Beatrix suddenly began meowing emphatically.
“Ignore her,” they whispered together.
Meow…
Lily melted into Rand’s embrace. His kisses tasted of champagne and desire, and excitement built inside her, coupled with wonder that he would be hers. Not only today, but forever. Seeing Margery wed Bennett had really driven that home.
Her own wedding was next.
Meow, meow…
The mere thought made her giddy, made her senses spin with delight. She pressed her lips tighter to Rand’s, tilting her head until their mouths fit perfectly.
Meow, meow, meeeooow…
A knock came at the door. “Lily? Rand? Are you in there?”
“Goodness! It’s Mum!” Lily bolted upright on the bed, her heart pounding not with arousal now, but with something more akin to panic. She rushed to refasten her stomacher.
Still fully clothed, Rand calmly rose to his feet.
“She was trying to warn us!” Lily whispered.
“Your mother?”
“Beatrix!”
More knocking. “Lily? Are you in there?”
Amusement lit Rand’s eyes. “I’ll get the door.”
“Not yet!” Her fingers fumbled on the stomacher’s tabs.
“Are you in there, dear?”
Rand walked into the sitting room to answer the door, and Lily scrambled to join him, doing her best to look composed. He pulled back the bolt, at the same time reaching to tweak her stomacher straight. As the door swung open, revealing her parents, she plastered on a smile.
Chrystabel’s gaze flicked to Lily’s bodice before settling on her face. “There you are!” she said brightly.
Too brightly.
“I was just showing Lily the rooms we’ll be using when we live here,” Rand said unconvincingly.
“We’d love to see them, too,” her mother said and walked straight into the bedchamber.
As her parents passed, Lily looked down, mortified to find one of her stomacher tabs unattached. She whirled away, fastening it surreptitiously before joining them in the other room. Her heart seized when she noticed the rumpled counterpane on the bed.
“This entire home is magnificent.” Chrystabel crossed to a wall and ran a hand down the newly stripped paneling. “The grain is lovely.”
“I thought to paint it white for Lily,” Rand said while Lily inched over to the bed to smooth the yellow silk. “But Kit suggested a pale stain might look nicer on this wood.”
Chrystabel nodded her approval. “What kind is it?”
Her husband pulled out his pocket watch and flipped open the lid. “Half past three.”
“Cedar,” Rand said, clearly suppressing a laugh. Lily wondered which he found amusing, her father’s misunderstanding or her own red-faced embarrassment.
Probably both.
Joseph snapped the pocket watch shut, nodding vaguely at Rand. “I expect you’ll be staying here the next week or so to supervise finishing this?”
Rand raised his voice. “The house in Oxford needs my attention, too, Lord Trentingham. Perhaps I can bring Lily along—”
“I think not,” Chrystabel interrupted. “Lily will be at home, busy with the wedding plans.”
Lily stopped smoothing. “Mum, I think—”
“You’ll be busy,” she repeated. “If you weren’t insisting on marrying so quickly, it might be a different matter. But I’ll need your help. Now, I imagine Margery and Bennett are missing us, so our little tour of the house is over.”
As they all returned to the great hall together, Lily exchanged a frustrated glance with Rand.
“Elizabeth!” Chrystabel cried, waving to a neighbor and dragging Joseph in her direction. “I’ve found the perfect man for your daughter.”
No sooner had her parents walked off than Rand swung Lily to face him. “Margery wasn’t missing us.” He aimed a pointed look to where his baby sister was half entwined with Bennett, blissfully unaware of any of the guests.
Lily nodded. “Mum is trying to keep us apart.”
“And your father is cooperating.”
“I cannot figure why. They’ve left us alone before—”
“Does it matter why? They intend to make certain we don’t see each other again until the day of our wedding.”
A maid came by with fresh goblets of champagne. Rand took one and a bottle, too, meeting Lily’s eyes in a way that made her certain he had an idea that involved the sparkling wine.
An idea her parents wouldn’t approve.
Lily’s lips—and other places—tingled at the thought. She took the goblet from him and downed a bracing swallow.
“They won’t succeed in this,” Rand warned, sounding as though he’d just assigned himself a mission. He cast a glance to Lily’s parents and, seeing their backs momentarily turned, grabbed her hand. “Come along.”
He hurried her into the adjoining dining room, where footmen were setting the long gatelegged table with Delftware dishes for the wedding supper. Lily glanced back into the great hall. “They’ll just find us again.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” he advised her, taking the goblet from her hand and setting it on the leather-topped sideboard. Still carrying the bottle, he led her into the next room.
His father’s chamber. She stopped short and gaped at the tall, heavy oak bed.
“Not in here!”
Laughing, Rand leaned a hand on the wall.
Lily was astonished to see a panel swing open. They slipped beyond it, and Rand closed it quietly.
“A secret passage?” she said in wonder.
“Not secret.” Calmer now but no less determined, he guided her through a windowless corridor lit by plain lanterns mounted on walls painted a simple pale gray. “The house has these passages all through it,” he explained, guiding her around a corner. Here, a longer hallway bustled with servants carrying dishes and linen. “Father didn’t want the staff walking through one chamber to get to another, so corridors run behind. That way, they can duck in and out of rooms unobtrusively.”
The floors were not painstakingly polished here, but covered with long rush mats instead. With no fire to warm it, the passage was chilly. “Do all the rooms have secret doors?”
“Most of them, but the doors aren’t secret, either. They’re designed not to be obvious, but you just have to look for them.”
Lily shivered. “If there’s a door into our suite, I want it sealed.”
She thought Rand smiled beside her, but the corridor was too dim to tell for sure. Rows of leather fire buckets hung overhead, making her think they must be near the kitchen. “Where are we going?”
“Out. Through the servants’ entrance.”
“Out? You mean outside? Into
