WHEN LILY arrived at Violet’s house, Rose motioned her into the drawing room.
She gestured toward where Rand stood in conversation. “He keeps looking over here, Lily. He’s spotted me.” Tall and willowy, Rose made a pretty picture against the drawing room’s soft turquoise walls—and well she knew it. She straightened one of her glistening chestnut curls and smoothed her deep-blue satin skirts. “He remembers me,” she added confidently.
“Of course he remembers you.” Lily glanced in Rand’s direction—or at least she intended to glance. Instead, she found herself staring. “You worked together translating that old alchemy book, didn’t you?” she added slowly.
How had she managed to ignore him in the chapel? Rand wasn’t a man to whom women would be indifferent. His physique was lean and athletic, and his hair, a million mixed colors of blond and brown, was longer than hers and gorgeous enough to make her jealous.
As though sensing Lily studying him, he turned his head while still talking. For a split second, his intense gray eyes blazed into hers.
Or she thought they had. She blinked, clearing her vision. Now Judith had her imagining things.
“I’ve been dreaming about this day for weeks,” Rose said, reclaiming her attention.
“The baptism?”
“No, you goose. Seeing Lord Randal again. Ever since I danced with him at Violet’s wedding, I’ve known he’s the man for me.”
Suddenly Lily remembered that Rand had danced with her, too, at their sister’s wedding. Not to mention, of course, that Rose lusted after every handsome, eligible man who crossed her path.
But Lily had to admit that Rand could be the one for Rose. Good looks aside, he was more suited to her sister than most men were. The two of them were both academically minded and shared mutual interests. “I had no idea you’d been thinking about him all these years.”
“Dreaming,” Rose repeated on a sigh.
“Four years is a long time to dream.” Lily cast him another quick glance, then smiled at her older sister. “I suppose he is the memorable sort.”
Rose looked at her sharply. “You’re not interested in him yourself, are you?”
“Of course not!” First Judith, now Rose? Was something in the air today? “Whatever would make you think that?”
“You said he’s the memorable sort.”
“That doesn’t mean I want him. A man like Rand would never be interested in someone like me. He’d want someone like you, Rose. You’re both fascinated with languages. Rand and I have nothing in common. And he’s too tall.” Lily drew herself up to her full height of five-foot-two and figured she stood to about his shoulders.
Looking down at her, Rose snorted. “There’s no such thing as a man who’s too tall. Will you promise?”
“Promise what?”
“Promise me you won’t pursue him. Promise me you won’t get in my way.”
The entire idea was so absurd, Lily laughed. “I promise. In fact, I’ll do better than that. I’ll help you land him.”
“Would you?” Rose breathed.
“Of course. You’re my sister. I love you, and I want to see you happy.”
Rose’s dark eyes actually misted. “You’re so good, Lily. You want everyone to be happy.”
“Is there something wrong with that?”
“Of course not,” Rose said, and then in the next breath, “What will you do to help?”
Rose would be Rose, Lily thought with an inward smile. “Whatever I can. But you must do your part, too. And that means, for once, not pretending that your head is filled with pudding. I wish I could speak half the languages you do. You’re bright and intelligent, and hiding that makes no sense.”
“For Lord Randal, perhaps it doesn’t, because we have similar interests. But for other men—”
“For any man. Why would you want a man who doesn’t value your strengths?”
“You don’t understand men, sister dear. Most of them thrive on feeling superior.” When Lily opened her mouth, Rose held up a hand. “But we were talking about Lord Randal, who isn’t most men—” She broke off, her eyes widening. “Gemini, here he comes!”
As Rand approached, their mother seemed to appear out of nowhere—a habit Lily and her sisters found vexing. Chrystabel gave him a brilliant smile. “Lord Randal. How very nice to see you again.” Her brown eyes shone with genuine warmth. “We missed you at my first grandson’s christening.”
“She means Nicky, my godchild,” Rose put in. “I shared the honor with Ford’s two brothers.”
Rand shrugged a shoulder, a half smile curving his lips. “I was sorry to miss the occasion, but I’m afraid I was in Greece.”
“Greece!” Rose laid a graceful hand on her embroidered stomacher. “That sounds like a dream. I would so adore traveling the world. I could make use of all my languages.”
Lily did a little mental dance, so happy to see that her sister was doing as she’d suggested—as the entire family had been suggesting for years. For once in her life, Rose wasn’t going to hide her brains and pretend to be empty-headed.
It would work, Lily was sure. Rose’s bad luck with men would finally come to an end. And then, she couldn’t help thinking, with her sister safely wed, she’d feel free to find love for herself.
Chrystabel cleared her throat. “You’ll remember my daughter Rose?” she asked Rand. “And Lily, her younger sister?”
“And Lily,” Rand repeated, his eyes meeting hers. Capturing hers, like they had four years ago and again just a few minutes earlier.
In all of her twenty years, she’d never seen another gaze as compelling as Rand’s. It felt as though he could see right into her, yet not in an uncomfortable way…in a way that warmed her and held her captive.
She’d forgotten about that. It seemed she’d forgotten a lot in those four years.
Rose—bold Rose—reached to touch him on the arm. “Did you ever succeed in translating that alchemy book?”
“Secrets of the Emerald Tablet?” He smiled at Lily before shifting his attention to her sister. “Not yet. A fine puzzle it is, very time-consuming, and Ford said that with the sale of his watch patent there was no longer any rush.”
At that, Ford broke into their little group. “You certainly took that to heart,” he said accusingly. “Four years is a bit longer than I had in mind.”
“I’m here now, aren’t I?” Rand countered, sounding defensive. “And ready to finish it.”
Ford grinned, revealing the heated exchange to have been nothing more than jesting between friends. “Only because you have nowhere to live.”
“That’s not true. I have a beautiful new home.”
“Half built.”
Rand ruefully rubbed his forehead. “The hammering and sawing were driving me insane.”
“Rand has commissioned a new house,” Ford explained to the girls and their mother. “It was supposed to have been ready by now, so he’d already sold his old one.”
“And as a consequence,” Rand added, “I’ve been sleeping in a construction site.”
Rose nodded, her face a study in understanding. “Where’s your new home, my lord?”
“Rand,” he corrected her, having asked them four years ago to call him that. “And it’s in Oxford.”
“Rand is a professor of linguistics,” Ford reminded Rose, although Lily was sure her sister needed no reminding.
But apparently Rose decided to pretend she’d forgotten. “Oooh, my lord, that’s so impressive,” she cooed, favoring Rand with a wide smile—one Lily had seen her practice countless times in her dressing table mirror.
“A matter of determination and persistence,” Rand told her, looking oddly immune to that smile.
He wasn’t responding to the old, coquettish Rose. Lily would have to point that out to her sister. Flirtation didn’t mesh well with her new, more intelligent image.
“How long will you be staying?” Chrystabel asked him.
“My house should be finished within a week or so—”
“As long as it takes,” Ford broke in, “to figure out whether the book indeed holds the secret to making gold. Now, would you all like to see the new water closet?”
“It seems to me,” Rand said in the sort of needling tone only a fast friend would put up with, “it’s taken you longer to build that water closet than I’ve spent on the translation.” He turned to Lily’s family. “I remember when his brother had water closets installed—”
“Colin,” Ford clarified.
“My friend here was so envious. Said he’d design one for Lakefield in no time. That was what, ten years ago?”
“Eleven. Come see.” As he talked, Ford led them out of the drawing room, threading his way through the many guests. “I’ve finished but one so far, and you’re a fortunate man since it’s in the room where you’ll be staying.”
Rand went with Ford up the square oak staircase, Rose hurrying to follow. Lily watched her sister’s swishing skirts as she and her mother trailed everyone else up the stairs, her striped cat, Beatrix, scampering behind.
Ford reached the landing and headed down the corridor. “Colin’s water closets were imported from France.”
“They must have been expensive,” Rose said.
“Absolutely. But I examined his thoroughly, and they seemed a simple enough design to build myself. In fact, I thought of improvements.”
“Of course,” Chrystabel put in.
She thought her son-in-law was brilliant. In fact, she’d originally told Violet that Ford was too intellectual for her. Funny how wrong she’d been about that, but it had been just as well. Mum was somewhat renowned as a matchmaker, and although Violet and Ford were perfect for each other, if she’d tried to match them up, their marriage would never have happened.
The three Ashcroft sisters loved their mother dearly, but they were determined to avoid becoming another page in The Big Book of Weddings Arranged by Chrystabel.
Lily was watching, in fact, to see if Mum would try to match Rose with Rand. They were an obvious fit, after all, and at twenty-one, Rose was getting rather desperate. When poor Violet turned that same age, Rose had pronounced her an official spinster.
But if Mum tried to push Rand on her, Rose would surely go looking elsewhere. And Lily would be honor-bound to help. The girls had a long-standing pact to save one another from their mother’s matchmaking schemes.
Inside the guest chamber, everyone including the cat squeezed into a tiny room that Ford had hired a man to construct in the corner—while Ford was an accomplished inventor, he was less talented at anything requiring sweat or a ladder. They all gathered around the water closet and peered down at it in wonder.
It was a padded box with a round opening in the top, rather like a closestool. But instead of a removable chamber pot inside, there was a permanent alabaster bowl. “Back here,” Ford pointed out, “this copper pipe leads down from it.” The pipe disappeared into the wall. “The system works as a siphon.”
They all nodded, since he’d explained siphons to them years ago, along with other scientific marvels.
“I suppose it empties into the river?” Rose asked, demonstrating her intelligence.
“It does. And there will be more pipes—eventually all over the house. I mean to put a water closet in every bedchamber. And my laboratory.”
Leaning to pick up Beatrix, Lily hid a smile. The man practically lived in his laboratory.
Another pipe ran up from the back of the seat, ending at a tank affixed to the wall. “The water,” Ford said, gesturing toward a third pipe that disappeared into the ceiling. “It’s fed from a cistern on the roof.”
“How does it work?” Lily asked.
“Well, first you use it—”
“No need to demonstrate that,” Rose rushed to say.
“Of course not.” Though her brother-in-law rolled his eyes, it was a good-natured roll. While Lily suspected there’d been a time he’d disapproved of Rose’s forthright nature, those days were long past.
Rose was Rose, and all the family knew it.
“After you use it, you pull on this lever.” Ford grabbed a handle attached to the tank. “It releases the water to wash the waste out to the river.”
He pulled, and there was a rushing sound. Startled, Beatrix leapt from Lily’s arms and streaked from the room. Nearly bumping heads, everyone leaned over the alabaster bowl to watch the water flow down the pipe.
“Goodness,” Lily said. “It’s wonderful. There’s nothing to take out, nothing to clean.”
“As though you’ve ever scrubbed a chamber pot,” Rose teased.
“Oh, hush.” Lily playfully shoved her sister’s shoulder. While it was true they had no lack of servants at Trentingham Manor, that was beside the point.
Used to their squabbling, Ford simply pushed back up on the lever. “When it’s clean, you stop the water.”
“That’s it?” Mum asked.
“That’s it,” Ford said with a smile. “To deal with the, um, unpleasant odors in the pipes, I’ve curved the one below the bowl into an S shape. Clean water fills it and forms a seal.”
Chrystabel beamed. “Brilliant, as usual.”
“Very impressive,” Rand allowed.
The demonstration over, they all squeezed through the narrow doorway into the pale green bedchamber. Luggage—Rand’s, Lily assumed—sat in a corner. “Why did you build the first one in here?” she asked Ford.
“I wanted to make certain everything worked right before I started punching holes in the walls of rooms we regularly use.” He waved them back toward the corridor. “Come along, now. I want to show you the pipes outside, and others are waiting for a demonstration.”
“Everyone will want to see it, I’d wager.” Rose maneuvered to descend beside Rand. “I wish they’d all leave. I cannot wait to use it.”
Rand appeared to be smothering a laugh.
Mum released a sigh but let the improper comment pass. “Me, too,” she whispered to Lily as they followed the others downstairs.
“Me three,” Lily murmured.
Once outdoors, Ford hurried them through the garden and around the side of the house. Bright new copper pipe shone in the sun, making its way down the white wall before disappearing into the ground. A tidy trail of newly turned earth traced the pipe’s path to the nearby Thames.
Amusement glittering in her eyes, Rose raised one perfect brow. “I see you’ve become handier with a shovel.”
“Harry did the digging,” Ford said, referring to his ancient man-of-all-work—and apparently either taking Rose’s observation as a jest or failing to recognize her subtle sarcasm.
Probably the latter, Lily decided. The man was known to be rather oblivious.
An orange kitten came up and wound around her, ducking beneath her skirts to tickle her ankles. With a giggle, she bent to fish it out. “This is all so very clever,” she told her brother-in-law, smiling as she stroked the kitty’s fur and felt it begin to purr. “Can you put some water closets in Trentingham, too?”
“And have pipes running down the outside of the house?” Now Rose’s perfect brows drew together. “That wouldn’t look well at all.”
Mum shrugged. “I could accept the unsightliness for the convenience.”
“Father would never allow it,” Rose said.
To the contrary, Lily doubted their father would even notice—he rarely took note of much beyond his beloved flowers. If a thing didn’t grow, he wasn’t apt to pay it much attention.
“What’s your cat’s name?” Rand asked.
Lily gazed down at the ball of fluff vibrating against her middle. “This isn’t my cat. I’ve never seen it before in my life.” Still stroking the soft apricot fur, she looked up at Ford. “Is it yours?”
He shrugged. “Not that I’m aware.”
Of course, he wasn’t apt to pay much attention to anything that did grow, unless it was some sort of muck in a beaker in his laboratory.
“Cats just come to Lily,” Rose told Rand.
He grinned. “They must be able to tell she’s the nurturing sort.”
Lily’s cheeks heated. “I adore animals,” she said. “All animals.”
“She’s the mothering sort.” Rose sidled closer to Rand.
“Rose,” Mum said softly.
But that didn’t deter Lily’s sister. “Men don’t care to be mothered,” she purred, laying a hand on Rand’s arm and narrowing her eyes until she looked rather catlike herself. “Do they, Lord Randal?”
“I cannot speak for other men,” he said tactfully, leaving it at that. In keeping with the careful wording, he gently extricated himself from her grip by crossing to his friend. “Ford, I do believe your other guests are getting impatient.”
“And Violet asked if you’d freshen some of her floral arrangements,” Chrystabel reminded Rose.
Although Rose enjoyed turning flowers into towering works of art, she looked reluctant to leave Rand’s side. “Violet can wait awhile.”
“Now, dear, that’s not very sisterly.” Mum smiled at the men. “Please excuse us,” she said as she took Rose by the arm and led her off.
“I must give others the tour,” Ford said and followed them.
And just like that, Lily found herself alone with Rand, wondering what she should say.