“I can ride home,” he assured her. “Oxford is but a few hours.”
“Wait.” Ford held up a hand. “What about the translation? There’s no need for you to leave. We’ll move someone. The nursemaids—”
“I won’t have you upsetting your whole household,” Rand interrupted. Unlike the sprawling mansion Lily lived in, Lakefield was a typical L-shaped manor house. Enough rooms to sleep the family, a few servants, and a guest, but that was all.
Ford crossed his arms. “I won’t have you leaving. Your house is a wreck at the moment.”
A smile twitched on Rand’s lips as he pointedly scanned the chamber. Lily choked back a laugh.
“Rowan!” Her mother’s voice floated up the stairs. “Rowan, have you and Jewel—” A gasp chopped off her sentence as she stepped into the room. “Heavens, this is—”
“A bloody mess,” Ford finished for her. “And my fault, not your son’s.”
“See?” Rowan said with a grin of vindication. “It’s not my fault Lord Randal cannot stay here.”
“It’s nobody’s fault.” Rand strode to the bed, his shoes making a sucking sound as he went. “I should probably be home badgering Kit anyway, if the house is to be finished this decade.” He reached for his luggage.
“Don’t you want to finish the translation?” Ford looked frantic. “We’ll find a place—”
“Lord Randal is welcome to stay with us,” Chrystabel interrupted with a smile. “We’ve more guest rooms than we know what to do with.”
Lily’s mouth hung open. Why, they hardly knew Lord Randal Nesbitt.
But apparently that made no difference to Mum. “You’ll be close to Lakefield,” she added. They were naught but a quarter-hour’s ride down the road. “By tomorrow, perhaps this room will once again be habitable.”
Violet glanced around mournfully. “I doubt it.”
Looking a mite dubious, Rand set down the luggage. “If I overnight at Trentingham,” he said slowly, “I can return tomorrow and help put the place to rights.”
“A generous offer,” Ford said.
Violet pushed up on her spectacles. “There’s no need for Rand to wrestle with soggy carpeting.”
“The boards underneath must be dried, lest they warp.”
“We have servants to do that sort of thing.”
“But if we had extra help—” Ford pressed.
Violet cut him off with a laugh. “Rand can ‘help’ you in the bone-dry laboratory upstairs, huddled over that ancient alchemy text.”
Her husband’s expression made clear that sounded good to him.
And so it was settled. Rand would sleep at Trentingham and return in the morning.
Lily supposed it was well done of Mum to offer the hospitality, but she hoped it didn’t mean she was trying to match Rand with Rose.
That would ruin her sister’s plan.
SIX
TRENTINGHAM Manor was teeming with family and friends who had come to attend the twins’ baptism, so Rand’s addition to the mix was clearly little imposition. But he did appreciate Lady Trentingham’s kind invitation. She seemed a true gentlewoman.
Although perhaps a bit overly solicitous.
“Lily, dear,” she said as they walked into the linenfold-paneled dining room for supper, “I’d appreciate it if you’d sit beside Rand, since he isn’t acquainted with our other guests.”
Which would have made sense if Rose hadn’t already planted herself on his other side.
“Lord Randal,” she gushed, laying a hand on her chest theatrically, her fingertips flirtatiously grazing the skin revealed by her wide, low neckline. “What a pleasure to have you as a dining partner.”
“Rand,” he corrected her, as he had countless times. So far as he was concerned, Lord was nothing more than a reminder of his disturbing roots. He liked to think of himself as a professor now, not a marquess’s son. “And the pleasure is mine,” he assured her, meaning it. This civilized supper was a lot more pleasurable than riding home to all the hammering and sawing at his house in Oxford.
“Cousin Rose.” A gentleman on her other side begged her attention, waving a bejeweled hand at the floral arrangements—enormous vases of colorful posies that graced each end of the table, flanking a towering centerpiece. “Have we you to thank for these beautiful works of art?”
“Why, yes,” Rose said warmly. “I’m pleased, cousin, that you’re enjoying them.” She turned back to Rand, fluttering her eyelashes in a way that tempted him to laugh. “I love arranging flowers.”
“They’re lovely.” They were. She had an artist’s eye, a flair for color and balance. He turned to Lily. “Do you work with flowers as well?”
“Oh, no. I’ve no skill with plants.”
Rose shook her head, as though she felt sorry for her poor, talentless sister. “She cares only for her animals.”
As if on cue, a sparrow flew into the room and landed smack on the table, right in front of Lily.
“Holy Hades,” Rowan said. “Not again.”
“Rowan,” Lady Trentingham admonished.
“Well, someone should shut the windows.”
Rose fanned herself with a languid hand. “With all these people, it would be too hot if we shut the windows.”
“Cut the hedgerows?” Her father nodded sagely. “Yes, I’ve asked the groundskeepers to do that.”
No one looked confused or surprised. Apparently they were all well enough acquainted with Lord Trentingham to know that along with his passion for gardening, the man was half deaf.
“Excellent, darling,” Lady Trentingham said loudly, flicking crumbs off his cravat. She looked to Lily, who was busy feeding bits of bread to the sparrow. “Not at supper, dear.”
Lily sighed. “Go, Lady.” She tossed the gray-brown bird a final crumb. “Outside now.”
Amazingly, the bird gobbled the last of its feast and then took flight, heading for one of the windows where a squirrel sat on the sill, seemingly watching the proceedings. With a flutter of feathers, the sparrow landed beside the squirrel and turned to tweet at it. The squirrel chirped back, for all the world like they were having a conversation.
Rand had never seen a wild bird that obeyed, let alone a squirrel that didn’t run at the sight of humans. He turned to Lily. “You do have a way with animals.”
“Oh, there’s more to Lily than that,” her mother informed him
