“Who said anything about marriage?”
“Hold your tongue and listen. Lily won’t allow herself to marry before Rose, most especially to a man Rose wants for herself.”
Rand sipped more brandy as he attempted to absorb that convoluted line of reasoning. He found himself truly amazed. “How the hell do you know all that?”
“Violet told me. And she also said that Lily made Rose some harebrained promise to stay out of her way, which further complicates matters.”
“Did Violet give you a solution?”
“She said it was hopeless. But that’s where she’s wrong.” Ford leaned forward, narrowing his eyes as he focused on Rand’s. “Listen, my man. It’s time for you to take your own advice.”
Rand sat up straighter and then waited until the world stopped spinning around him. “Advice? About love? I’m not even sure I believe in it. I’ve bloody well never given advice—”
“When Violet didn’t want me, remember? You helped me devise a plan. And it worked.”
“I did?” He blinked, trying to recall. “I must have been gloriously drunk.”
“You were,” Ford assured him. “Now, listen. Seduction was the key. You must make Lily desire you so very much that she doesn’t give a damn about her sister. Her lust for you can overcome her loyalty to Rose. If you give it your best, it will work, my friend. Take it from a man with experience.”
Rand rubbed the ends of his hair, warming to the idea. It sounded like an excellent plan. And certainly an enjoyable one. He would put it into effect starting tomorrow.
But for now, he felt like he was going to be sick.
TWENTY
THE BURN OF overworked muscles. The sound of his own labored breath. The rhythm of his feet on the turf. All worked to clear Rand’s mind…but disturbing thoughts insisted on creeping in anyway.
He’d stayed indoors yesterday, fuzzy-brained and out of sorts, the pounding in his head quite enough without the jarring beat of a run. He hadn’t felt up to putting the seduction plan into action, either. It had been years since he’d indulged in drink like that—for good reason. This recent bout would serve to ensure he drank moderately for another decade at least.
Still, he’d managed to make progress on the translation—enough, in fact, that he and Ford had come to the sad conclusion that Secrets of the Emerald Tablet held no secrets to making gold. Over the past few weeks, Ford had tested every formula Rand could find, with results ranging from hopeful-but-disappointing to all-out laughable.
Now there were no more formulas. There was no point in laboring to decipher what little was left of the text.
“I’m sorry,” he’d told Ford when they’d closed the book last night.
“I always knew this was a possibility. Hell, the mere idea of making gold was too good to be true. I’m sorry you wasted so much time on it.”
Rand had shrugged, even that small movement hurting his aching head. “You know I’m always up for a good puzzle, and I enjoyed this one thoroughly. Besides, it gave me a sound excuse to escape all the construction. Kit should be finished by now.”
Now there was no reason for Rand not to go home to Oxford.
Except Lily.
Today, sunlight sparkled off the Thames, and the fresh air felt good in his lungs. Pounding along the banks, his feet seemed to be saying, se-duc-tion, se-duc-tion, se-duc-tion.
He laughed at himself; what a pathetic case he’d become. His next breath was a huge one, drawn in through both nose and mouth, meant to cleanse his body and head. But with it came a faint scent that made alarm slither down his spine.
Fire.
He stopped and turned, scanning the horizon. There it was. Slightly inland and to the west, dark smoke puffing up to smudge today’s clear blue sky.
Trentingham was over in that direction, he realized with a jolt of panic.
A moment later he was running faster than ever in his life.
YESTERDAY LILY had awakened with the sniffles and a scratchy throat, so she’d stayed home while Chrystabel and Rose went out calling. Today, she’d awakened coughing and sneezing and could barely drag herself downstairs to tend to her menagerie. After completing her chores and nearly nodding into her breakfast, she’d crawled back into her night rail and collapsed into bed for a much needed nap, half expecting not to open her eyes again before dark.
But now she lay teetering on the brink of wakefulness, vaguely wondering what had roused her from sleep. She was tired, so tired her whole body ached, and she could tell from the color behind her closed lids that it was still midday. She rolled over, intending to drift off again, to seek more healing slumber—
Shouts. The stench of burning wood. Her eyes popped open, and she leapt from the bed and rushed to the window, her knees trembling.
Smoke billowed into the sky—light gray, dark gray, menacingly black—and below that, red and orange flames licked upward, rising from what looked like the soon-to-be-roofless barn.
Her animals were in there. Her heart racing, she grabbed a wrapper and struggled into it even as she ran for the door.
TWENTY-ONE
“YOU CANNOT GO back in there, my lord! It’s about to collapse! They’re only animals! Not worth your life!”
Rand ignored the frantic stable hand’s warning, waving him toward the long bucket brigade bringing water up from the river. Coughing, he set down the badger and quickly scanned the small collection of dazed creatures.
The hedgehog, the fawn, a rabbit, a weasel…Lily had said she was planning to release the rat, and he prayed that she had, because he hadn’t a chance of finding anything that small in the blinding smoke. But he’d seen a shadow in the grayness…the fox cub, he suddenly realized. The fox cub with the broken leg.
This one cannot run, he heard Lily say in his head. This one couldn’t survive without him.
He’d originally raced into the blazing barn
