RAND’S BEDCHAMBER was filled with flowers. Artistic arrangements sat atop the bedside table, the clothes press, the washstand. He walked around the room, admiring each in turn, distracting himself by skimming his fingers over colorful, velvet-soft petals.
Rose obviously excelled at arranging flowers, and while Rand had been occupied with Lily—with repulsing Lily, to be more precise—it was clear Rose had been busy. And so had their mother, evidently, because the dressing table was lined with bottles of scent. Her hobby, Rand recalled, 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. 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, alas, unreciprocated feelings for a certain daughter of the house.
Absently humming a tune, he sat at the dressing table—a lady’s dressing table, it was, much too delicate for his taste—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 bottle.
Fresh. Flowery. He was taken aback—it smelled just like Lily. Surely the countess didn’t expect a man to wear such a feminine scent? It must have got mixed up with the bottles she’d intended to provide him. He found himself lingering over the concoction, inhaling deeply. There was something electrifying about the scent. Something that made him want to keep smelling it for…well, the foreseeable future anyway. Maybe the rest of his life.
Which was preposterous. He’d never been interested in marriage.
At least, he’d never thought he was. Dons, the teaching fellows at Oxford, weren’t allowed to wed. He’d been comfortable in that position—under that restriction—for the past few years. It had made his choices easy. He’d hardly expected to become a professor so soon, although considering his steady advancement, he’d assumed it would happen eventually. Professors could marry, but that had always seemed so far in the future as to be unworthy of contemplation.
When he’d actually become a professor—the youngest in his department’s history—just a few weeks ago, he’d been too ecstatic to consider the secondary effects. Namely, the fact that he was now free to marry should he want to.
The chamber suddenly seemed overwarm. He rose restlessly and loosened the laces at his neck, untied his cuffs, rolled 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 himself with a wife…perhaps even children?
Could it be his new home? The place had, after all, five bedchambers. As he and Kit had drawn up the plans, had he been thinking, somewhere deep inside, that he might soon want to begin filling all those many rooms?
Sweet mercy, no!
Holding Ford’s son might have triggered his parental instincts, but he was far too young to see himself as a father. Besides, he had no idea how to raise a child, no good example from which to work. He wasn’t ready for such responsibility; perhaps he never would be.
That realization made him feel calmer. There were no big changes to be faced.
Now he could sleep.
When he finally drifted off in the soft feather bed, he could’ve sworn the faint, familiar strains of “Greensleeves” lulled him to sleep.