“PARDON?” Lily blinked, unsure she’d heard right.
“I want you to play a song. On the harpsichord. And I’ll sing.”
“Now?”
“Now. Right now. In your family’s drawing room. Will you do that for me, Lily?”
She nodded, although she was confused. She’d been rather expecting—or perhaps just hoping—to hear a question of a different nature. But there was little Rand could ask that she would refuse.
He led her outside by the hand. In the fickle way of summer, the sky had clouded up while they were in the summerhouse. Beatrix, Lady, and Jasper appeared and followed them back to the house. Claiming he didn’t want an audience, Rand maneuvered to get through the door without allowing them inside.
The animals went around and entered through one of the drawing room’s windows instead.
Lily sat at the harpsichord and arched her fingers over the keys, then hesitated. Her nose was running. She pulled the handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabbed.
“Go ahead,” Rand said. “Blow.”
Love, she supposed, meant being able to blow your nose in front of the man. So she did, even though she was no timid nose-blower.
It didn’t seem to scare him away. In fact, in the middle of her blow, he sneezed again, and then he fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his own nose, too.
“We’re wrecks,” Lily said, thinking it felt strangely wonderful to comfortably share an illness. She faced the keyboard again. “What do you want me to play?” She suspected the tune she’d been practicing for him wasn’t what he had in mind.
He thought for a moment. ”Do you know the one that starts ‘Let’s love and let’s laugh’?”
Like many popular songs, it had no title, but she did know it. She nodded.
He leaned against the harpsichord. “Then play it, please.”
When she did, he held her gaze as he began to sing.
“Let’s love and let’s laugh,
Let’s dance and let’s sing;
While shrill echoes ring;
Our wishes agree,
And from care we are free,
Then who is so happy, so happy as we?”
Although there were three more verses, he stopped singing. She played a few more bars and then stopped, too.
For a moment, the room was completely still, even the animals frozen like statues.
“Did you hear that, Lily?”
“The words?” she wondered.
“The words fit us, don’t they? But no, I didn’t mean the words. What did you hear?”
“What did I hear?” she echoed faintly, feeling bewildered. But her heart began pumping a little faster. “It sounded good. You sound good. You have a beautiful voice.”
He stepped closer. “But my voice doesn’t sound nearly as good alone as it does together with your music. It doesn’t sound as complete. What I mean to say is…” His face colored slightly, but he pressed on. “I want that with you, Lily. I want you to provide the melody for my songs. And I, the words to your tunes.”
She gathered he was talking about more than music. Her blood rushed even faster. She held her breath, afraid she might wake herself from this dream.
“Don’t say anything,” he said, still watching her. “Not yet.”
Lady chirped in the window, and Jasper chattered, and Beatrix wound around Rand’s legs.
Yet those intense gray eyes seemed to see nothing but Lily.
“I’m just a professor,” he said.
Rose’s thoughtless words had affected him. For a moment, Lily’s anger returned full force. “Rand, you aren’t just anything. Not to me.”
He slid onto the harpsichord’s bench and took one of her hands. “No, listen. I am just a professor. I live in a house. Once it’s finished it will be a nice house, but just a house all the same, not a mansion like Trentingham. And it isn’t perched on land that stretches as far as the eye can see. It sits in the middle of a town with other buildings all around it.”
Was he asking her to marry him, or explaining why he couldn’t? “I don’t care—” she started.
He stopped her by squeezing her hand. “I’m a second son. I may have the word Lord in front of my name, but that’s only a courtesy title. I’ll never sit in the House of Lords like your father. I could attend court if I wished, and London balls, but the fact is, I don’t. Or I haven’t,” he corrected himself. “I’m willing to go to such events if doing so would please you, as long as it’s not during term time.”
This was a prelude to a proposal. Her breath caught, making her cough in reaction. “I don’t care,” she repeated. “Rand, I—”
“I’m not finished.” He coughed, too, then furrowed his brow, as though he was trying hard to remember everything he wanted to say. “You should know that I earn a good living. But you should also know that it’s been years since the marquess supplemented my income.”
“The marquess?”
“My father. But like I said, I do well enough.” His gaze swept her gown. “I expect I can afford to clothe you in the lovely manner to which you’re accustomed,” he added in a teasing tone.
She smoothed her periwinkle skirts. “I’d wear sackcloth to be with you,” she said quietly. “You just sang of love and laughter. Money cannot buy that. Besides, I do have a marriage portion. Three thousand pounds.”
Three thousand pounds was a more than respectable dowry, considering the average shopkeeper earned less than fifty pounds a year. But Rand didn’t look as though he cared, as though the money mattered at all.
At their feet, Beatrix began hiccuping, and he leaned to pick her up. “What of your animals?”
It was startling to realize she hadn’t considered them, even more startling to see Rand—an avowed dog person—with her cat on his lap.
He absently stroked Beatrix’s striped fur. “I do have a garden,” he started; but then a corner of his mouth curved up in a half smile. “Well, I don’t expect your father would consider it a garden, but I’ve a patch of land behind my house. I can ask Kit to toss up a shelter of sorts…but it won’t be the grand animal home you’ve been envisioning.”
The fact that he cared about her aspirations made tears prick her eyes. “It sounds perfect, enough for the strays I have now. And once I’m ready to use my inheritance…well, I always envisioned building here at Trentingham, anyway. I can hire local people to care for the animals.” She knew there were plenty who would appreciate the work, and she’d be pleased to provide it. “Perhaps I’ll be able to visit—”
“Of course you will. Oxford isn’t far, and I expect you’ll want to see your family often.”
“A positive statement,” she observed, risking a tiny smile. “Does that mean you’re finished trying to talk me out of…”
She couldn’t say the rest of it. He hadn’t, after all, actually asked her to marry him. And the possibility was so shockingly new to her, she hadn’t yet thought it over. So she let the words hang there, waiting.
It seemed like forever.
“Yes,” he said at last. He shifted to face her and took her other hand. His palms were cool and smooth, and his thumbs traced her knuckles. Her gaze flicked to the scars, but she wasn’t embarrassed by them just now. He cleared his throat. ”Since I’ve apparently failed to talk you out of it, what do you say, my sweet? Can we make music together for the rest of our lives?”
He spoke with a lighthearted air, as though the words were nothing more than banter.
But his heart was in his hypnotic eyes.
Unlike Rose, Lily admired Rand’s success in the face of his family’s disapproval. That strength was one of the things she loved about him—through good times and bad, a wife could depend on a husband like Rand. But she knew him better than Rose did. She knew that beneath the self-sufficiency lurked a lonely little boy who needed someone to hold him.
Did she want to be that someone? Was she willing to do it at the expense of her sister? Could she, for the first time in her life, put her own interests ahead of another’s?
She remembered Rose’s behavior in the summerhouse and knew the answer was yes.
And she didn’t even have to say it. He read her response in her eyes, and both joy and relief leapt into his.
Then their lips met, and she’d never imagined she could feel such happiness. He was magnificent, and he was all hers. He kissed her over and over, and she wished he would never stop.
When he finally pulled away, they just looked at each other and laughed helplessly, until they both started coughing. Which only made them laugh harder.
Life was perfect, even with a stuffy nose.