IT TOOK THREE carriages to get to Oxford. A valet and two maids rode in the first, along with all the luggage. The second held Chrystabel and Joseph.
“Do you suppose the children will be all right alone?” she asked.
He laughed. “Three of those ‘children’ are in their twenties. Relax, Chrysanthemum. It seems like years since we’ve had a carriage to ourselves. Come over and sit on my lap.”
Smiling, she did. It had been years. But their offspring, with the exception of Rowan, were finally grown. “I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too.” He kissed the top of her head. “And I can hear you without all the chatter.”
She settled against his warm form, using his body to cushion her from the jarring ruts in the road. It was a calmer ride than many, though, the landscape mainly gentle green slopes. Cattle roamed, grazing aimlessly. “Ah, this is nice.” Chrystabel snuggled closer. “I wonder how everyone else is doing.”
“You worry too much, Chrysanthemum.”
She sighed. “I’m just wondering what happened yesterday. If anything.”
“If anything? Two young people in a summerhouse…”
“One of them was sweet Lily.”
He snorted. “The other was a healthy male. I used to be a healthy male, which means I know of what I speak.”
“You still are a healthy male,” she protested, knowing he wanted to hear it and also thinking it was true. He was only forty-six, after all. “But regardless, Lily remains worried by Rose’s attitude, not that I can blame her. I must figure out a way to get Lily and Rand off alone together some more. Much more.”
“Hey.” He tilted her chin up and placed a kiss on her lips—a somewhat bouncing kiss due to the ride, but a nice one nonetheless. “Can I entice you to forget about our children for a while? Here I’ve succeeded in getting us off alone together…why aren’t we taking advantage of it?”
Conversation was abandoned in favor of blissful sighs.
THE THIRD carriage wasn’t nearly as peaceful.
On one of the upholstered benches, Rand sat beside Lily, holding her hand. Across from them, Rose glared at their linked fingers while Rowan chattered, excited about his first trip to Oxford.
“You’ve never been?” Rand asked.
“Never.”
“Neither have I,” Lily added.
“And you, Rose?” Rand asked, trying to bring her into the conversation.
“No,” she said shortly, still glowering.
He squeezed Lily’s hand, knowing her sister’s disapproval was hard on her. Remembering their encounter in the summerhouse yesterday, he could only be glad it had happened. Lily would have no thoughts of changing her mind now. Perhaps the seduction hadn’t been planned or honorable, but he couldn’t be sorry, not when it had bonded her to him as tightly as a book to its cover.
At least he hoped it had, he thought suddenly, relieved when her fingers squeezed back. After all, she could be with child. Although that was one thing he didn’t hope for—not yet, anyway.
Of course, he knew the potential consequences of what they’d done, of what he expected they’d do over and over in the months and years ahead of them. And when children came along, he was certain he’d love them as much as he loved Lily. But he’d prefer some time alone with her first. He was just getting used to the idea of being a husband; he felt woefully unprepared for fatherhood as yet.
“Do you know,” Lily said, dragging his thoughts back to the conversation, “we’ve never been much of anywhere besides London and the area that surrounds Trentingham. Oh, and Tremayne, but not for years.”
“Tremayne?”
“A castle and lands our family owns near Wales. We stayed there during Cromwell’s Protectorate, and again in ’65 when the Great Plague was a threat. Now that Grandpapa has passed on and Father become the earl, Rowan is Viscount Tremayne.”
“Are you?” Rand asked Rowan, smiling when Lily’s brother nodded and puffed out his narrow chest. “Well, then,” he told the boy, “you’re certainly more important than I. I’m a mere lord.”
“You’re important,” Lily protested sweetly.
Across from them, her sister groaned.
“Have you never been out of Britain, then?” he asked Rose.
“No,” she said as shortly as before.
“None of us have.” When the carriage jounced in and out of a rut, Lily jostled against Rand. “Where have you been?”
“Oh, Spain, France, Italy, Greece…I’ll take you those places, and more.”
Rose smirked. “She won’t be able to talk to anyone.”
Rand’s concern for Lily’s sister was rapidly transforming to annoyance. Deliberately he dropped Lily’s hand to wrap an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. “I’ll be happy enough to communicate for Lily.”
The look in Rose’s eyes told him she hadn’t missed the declaration of possession—not that he found that surprising. Rose might have her faults, but he’d never considered a weak intellect among them.
They fell silent for a while.
Lily watched out the window. She rubbed the scars on her hand, determined not to let her sister’s bad temper spoil this special day. As they descended toward Oxford the grazing land gave way to water meadows, and now the road was peppered with charming houses, each with a lovely, well-tended garden.
Rand began humming, that same old tune, somehow both quiet and cheerful at the same time. Lily’s mind drifted, and she touched her fingertips to her lips, imagining them tender and a little bit puffy like they’d been yesterday after Rand’s kisses. She’d gone to sleep last night with one hand on her mouth and awakened that way, too, lying abed too long this morning while she recalled every exciting moment of their time together in the summerhouse.
Sharing herself with Rand had been an incredibly amazing experience, and it couldn’t have been wrong—not when they’d pledged their hearts. But she’d thought of little else since, and now, sitting beside Rand but unable to kiss him, to really touch him…she thought she might very well go mad.
Whenever she remembered what it had felt like to lie next to him, to have him within her, her entire body tingled. And it seemed she was remembering constantly. Now that she was no longer worried about the pain, she could hardly wait to lie with him again.
She squirmed on the seat, ordering herself to concentrate on the scenery as they crossed a river and entered Oxford. “Oh, look.” She smiled at a beautiful square bell tower built of mellow stone. “It looks so old.”
“Charmingly old, I hope.” Rand’s fingers tightened on her shoulder. “I hope you won’t mind living here.”
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed.
“We’re on Magdalen Bridge, and that tower is part of Magdalen College. It was built by Cardinal Wolsey. Every May Day since 1501, the college’s choir ascends the tower at dawn to greet the coming of spring with hymns.”
“Oh,” she said, “I imagine that must be lovely.” Beyond Magdalen, they passed through the low-arched East Gate, and then they were within the city wall, its battlements interspersed with turrets. Towers of Oxford’s many other colleges rose to punctuate the horizon, monuments to centuries of education.
Among the huge buildings of the university, townspeople lived and worked in smaller homes and shops under steep, sloping roofs. Few people walked the streets, but those that did looked prosperous, unlike in London where the poor slept in the gutters. “It’s a quiet town in the summer months,” Rand said, “but it will be bustling come October, full of students in their billowing black gowns.”
“Can we climb all the towers?” Rowan asked, nearly bouncing on the seat.
“Sit still,” Rose muttered.
“Not all of the towers, but certainly one or two,” Rand promised. “I’ll take you all on a walking tour later.”
Following instructions Rand had given the coachmen earlier, they turned onto New College Lane, a narrow street that ran between New College and Hart Hall. Behind a small rectangular courtyard, his new house rose three stories, the left side still cloaked in scaffolding.
“Here we are,” he said, somewhat unnecessarily given that the carriage had stopped behind the one holding Lord and Lady Trentingham.
The door opened, and the driver lowered the steps. Upon exiting, Rand waved at Lily’s parents, noting that they looked particularly happy and, in Lady Trentingham’s case, perhaps a bit flushed.
Smiling to himself, he prayed to find such long-lasting companionship with Lily.
Looking lovely in a cornflower blue traveling gown, Lily stepped out and stared up at the rows of Palladian windows. “It’s very big!”
“Did you think I’d expect Lady Lily Ashcroft to live in a cottage?” he teased. But his heart warmed to see she approved of her home-to-be.
He followed Rowan to the scaffolding, reaching a quick hand to grab the boy’s arm. “No, you don’t.”
“Holy Had—I mean zounds, I just wanted to climb it.”
“It doesn’t appear at all safe for young men,” Rand said. “Come, let me see if I can find Kit. I’ll introduce you all—and find out why he hasn’t finished as promised.”
A workman came out the front door, burdened with two buckets of paint. He smiled and bowed awkwardly. “Lord Randal.”
“Henry. How goes the job?”
“All but done. Mr. Martyn should return soon. He was called away—”
“Of course he was,” Rand interrupted. “Isn’t he always?” With a short laugh, he waved the man and his paint toward the scaffolding and ushered Lily’s family inside the house.
Even though Kit was off-site, the interior swarmed with industrious men, a testament to the man’s skill as a builder. “The house is designed in the classical style Kit favors,” Rand explained as he led the Ashcrofts through an impressive entry and into the first chamber, a drawing room where a man was noisily installing a marble fireplace surround. “I admired many homes like this while touring Italy, so when he started sketching elevations of what he had in mind, we found ourselves in complete accord.”
“It looks different,” Lily’s mother observed. “Plainer than other homes, but somehow more elegant, too.”
“Kit and I designed it together.” Rand clearly loved this house; Lily could hear the pride in his voice. “I wanted the decorative elements understated, not so grandiose as in most new homes today. And Kit has an eye for grace and balance.”
“Come along!” Rowan yelled.
A bundle of energy after having been pent up in the carriage, he directed a whirlwind tour through the main rooms and the kitchen—no matter that he didn’t know where he was going. Upstairs, he led them all on a merry chase down a narrow hallway between the five bedchambers.
“We designed the house with corridors,” Rand explained, “so there’s no need to go through one room to get to another.”
Since the master bedchamber was the only room in the house with any furniture, their footsteps and voices echoed in the empty spaces. When Rowan had finished racing in and out of every chamber, he slid down the slick new banisters to the bottom. The others followed more sedately and gathered in the entrance hall on the ground floor.
“It’s beautiful.” Lily hugged herself and smiled, looking slowly around the square, high-ceilinged room. She loved all the architectural details, the niches built into the walls, the light that streamed through the many large windows to brighten the interior. Rather than being covered with heavy, dark paneling or a riot of intricate carving, the walls were smooth plaster.
“All white,” Rand pointed out with a grin. “Virginal. Like your bedchamber.”
Thinking she was virginal no more, she blushed and looked up at the classic coved cornice around the ceiling. “Will the walls be staying all white?”
“I don’t expect so. My last house came furnished and decorated in a style that never quite felt like home, but I hadn’t any idea how to fix it. For this one, I was planning to hire someone to choose fabrics and furnishings and wall coverings. But now that I have you—”
“She’ll leave it all white,” Rose interrupted.
“Rose,” her mother started.
But then someone walked in, silencing Rose more effectively than Chrystabel ever could.
Lily turned to see what had captured her sister’s attention. Or rather, who. Dressed in deep blue velvet with white linen and lace, the man was tall, lean, and had the carriage of someone used to being in charge. His hair was black, his eyes a unique mixture of green and brown.
A very pleasing mixture.
“My house is still unfinished,” Rand said without preamble, but Lily could tell he wasn’t really angry. His long-suffering sigh was just for show. “What might be your excuse this time?”
“Will King Charles do?” the man asked, a lazy smile curving his lips. Those unusual eyes narrowed. “What the hell happened to your hair?”
“A fire,” Rand said without elaborating. He turned to Lily’s father, raising his voice. “Lord Trentingham, may I present Christopher Martyn, distinguished recipient of the Procrastinating Architect Award.”
Lily’s father smiled vaguely; then his ears seemed to perk up. “The Christopher Martyn?”
Kit bowed. “At your service, my lord.”
“Atchur—?”
“Lord Trentingham is hard of hearing,” Mum said warmly as she walked over to pull Rowan down from a ladder. “You’ll need to speak up.”
But apparently Kit didn’t need to speak at all. Father stepped closer. “I’m looking for an architect to design one of those newfangled greenhouses—”
“Lord Martyn is busy,” Rose broke in loudly. “Working for the king.”
“I’m not a lord, my lady. Just plain Mr. Martyn. Although Kit will do.”
Rose looked very disappointed to hear that, and Lily took perverse pleasure in thinking her sister couldn’t call the man Lord against his wishes. Having decided she didn’t always have to be nice, she was turning out to be rather bad.
But it felt better than she’d expected.
Rand performed the rest of the introductions, and then, while Kit took over explaining the details of the building, he drew Lily aside.
“What do you think?”
“I think Rose likes your friend Kit.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He tapped her on the chin. “What do you think of the house? Will you be able to stand living here?”
Feeling wickeder by the minute, Lily pretended to consider. “I saw only one master chamber. I’m not certain that’s acceptable.”
He looked a bit startled. “When the plans were drawn up, I was expecting to live here alone. But it’s a large enough room, don’t you think? Wouldn’t you rather share—”
“Let me see,” she interrupted. “You’re asking me to give up living with my moody sister in the dull countryside and move to this busy, academic town…hmm…and then I’ll have to sleep with you every night.” Watching his alarm turn to amusement, she grinned. “It sounds perfect.”
“What about your menagerie?”
“Though I’ve yet to see the garden, I’m sure it will do fine.” Perhaps it wouldn’t be ideal, but it would be much, much better than living without Rand. Even suffering her sister’s distemper was better than living without Rand.
Why hadn’t she been able to see that all along?
“Are you certain?” he pressed, moving closer. He ran his hands up her arms until they were resting on her shoulders.
Out of habit, she shot a glance to Rose, but she really, truly didn’t care what her sister thought. She, Lily, deserved happiness, too. “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”
Rand looked like he wanted to pull her against him and kiss her then and there. And she wouldn’t have minded, even right in front of Rose.
But Kit interrupted. “Oh, Rand, you have some mail.”
Rand was still gazing at Lily. “Later, Kit.”
“One thing looked important. A missive from Hawkridge.”
“Hawkridge?” That succeeded in seizing his attention. He jerked his head around and squinted at Kit. “I never hear from my father.”