“Now?”
“Now. Right now. In your family’s drawing room. Will you do that for me, Lily?”
She nodded, too confused to bother asking why. Right now, there was little he could ask for that she would refuse.
He took her hand to leave, but before she could even register how good it felt to have his fingers linked with hers—before they cleared the door—her father walked in.
“Have you seen my ironclad spade?”
Struggling to control her heart rate, Lily took a deep breath and quickly scanned the dim summerhouse. There was no spade. There wasn’t anything in here, in fact, save the narrow wooden benches attached to the circular wall.
“It’s not here, Father. Why don’t you ask the head gardener?”
“Hmm,” he said. “I was hoping it would be in here. Perhaps I should ask the head gardener.” Muttering to himself, he turned and left.
Rand sneezed, using his free hand to block it. “Pardon me,” he said.
“You are falling ill.”
He shrugged. “Your father didn’t hear your suggestion.”
“I never expect him to hear anything. If he does, I consider myself lucky.”
“He wouldn’t have said a thing had he found me alone with Rose, would he?” Sounding incredulous, Rand raised their still-joined hands. “He didn’t even notice I was here.”
“Well, what did you expect?” Lily grinned. “You’re not a flower.”
TWENTY-FIVE
IN THE FICKLE way of summer, the sky had clouded up while Rand and Lily were in the summerhouse. Beatrix, Lady, and Jasper appeared and followed them back to the house. Claiming he didn’t want an audience, Rand maneuvered to get through the door without allowing them inside.
The animals went around and entered through one of the drawing room’s windows instead.
Lily sat at the harpsichord and arched her fingers over the keys, then hesitated. Her nose was dripping. She pulled the handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabbed.
“Go ahead,” Rand said. “Blow.”
Love, she supposed, meant being able to blow your nose in front of the man. So she did, even though she was no timid nose-blower.
It didn’t seem to scare him away. In fact, in the middle of her blow, he sneezed again, and then he fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his own nose, too.
“We’re wrecks,” Lily said, thinking it felt strangely wonderful to comfortably share an illness. She faced the keyboard again. “What do you want me to play?” She suspected the tune she’d been practicing for him wasn’t what he had in mind.
He thought for a moment. “Do you know the one that starts ‘Let’s love and let’s laugh’?”
Like so many popular songs, it had no title, but she did know it. She nodded.
He leaned against the harpsichord. “Then play it, please.”
When she did, his gaze locked on hers as he began to sing.
“Let’s love and let’s laugh,
Let’s dance and let’s sing;
While shrill echoes ring;
Our wishes agree,
And from care we are free,
Then who is so happy, so happy as we?”
Although there were three more verses, he stopped singing, still holding her gaze. She played a few more bars and then stopped, too.
For a moment, the room was so quiet she could hear the clock ticking on the mantel.
“Did you hear that, Lily?”
He wasn’t referring to the clock. “The words?” she wondered. Let’s love. Could he mean…
Her heart skipped a beat, and she nearly missed what he said next.
“The words fit us, don’t they? But no, I didn’t mean the words. What did you hear?”
“What did I hear?” she echoed faintly, feeling confused. But her heart began pumping a little faster. “It sounded good. You sound good. You have a wonderful voice.”
He stepped closer. “But my voice doesn’t sound nearly as good alone as it does together with your music. It doesn’t sound as complete.” His gaze still held hers in thrall. She could lose herself in those eyes. “I want that with you, Lily. I want you to provide the melody for my songs. And I, the words to your tunes.”
He seemed to be talking about more than music. Her blood rushed even faster. Did she dare to hope she could hold on to this newfound happiness?
“Don’t say anything,” he said, still watching her. “Not yet.”
Lady chirped in the window, and Jasper chattered, and Beatrix wound around Rand’s legs.
Yet he had eyes only for Lily.
“I’m just a professor,” he said.
Rose’s thoughtless words had affected him. Hurt him. For a moment, Lily felt a degree of anger toward her sister she hadn’t thought possible. “Rand, you aren’t just anything. Not to me.”
He slid onto the harpsichord’s bench and shifted to face her, taking her hands. “I want you to listen. I am just a professor. I live in a house. Once it’s finished it will be a very nice house, but just a house all the same, not a mansion like Trentingham. And it isn’t perched on land that stretches as far as the eye can see. It sits in the middle of a town with other buildings all around it.”
Was he asking her to marry him, or explaining why he couldn’t? “I don’t care—” she started.
He stopped her by squeezing her hands. “I’m a second son. I may have the word Lord in front of my name, but that’s only a courtesy title. I’ll never sit in the House of Lords like your father. I could attend court if I wished, and London balls, but the fact is, I don’t. Or I haven’t,” he corrected himself. “I’m willing to go to such events if doing so would please you, as long as it’s not during term time.”
This was a prelude to a proposal. Her breath caught, and she coughed in reaction. “I don’t care,” she repeated. “Rand, I—”
“I’m not finished.” He coughed, too, then furrowed his brow, as though he was trying hard to remember everything he wanted to say. “You should know that I earn a nice living. But you should also know that it’s been years since the marquess supplemented
