RAND’S BEDCHAMBER was filled with flowers. Lovely arrangements sat atop the bedside table, the clothes press, the washstand. Smiling to himself, he walked around the room, pacing off nervous energy as he skimmed his fingers over colorful, velvet-soft petals.
It was quite obvious Rose excelled at arranging flowers, and while he had been kissing Lily, evidently she’d been busy. And so had their mother, by all appearances, because the dressing table was lined with bottles of scent. Her hobby, he suddenly remembered, was making perfume.
No wonder her daughter smelled so delicious.
The small, clear bottles all looked the same—plain with silver-topped stoppers—but the liquids inside them were different hues, ranging from nearly colorless, to yellowish, to brownish. Humming a tune, he lifted a bottle, opened it, and waved it under his nose. Finding the fragrance spicy and masculine, he dabbed some on his face, then sniffed his fingers. Shrugging, he took another bottle. More citrusy, this scent. He patted some on his jaw and decided he liked the first one better.
He shrugged out of his surcoat and tossed it on the bed, followed by his cravat. Despite the long day and the sort of bone weariness that naturally followed, he wasn’t at all sleepy. Being here felt too strange, as did his feelings for a certain daughter of the house.
He sat at the dressing table—a lady’s dressing table, it was, much too delicate for his tastes—and idly unstoppered another bottle. None of the specific ingredients were identifiable, but this one smelled like it could be used to season a pie. A Christmas pie. He watched himself in the mirror as he slapped some on both cheeks and tried to remember the last time he’d really enjoyed Christmas.
He didn’t have fond memories of Christmas, so he moved on to the next scent.
Musky. This one put him in mind of a hot tumble beneath the sheets. Much better than thinking about his family. Since he’d never found himself lacking for female companionship, the fragrance brought a smile back to his face. He layered it over the others, thinking about the last mistress he’d had in Oxford. A pleasant tumble she’d been, but they’d parted last month on amiable terms, she having found another man, one willing to take her to wife. And if she’d left with a bit of regret in her eyes, his own emotions had leaned more toward relief.
He wasn’t interested in marriage.
At least, he’d thought he wasn’t. Dons, the teaching fellows at Oxford, weren’t allowed to wed. Although professors weren’t similarly restricted, very few fellows were ever elevated to that lofty stature, especially at his age. Professorship had always been a goal, but he’d never counted on it, never stopped to think about the fact that as things now stood, he could have a wife and children should he want them.
The chamber seemed overly warm. He rose to pace the room, loosening the laces at his neck, untying his cuffs, rolling up his sleeves. Catching a glance of himself in the mirror, he halted. Implacable gray eyes gazed back at him.
Marriage had crossed his mind more than once today, rather uncomfortably. But whatever could have changed to make him suddenly picture children…a whole family?
His new home, perhaps? It had, after all, five bedchambers. As he and Kit had planned it, had he been thinking, somewhere deep inside, that he might someday want to begin filling all those many rooms?
Hell, no.
Holding Ford’s son might have jarred his emotions, but he’d never seen himself as a family man. He had no idea how to raise a child, no good example from which to work. He wasn’t ready for that sort of responsibility; perhaps he never would be. The concept of marriage was frightening enough, but children…the mere idea made him shudder.
From the far reaches of the mansion, notes wafted up and through his door. “Greensleeves.” A traditional tune, played, he thought, by a nurturing, traditional sort of woman.
Perhaps the only woman who could make him change his mind.