LILY’S GAZE WAS affixed to Rand’s back, watching the way his muscles moved as he scrubbed all the black soot off his hands and arms, then his face and neck. She’d never seen a man’s bare back, unless she counted Rowan’s, but he was still just a boy. And Rowan’s back didn’t look like Rand’s, either; it looked rather like her own or Rose’s. Rand’s tapered from wide shoulders down to narrow hips, and every muscle was defined beneath the dewy skin—sweat-dampened, no doubt, by the intense heat inside the barn.
Feeling her own temperature rising, she dropped onto a chair.
Drying his face with a towel, he turned. “Why did she give you scissors?”
“Hmm?” Swallowing hard, she tore her gaze from his chest and looked down to where her fingers, white-knuckled, gripped the shears. “I suppose she thought you’d want to cut off the burned part of your hair.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” His voice sounded husky—from the smoke, she imagined. But whatever the reason, his deep, guttural words seemed to vibrate through her bones. He tossed away the towel and grabbed her father’s shirt. “Will you cut it for me?”
“Me? Cut your hair?” Her breath was coming short. He dropped the shirt over his head and tugged it into place. Though it was a bit small, it did cover him sufficiently.
She couldn’t decide whether she found that a relief or a disappointment.
“Well, I cannot cut it myself, not and make a good job of it,” he said reasonably, shoving the bottom of the shirt down into his breeches. “Most of it’s on the back of my head,” he added.
“It? Oh, your hair. Yes. I suppose it is.” She began to clear her throat, but when that hurt, she coughed instead. “Sit down, and I’ll do my best to cut it.”
“I cannot.” He indicated his filthy breeches and the cream-colored upholstery. “Can you stand?”
She did, though her knees felt shaky. Her illness must be worsening. Her arms felt weak when she raised the scissors and began snipping off the scorched hair. It smelled awful and looked even worse.
“I’m so sorry,” she said from behind him, mourning the gorgeous mane.
He shrugged, the shirt stretching across his wide shoulders. “It was my only vanity. It’s probably as well that it’s gone. I’ll have more time for my work now that I won’t be caring for it.”
He was obviously jesting, and she laughed at the mental image of a valet combing out Rand’s hair and rubbing sweet-smelling oils into it, as Lily’s maid did every night.
She was glad he wasn’t angry. And her animals were safe. Her heart swelled as she carefully snipped. “Why?” she asked quietly.
“Why what?”
“Why did you risk your life to save them?” She watched his face in a big gilt-framed mirror on the wall. “You don’t even like animals.”
“I don’t dislike animals, and I’d certainly never want to see any creature suffer. Just because they’re not the center of my existence doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
“Oh.” It sounded so simple when he put it that way. So reasonable. So Rand. And she wanted to say that animals weren’t the center of her existence, either. That though every life had worth, people—especially deserving people like him—were dearer to her than all else.
But she shouldn’t be saying something like that, because he might get the wrong idea. And then she might be tempted to break her promise to Rose, and then—
“But if you want the real truth,” he continued, “I wasn’t thinking of the animals when I saved them. I went in looking for you, afraid you might be trying to save them yourself. And then, when you weren’t there—” He swallowed, then grimaced and massaged his throat. “When I rescued those creatures, I was thinking of you, Lily, and how you’d feel if they perished.”
She stopped snipping and began coughing again. It was one thing to have risked his life for her animals, quite another to have done it for her. He couldn’t…she couldn’t…
“Lily?”
“I’m almost finished.” She cleared her throat painfully and made a few more cuts. But it was hard to concentrate, because she was afraid she’d just fallen in love.
She hadn’t seen him in a week—a week she’d spent alternating between guilt-ridden tiptoeing around Rose and equally guilt-ridden daydreaming about Rand. A week in which she’d grown more certain of her feelings with each passing day, while her sister only grew more desperate.
By now it was clear to everyone but Rose that her cause was hopeless. Rand was never to be hers.
And Lily had a terrible fear that after this—this impossibly selfless, wonderful thing that he’d done for her—her own cause was similarly doomed. Just as the illness was draining her strength, Rand’s kindness was eroding her resolve. She felt her supposed commitment to family loyalty weakening amidst an onslaught of powerful feelings. Gratitude, admiration, longing, and others too tangled to discern. Was Violet wrong about the human will? Was it only a matter of time before emotion overcame rationality?
When Rand suddenly turned and met her eyes, Lily had to lock her knees to keep them from buckling.
“Are you finished?”
“I think so.” She sneezed, and then coughed, and then gave a long, deep, miserable sniffle. “Yes, I’m finished.”
“You should go to bed, then. I’ll walk you to your chamber.”
“Rand, you cannot.”
“Of course I can.” He took her arm and began marching her toward the staircase. “You’re ill and I’m exhausted. I can assure you nothing untoward will happen.”
Truth be told, she was glad for his support as she trudged up the steps. Beatrix appeared and followed behind. “Thank you,” Lily said primly when Rand had delivered her to her door.
“Go on, get in bed.”
Supposing he wouldn’t leave her alone until he saw her settled, she sighed and picked up the cat, then climbed under the covers, still wearing her wrapper. “Thank you,” she said again.
Rand remained standing on the threshold. “May I come in?”
Lily’s pulse skipped, and Beatrix began hiccuping. “That would be quite improper.”
“Your mother left us alone.”
“She does things like that. Mum has never been overly concerned with propriety.” When she sneezed, embarrassingly loudly, Beatrix leapt to the floor. “At least so long as others are not around to observe.”
“Ah,” he said, “I remember. The Ashcroft motto. Interroga Conformationem, Question Convention.” He glanced down to where Beatrix was ribboning between his legs, rubbing against his smudged boots. “What on earth is she doing?”
“She likes you.”
“Why?”
Lily shrugged. “Why not?”
“I’m a dog person.” In an attempt to get away, he sidled into the room, apparently forgetting that Lily hadn’t granted permission. Bored by his disinterest, Beatrix scampered out the window to join Jasper on a tree branch right outside.
Rand immediately strode to the window. “There’s ash drifting in,” he said as he slammed it shut. When he turned, he stood stock still and looked around.
Lily followed his roaming gaze, trying to envision her bedchamber through his eyes while she dabbed her stuffy nose with a white-on-white monogrammed handkerchief.
A plush white carpet covered much of the dark oak floor. Her bed was hung with white lace panels and piled with plump white pillows. More white lace draped the windows. Her dressing table and washstand boasted white marble tops.
“It’s very white,” he finally said. From his tone, she guessed white actually meant something else. Immature, maybe. Babyish.
She blushed, then grimaced, knowing her cheeks now matched her red nose and eyes. She watched him wander to the mirror above her dressing table. It was framed, of course, in white.
He stared at himself, skimming his fingers along the bottom of his hair, which now ended short of his shoulders. “Do I look bad?”
“No. Only different. You…I suppose you could wear a periwig,” she added, hoping he wouldn’t, although most noblemen did.
He turned from the mirror. “Absolutely not.”
She nodded, absurdly relieved. Even now, Rand’s hair was too pretty to cover up, all those shimmering colors mixed together, strands of it sticking to his still-sweat-slicked brow.
Goodness, what was it with her and sweat, all of a sudden? The substance was wet and sticky and uncomfortable, and she’d never had any positive feelings toward it before! But there was something about a sweat-coated Rand that was just so…
Manly. There was no other word for it.
Lily chewed her lip. In point of fact, he was—damp or dry, long-haired or short—magnificent. So magnificent that her throat tightened just looking at him, and it was sore, so that made it hurt, and anyway, she couldn’t tell him how magnificent he was, because that might give him the wrong idea.
He’d worried that she might have been in the barn. He’d saved her animals. She was afraid she might love him, for that and for so many other things, too.
What in heaven’s name was she supposed to do now?
Nothing, she reminded herself savagely. She’d made a promise. One she wished she’d never made—was sorely tempted to cast aside—had already violated in spirit if not in letter—but a promise nonetheless. The fact that it was a foolish and battered promise did not diminish her obligation, nor minimize the damage she would cause to both her sister and herself by breaking it.
“I’m tired,” she said, which was an understatement. “Could you possibly leave now?”
He didn’t. Instead, he walked over, leaned down, and pressed his lips to hers. His eyes remained open, daring her to object.
She didn’t. She melted immediately. He tasted of Rand and salt, but also of the smoke he’d encountered rescuing her strays.
When he drew back, he looked blurry, and she felt disgusted with her weakness. In a daze, she blinked her eyes to clear them. “I don’t understand.“
Completely uninvited, and apparently forgetting his stained breeches, he flattened white lace and sat beside her on the bed. “Understand what, my sweet?”
She blinked again at the endearment. “How can you want to kiss me when I’m ill and ugly and lying in this stupid white room?”
“You’re not ugly.” He grazed his knuckles along her heated cheek. Despite being overwarm, she shivered. “You’ll always be beautiful to me,” he said in a way that convinced her he meant it.
Unless she was simply delirious with fever. But his startling gray eyes looked perfectly sincere.
He’d said he was falling in love with her. She still remembered that. She’d been thinking about that all week, at times even getting angry—her, Lily, angry!—with Rose for so stubbornly standing in her way.
But Rose would never, ever forgive her…
“I missed you,” she blurted out without thought. “This past week, I’ve missed you.”
Rand’s fingers stilled as he gazed at her in surprise.
Had anyone else ever missed him? Really missed him? He seriously doubted it. He had friends, of course—Ford and Kit the best of them—but they all had busy lives. They could spend months apart without truly missing one another.
For Lily to miss him seemed a great gift. An honor he could only hope to deserve.
“I missed you, too,” he said after a moment, because he couldn’t think of a way to put it better. He kissed her again, hoping his lips would tell her what he couldn’t seem to put into words. Feeling the heat of her skin, he made it a brief kiss, but no less heartfelt.
“Rand?” Lily murmured weakly when he pulled away. Her eyes flicked open, squeezed shut. And then she uttered, “I’m sorry, Rose,” in a pained whisper.
Refusing to register the rejection in her look, he brushed a damp curl from her forehead. “I’ll come see you again tomorrow afternoon, Lily. I hope by then you’ll be feeling better.”
As he rose and quit the room, he remembered Ford saying he had to show Lily he loved her. And his unhelpful advice: That’s your problem, my friend.
Closing her door behind him, Rand ran his tongue over his teeth.
If running into a burning building hadn’t been enough, what else could he possibly do?