Holding his hand wasn’t enough. Now that she’d decided he would be hers, she wanted to touch him all over. “She cannot keep us apart for a whole month.”
“Of course she cannot,” he assured her. “And I don’t think she’s really going to try.”
But a week later, after Kit had spent three more days working at Trentingham and Chrystabel had managed to make sure he and Rose weren’t alone together for more than ten minutes, Rose had her horse saddled and rode over to visit Violet.
“Before we were betrothed,” Violet told her, setting aside a fat philosophy book, “Mum left me alone with Ford constantly. Of course,” she added, “that was probably because she was sure he’d never want me that way at all.”
Rose had been pacing her sister’s pale turquoise drawing room. “Violet!” She stopped and turned to face her.
Her sister’s eyes looked earnest behind their spectacles. “You know it was so. Mum was certain he was wrong for me, and I wasn’t interested in men or marriage, anyway.”
“But after. After you became betrothed—”
“Those two weeks between our betrothal and marriage, we never managed to find ourselves alone. It was very strange.”
Ten days later, Kit had completed the greenhouse—but he and Rose still hadn’t found time together for much more than a kiss. When he said only half-jestingly that he was loath to return until their wedding day—still two weeks away—Rose took Harriet, a carriage, and a coachman, and drove to Oxford to visit Lily.
“Mum did the exact same thing to me and Rand!” Lily exclaimed. Swiveling on her petit point stool, she turned away from the beautiful inlaid Flemish harpsichord Rand had surprised her with after their wedding. “I couldn’t understand it. Before we became betrothed, she left us alone all the time. But after—”
“Exactly!” Rose sat in one of the drawing room’s brand-new lemon yellow chairs.
“It was torture.”
“Sheer torture, I agree.”
Lily’s cat rubbed against her skirts, and she leaned to pick it up. “Is Kit becoming bad-tempered?”
Rose nodded morosely. “Mum said she doesn’t want any eight-month babies.”
“Ridiculous.” Lily rhythmically stroked the cat’s striped fur. “Besides, at this point it would be more than eight-and-a-half. No one would dare even comment. Unless…” She eyed Rose speculatively. “You’re not already with child, are you?”
“Of course not! Kit and I have never—”
“Never?” Lily’s blue eyes widened in patent disbelief. “Never?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Rose’s fingers gripped the chair’s gilt armrests. “We haven’t had any time alone together since the minute we became betrothed!”
“But before—”
“Before? What kind of woman do you think I am?” she huffed, knowing quite well what kind of woman she was. The kind that would have crawled all over Kit given half a chance—before their betrothal, he’d been the one to display all the self-control. And after…
Her mouth dropped open as she stared at her sister.
Sweet Lily. Deceptively sweet Lily. “Don’t tell me you and Rand—before you were married—”
“Of course we did,” Lily scoffed. “We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. And Violet and Ford—”
“Violet, too?”
“Violet didn’t even wait until she was betrothed.”
“What?” Did Rose not know her sisters at all?
Lily nodded, still calmly stroking the cat. “Ford seduced her into marrying him.”
“No.” Not serious, bookish Violet.
“Oh, yes. He and Rand planned the whole thing one night when they were drunk.”
“That sounds like Ford and Rand,” Rose conceded. “But I cannot believe both you and Violet…good God, I’m the one who’s supposed to be forward, and the two of you…Gemini, this is so unfair!”
“And I imagine you’re all worried about the first time, too.”
“No,” Rose said quickly. She wasn’t. At least, not of that piddly one-time pain she knew her sister was referring to.
“I don’t believe you. No one should have to go through their wedding day worrying about their wedding night. It’s supposed to be a special day, and how could you possibly enjoy it? I felt so sorry for poor Judith.”
They were both silent a moment. “I hope she’s happy,” Rose finally said.
“I’m certain she is. And I’m certain her wedding night went splendidly, too. But you are not going to have to worry about yours.”
“I’m not so sure,” Rose said miserably. “Mum is so vigilant, you’d think I was the Crown Jewels and she’d been hired to guard me.”
Lily’s cat leapt out of her arms to join a sparrow and a squirrel that seemed to be chatting on the windowsill. She and Rand had moved to Oxford from his father’s estate only last week, just in time for Michaelmas Term to begin, but her animal friends had found her already.
“We’ll just have to get you two away from Mum,” Lily mused, watching the squirrel feed the bird a bit of nut.
“We’ve tried.”
“Not with my help.” She absently rubbed an old scar on the back of her hand, then brightened and focused on Rose. “I know! We’ll tell Mum that the three of us girls want one more sleeping party before you’re married. And we’ll tell her it’s going to be here. She’ll never come this far just to check on us for one night.”
Rose shook her head. “Kit is too honest for his own good—I’m not sure I’d be able to talk him into such a deception.”
“Kit won’t even be involved. Instead of sleeping here, the three of us will meet at Violet’s and then go to Windsor and surprise him.” Lily grinned, obviously pleased with her plan. “He’ll put us up, won’t he? Has he room?”
“At his house?” Rose had never realized Lily had such a devious mind—and she’d never appreciated her sister more. “Good God, yes—he could billet an army. Wait till you see it.”
SIXTY-THREE
ONE EVENING a week later, with only eight days left before the wedding, Kit was summoned by his butler to find
