She smiled, too, and kissed him again, thrilling when he deepened the caress. She would never get enough of this, enough of him. Her worries fled and her head was filled with only Rand.
But then a thought intruded and her heart plunged. She broke the kiss. “What about Margery?”
“What about Margery?”
“We need to consider her, too, don’t you think? After all, she just lost her betrothed, and she’s expecting to marry you.”
He tensed for a moment, but then relaxed and kissed her again. “What my father expects and what Margery expects are two different things. She hasn’t seen me in eight years. I’m certain she will think me no great loss. With her fortune, she can find herself a much better man. Someone important.”
“You’re an earl,” she reminded him. “And someday you’ll be a marquess.”
“But at heart, I’m a professor.” He skimmed a finger over the dent in her chin. “That you would offer me your inheritance…” His eyes glazed over again. “It’s overwhelming. And in the face of that generosity, I just know that everything will turn out fine.”
Lily wished she could be so confident.
THIRTY-NINE
LIKE THE REST of the house, the dining room was beautiful. Lily had glimpsed an enormous, lavish banqueting hall upstairs, but this chamber was much more intimate.
As Rand walked her in, her heels clicked on the two-toned parquet floor. She stopped to run a hand over the patterned design on the walls, surprised to find it was gold stamped on brown leather. “It looks like gilded wood!” she exclaimed.
“The leather is supposed to absorb the smells of food.”
She’d never heard of such a thing. “It’s lovely. All of Hawkridge Hall is lovely.”
“It’s a lovely prison,” he muttered back darkly. “It was my prison for fourteen years, and I’ve no wish to return.”
In opposition to the prison that was Hawkridge Hall—a prison designed and paid for by his father—the Oxford house was one-hundred-percent Rand’s. A symbol, Lily suspected, of his hard-won independence.
“I want to live in your new house, too,” she assured him. Kit had told her that he and Rand had spent months designing it before the cornerstone was laid, because Rand had wanted every square foot to be perfect. And it was. “It’s so modern, so simple and classic compared to this mansion. And so empty. I’m so looking forward to filling it over time, making it ours.” She was about to add more when Rand’s eyes widened in alarm. She swung around to see his father. “Oh! Good evening, my lord.”
“My lady,” he grunted. “Shall we be seated?”
Lily wondered how much the man had heard as they all took their places at the oval cedarwood table, the marquess seating himself at the opposite end from his son.
There were eighteen matching caned chairs around the table in this “family” dining room, and in Lily’s opinion, a family sat together to better enjoy each other’s company. At least her family did. Mentally shaking her head, she took a chair beside Rand rather than one in the middle—then pretended not to notice when two footmen had to scramble to move her table setting.
Being not so nice was feeling better and better.
Supper was an awkward affair. The marquess was dressed in black mourning and seemed offended that Rand was not. Other than a few minutes of desultory conversation about the man’s beloved mastiffs, Lily couldn’t get him to talk about anything. Both she and Rand were reluctant to bring up Margery or marriage, so the time passed mostly in silence punctuated by the clinking of Hawkridge’s custom-designed silverware.
Though the house was magnificent, there was something about it Lily didn’t like. Something dark and forbidding. Maybe it was the deep colors on the walls and all the somber, oak-framed paintings. Maybe it was the studied formality. Or maybe it was just that she’d never been anywhere before where she’d felt so very unwelcome.
When the meal finally drew to a close, Rand pushed back his chair. “Lily plays the harpsichord beautifully,” he said as a sort of invitation.
“I have work to do,” the marquess replied and left the room.
While Lily wished Rand and his father would act more like a family, in truth she felt mainly relief. “When are you going to tell him about my inheritance?” she asked.
A footman entered to clear the table, and Rand cleared his throat. “Would you care to walk in the gardens?”
Holding her tongue, she went with him outside.
He led her through the more formal gardens and into an area of grass walks lined with hornbeam hedges and field maples that enclosed many small, private gardens. The late-night summer sun was sinking, but not yet so low that she couldn’t see and appreciate the beauty of the individual compartments, each of which contained not only a variety of rather wild-growing plants, but also a surprise. Some hid copies of famous statuary, one offered a sundial, and another a cozy bench for two. The one Rand led her into held a tiny round gazebo.
A narrow seat curved around the inside. The structure was so small that when they settled across from each other, their knees touched.
Rand reached to take Lily’s hands. “We won’t be overheard here. He has spies.”
“Spies? I don’t think—”
“You always look for the good, sweet Lily,” he interrupted. “And you don’t know him,” he added, leaning close to press his lips to hers.
The warm caress set butterflies to fluttering in her stomach. She wondered if he’d come to her tonight in his father’s house. Part of her was horrified at the notion, but another part, a much larger part, hoped very much that he’d risk it.
Now that she
