, love. She’ll come to her senses.” He lowered his mouth to where his fingers had been.
“But Rand’s house will be ready soon,” she choked out on a gasp. “He’ll be leaving.”
“Give it some time,” he repeated against her tingling flesh. “If he wants her, he’ll be back. You didn’t win me in a day.”
Oh yes, she had, she thought with a secret smile as she helped him wiggle her out of her night rail. It just proved her finesse with men that he hadn’t noticed.
NINETEEN
ONCE IN A great while, a man had to get drunk. And it was always better to do that with a friend.
Sitting in Ford’s laboratory, Rand stared at a nearly blank piece of paper. He blinked hard to make out the words. “We’ve been here all night and translated only a single sentence,” he muttered, finding himself fascinated, in an odd, detached sort of way, at hearing the slur in his own voice. “We’ll never finish. You’ll never make gold.”
“What’s a few more years when these words have been waiting for four hundred?” Ford reached across the cluttered table for a decanter of brandy, impressing Rand when he didn’t knock over any of the assorted paraphernalia. He filled Rand’s beaker for the third time.
Or maybe the fourth. Rand had lost count.
“So you’re in love, are you?” Ford said.
“Maybe. Probably not. I cannot be sure.” Rand paused for a sip, trying not to speculate on what chemical concoction the beaker might have held the day before. “I think so.”
Topping off his own beaker, Ford nodded. “You’re in love.”
“She won’t have me. It’s that older sister of hers. Rose.” Rand took another sip—or rather a gulp that he’d intended to be a sip. “She keeps pointing out how Rose and I are more suited,” he complained. “Rose sings and can speak Italian. As though I’m looking for those qualities in a lover.” Then another thought occurred to him—one that made the liquor seem to sour in the pit of his stomach. “What if she’s only using Rose as an excuse? What if she won’t have me because I’m only a professor? She lives in a bloody mansion, and I—”
“Lily’s not like that,” Ford rushed to interrupt. “She cares about her animals. She cares about other people. She doesn’t care where she lives.”
Rand nodded—slowly, to keep the room from blurring—as he tried to believe that. He almost succeeded. “Then why does she keep bringing up Rose?”
“Guilt,” Ford said succinctly.
“Guilt?”
“Look, we all know Rose wants you—”
“Every woman wants me,” Rand said with a wide, drunken grin. He was intelligent, he was financially stable, he was charming, he was tall and—from what women had told him—apparently easy on the eyes…and as much as he hated to admit it, he had the title Lord in front of his name.
No female had ever turned down Rand Nesbitt.
Then his expression fell. “Except Lily.”
“Guilt.” Taking his time about it, Ford drained his beaker. “She doesn’t want to steal you from Rose.”
“Rose doesn’t have me. Therefore Lily cannot steal me from Rose.” Rand felt inordinately proud of that observation. “Those two statements make rational sense, don’t they? And I’m a professor of linguistics, not logic.”
“You’re brilliant,” Ford said dryly. “But you’re forgetting something.”
“What’s that?” Rand asked, marveling at the way the words sounded once they’d left his mouth. Whazzat. Had he said whazzat?
“The way women’s minds work. Or don’t, as the case may be. Would you care for some more brandy?”
Rand held out his beaker. “I think I need it.”
Ford refilled his own, too, then leaned back in his chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “Listen,” he said, rolling the beaker between his palms, “it doesn’t matter whether Rose has you. The salient point here is that Lily knows Rose desires you, and she’s unwilling to hurt her sister by taking what Rose considers hers—never mind that you’re not and never will be—because Lily is putting her sister’s feelings
