“Most assuredly.”
“Well then, sing them, won’t you?”
“Start over at the beginning,” he said with an enigmatic smile.
When she did, he began singing.
“Come my honey, let’s to bed,
It is no sin, since we are wed;
For when I am near thee by desire,
I burn like any coal of fire.”
Rand’s voice was so rich that Lily found herself transfixed. She didn’t register the actual words. Just the tone, the depth…the sound seemed to go right through her, into her, warming her.
She couldn’t care less where she lived, she thought dreamily. Hawkridge, Oxford, a hovel…if only Rand would sing to her every night, she’d be happy all her days.
He raised a brow. “This next verse is yours.”
Her fingers still picking out the jaunty tune, she smiled. “Even if I knew the words, I cannot sing. You sing it.”
“Hmm…” He raised his voice an octave and warbled a bit as he continued.
“To quench thy flames I’ll soon agree,
Thou art the sun, and I the sea,
All night within my arms shalt be,
And rise each morn as fresh as he.”
Lily giggled at his game attempt to sound like a woman. She caught a few of the words and thought she knew why Rand liked this song. The woman wanted to spend the night in the man’s arms—and goodness, did she identify with that.
“The final part is supposed to be sung together,” he said.
“Is it?” She continued playing, her fingers flying over the keys. “I’m listening,” she said, determined to pay attention to the lyrics this time.
One of his boots tapped in rhythm as he waited for the right place in the music.
“Come on then, and couple together,
Come all, the old and the young,
The short and the tall,
The richer than Croesus,
And poorer than Job,
For ’tis wedding and bedding,
That peoples the globe.”
Lily’s fingers stilled as she gasped. “Couple together? Wedding and bedding? Whoever wrote a song about that?”
“Anonymous. He writes a lot of songs.” The mischievous glitter in Rand’s eyes belied his mock-serious tone. “Are you scandalized?”
“Yes. No.” She laughed at herself—no need to play coy with Rand. “Well, maybe I’m intrigued. Would you know more songs like this one?”
“This one is mild—the couple is married, after all.” He raised a roguish brow. “I know hundreds, most of them much worse.”
“Hundreds?”
“Well, I cannot remember them all. But I have a book.”
“A book?” What a sheltered life she’d led. “Someone wrote these down?”
His eyes sparkled with undisguised mirth. “Oh, yes, with the music and all. The book is called An Antidote Against Melancholy, and I understand it sells very well. Let me see if I can remember another.”
He hummed beneath his breath for a while, then he nodded.
“As Oyster Nan stood by her tub,
To shew her vicious inclination;
She gave her noblest parts a scrub,
And sigh’d for want of copulation.”
Lily gasped again and felt heat rush into her cheeks. Feeling both a bit naughty and more lighthearted than she’d have thought possible earlier, she began picking out the simple tune while he sang another verse.
“A vintner of no little fame,
Who excellent red and white can sell ye,
Beheld the little dirty dame,
As she stood scratching of her belly.”
He stopped there.
“That cannot be all,” she protested, still playing and insanely curious as to how the story might end—not to mention what titillating words might be used to tell it.
Rand walked behind her, knelt down, and slipped his arms around her waist. Sweeping her hair aside, he nuzzled her neck. “Do you want to hear the rest?”
She could but nod.
He sang softly by her ear.
“From door they went behind the bar,
As it’s by common fame reported;
And there upon a Turkey chair,
Unseen the loving couple sported;
But being called by company,
As he was taking pains to please her;
I’m coming, coming, Sir, says he,
My dear, and so am I, says she, Sir.”
She stopped playing and turned on the stool to face him. “Now,” she said, “I’m scandalized.”
“Are you? You’re pink.” He grinned. “I like you scandalized.”
“I want to see the book.”
He laughed, clearly tickled by her reaction. “It’s packed away with everything else I had to store from my old house. You’ll have to wait until we move to Oxford.”
The playfulness suddenly drained out of her. “Will we?”
“Yes.” He rose, pulling her up with him. “Yes, we will. Tomorrow I’ll talk to Margery, and then to the marquess. And then we’ll reclaim our lives. I want no part of this.” He waved an arm, encompassing the mansion, the estate, the title—everything.
“I just want you,” she said. “No matter who or where you are. Professor, earl, marquess, Hawkridge, Oxford…I don’t care. I care only that we’re together.”
He searched her eyes for a long, tense moment, and then he yanked her against him and crushed his mouth to hers.
This was what mattered, she thought wildly—this heat, this overwhelming need. This longing to share bodies and lives. Where was just a tiny, insignificant detail.
His tongue swept her mouth, a declaration of sheer possession. She pressed against him, her arms going around him, beneath his coat, scrambling to get under his shirt. With a groan, he broke the kiss and lifted her into his arms.
The Queen’s Bedchamber was just around the corner. In no time at all, he was laying her on the cloth-of-gold coverlet and reaching for the tabs that secured her stomacher. Her heart hammered beneath where his fingers were feverishly working. Her entire body tingled with anticipation.
And then she realized.
“Rand. We cannot.”
His fingers didn’t even falter. “We cannot what, love?”
As he tossed aside the stomacher and reached for her laces, she sat up and pushed at his hands. “We cannot risk starting a child. If we haven’t already, I mean. Your father…what if he doesn’t agree to our plan? What if Margery doesn’t? What if you have to marry her, Rand?”
“Bloody hell.” His hands went limp, and he dropped to sit beside her, jarring the mattress with his sudden weight. After
