“Are you?” Rand asked Rowan, smiling when Lily’s brother nodded and puffed out his narrow chest. “Well, then,” he told the boy, “you’re certainly more important than I. I’m a mere lord.”
“You’re important,” Lily protested sweetly.
Across from them, her sister groaned.
“Have you never been out of Britain, then?” he asked Rose.
“No,” she said as shortly as before.
“None of us have.” When the carriage jounced in and out of a rut, Lily jostled against Rand. “Where have you been?”
“Oh, Spain, France, Italy, Greece…I’ll take you those places, and more.”
Rose smirked. “She won’t be able to talk to anyone.”
Rand’s concern for Lily’s sister was rapidly transforming to annoyance. Deliberately he dropped Lily’s hand to wrap an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. “I’ll be happy enough to communicate for Lily.”
The look in Rose’s eyes told him she hadn’t missed the declaration of possession—not that he found that surprising. Rose might have her faults, but he’d never considered a weak intellect among them.
They fell silent for a while.
Lily watched out the window. She rubbed the scars on her hand, determined not to let her sister’s bad temper spoil this special day. As they descended toward Oxford the grazing land gave way to water meadows, and now the road was peppered with charming houses, each with a lovely, well-tended garden.
Rand began humming, that same old tune, somehow both quiet and cheerful at the same time. Lily’s mind drifted, and she touched her fingertips to her lips, imagining them tender and a little bit puffy like they’d been yesterday after Rand’s kisses. She’d gone to sleep last night with one hand on her mouth and awakened that way, too, lying abed too long this morning while she recalled every exciting moment of their time together in the summerhouse.
Sharing herself with Rand had been an incredibly amazing experience, and it couldn’t have been wrong—not when they’d pledged their hearts. But she’d thought of little else since, and now, sitting beside Rand but unable to kiss him, to really touch him…she thought she might very well go mad.
Whenever she remembered what it had felt like to lie next to him, to have him within her, her entire body tingled. And it seemed she was remembering constantly. Now that she was no longer worried about the pain, she could hardly wait to lie with him again.
She squirmed on the seat, ordering herself to concentrate on the scenery as they crossed a river and entered Oxford. “Oh, look.” She smiled at a beautiful square bell tower built of mellow stone. “It looks so old.”
“Charmingly old, I hope.” Rand’s fingers tightened on her shoulder. “I hope you won’t mind living here.”
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed.
“We’re on Magdalen Bridge, and that tower is part of Magdalen College. It was built by Cardinal Wolsey. Every May Day since 1501, the college’s choir ascends the tower at dawn to greet the coming of spring with hymns.”
“Oh,” she said, “I imagine that must be lovely.” Beyond Magdalen, they passed through the low-arched East Gate, and then they were within the city wall, its battlements interspersed with turrets. Towers of Oxford’s many other colleges rose to punctuate the horizon, monuments to centuries of education.
Among the huge buildings of the university, townspeople lived and worked in smaller homes and shops under steep, sloping roofs. Few people walked the streets, but those that did looked prosperous, unlike in London where the poor slept in the gutters. “It’s a quiet town in the summer months,” Rand said, “but it will be bustling come October, full of students in their billowing black gowns.”
“Can we climb all the towers?” Rowan asked, nearly bouncing on the seat.
“Sit still,” Rose muttered.
“Not all of the towers, but certainly one or two,” Rand promised. “I’ll take you all on a walking tour later.”
Following instructions Rand had given the coachmen earlier, they turned onto New College Lane, a narrow street that ran between New College and Hart Hall. Behind a small rectangular courtyard, his new house rose three stories, the left side still cloaked in scaffolding.
“Here we are,” he said, somewhat unnecessarily given that the carriage had stopped behind the one holding Lord and Lady Trentingham.
The door opened, and the driver lowered the steps. Upon exiting, Rand waved at Lily’s parents, noting that they looked particularly happy and, in Lady Trentingham’s case, perhaps a bit flushed.
Smiling to himself, he prayed to find such long-lasting companionship with Lily.
Looking lovely in a cornflower blue traveling gown, Lily stepped out and stared up at the rows of Palladian windows. “It’s very big!”
“Did you think I’d expect Lady Lily Ashcroft to live in a cottage?” he teased. But his heart warmed to see she approved of her home-to-be.
He followed Rowan to the scaffolding, reaching a quick hand to grab the boy’s arm. “No, you don’t.”
“Holy Had—I mean zounds, I just wanted to climb it.”
“It doesn’t appear at all safe for young men,” Rand said. “Come, let me see if I can find Kit. I’ll introduce you all—and find out why he hasn’t finished as promised.”
A workman came out the front door, burdened with two buckets of paint. He smiled and bowed awkwardly. “Lord Randal.”
“Henry. How goes the job?”
“All but done. Mr. Martyn should return soon. He was called away—”
“Of course he was,” Rand interrupted. “Isn’t he always?” With a short laugh, he waved the man and his paint toward the scaffolding and ushered Lily’s family inside the house.
Even though Kit was off-site, the interior swarmed with industrious men, a testament to the man’s skill as a builder. “The house is designed in the classical style Kit favors,” Rand explained as he led the Ashcrofts through an impressive entry and into the first chamber, a drawing room where a man was noisily installing a marble fireplace surround. “I admired many homes like this while touring Italy, so when he started sketching elevations of what he had in mind, we found ourselves in complete accord.”
“It looks different,” Lily’s mother observed. “Plainer than other homes, but somehow more elegant,
