Lily (Flower Trilogy) by Lauren Royal Read Free Book Online Page A

“ He might have something to say about that.”
    For a woman who’d so far failed to catch a man, her sister looked awfully smug. “Oh, I’m sure I can make him want me.”
    “You know nothing about him. Has it even occurred to you that he might already be interested in someone else?”
    Like me, Lily added silently.
    Hopefully?
    No, that kiss hadn’t meant anything. It had been a mistake.
    And Rose wouldn’t hear of any obstacles. “You let me worry about other women,” she said, apparently unconcerned that Lily might be one of them. “My new strategy of demonstrating my intelligence along with flirtation is going to work just fine.”
    “Fine,” Lily echoed a little shortly, then chided herself.
    There was no call for such an attitude. Had she not already decided her sister was entitled to Rand should she prove able to win him? “About the flirtation . . .” she started.
    “I don’t want to hear it. ’Tis not as though you’ve won a man for yourself. I know what I’m doing.”
    “Of course you do.” Lily sighed, absently rubbing the faint scars on the back of her hand. Her fingers stilled when Rose’s gaze settled on them.
    Rose slid onto the bench seat beside her and placed a hand over hers. “No one notices,” she said softly. “And it doesn’t look bad anyway. After all these years, the marks are almost gone. Honestly, Lily—”
    “I know.” She turned her hand to grasp her sister’s. So what if she wasn’t perfect? A few narrow, faded white scars . . . most people were much more imperfect than that.
    And most people weren’t fortunate enough to have such a loving, caring sister. Lily still couldn’t believe she had gone back on her promise by allowing Rand to kiss her.
    Well, it wouldn’t happen again.
    “Lily?”
    Freeing her hands, she gave Rose a shaky smile as she raised them to the harpsichord. Her fingers started moving over the keys. Music always soothed her. Even when, like now, she chose a melancholy tune.
    After a moment, her sister’s lovely voice rose in song to match the notes. “Alas, my love, you do me wrong, to cast me out discourteously . . . And I have loved you for so long, delighting in your company . . .”
    A fitting lyric, Lily thought with an internal sigh. Then she tried to look on the bright side. At least Mum didn’t seem to be trying to match Rose and Rand.
    They should be happy for small favors.
    Rand’s bedchamber was filled with flowers. Lovely arrangements sat atop the bedside table, the clothes press, the washstand. He shrugged out of his surcoat and tossed it on the bed, followed by his cravat. Smiling to himself, he walked around the room, pacing off nervous energy as he skimmed his fingers over colorful, velvet-soft petals. ’Twas quite obvious Rose excelled at arranging flowers, and while he had been kissing Lily, she’d apparently 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 were different colors. Humming a tune, he lifted one, 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.
    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