My Fair Lily(14)

“Lass, why are you looking at me like that? I’m no’ mad.”

Yes, he was. Mad as a hatter.

“Well, it was delightful to see you again, Mr. Cameron. Oh, look at the time. We really must be going.” Which she might have done if she hadn’t tripped over Jasper’s big, lumpy body just then, losing her balance and falling flat on her back onto the riding trail’s soft earth… soft, muddy earth still damp from this morning’s brief rain.

Lick, lick. Jasper was over her in a trice and running his tongue along her face, no doubt intending to be friendly, but did his tongue have to be so… wet?

“Lily…” Ewan Cameron murmured with a soft, strangled laugh, gently pushing Jasper aside. He knelt beside her, putting his big hands on her body as he carefully helped her to her feet. “We must stop meeting like this.”

Lily rarely was at a loss for words, but she couldn’t seem to put two words together at the moment. Bits of Jasper’s drool were slipping off her chin, her clothes were stained and wet, and her cheeks were on fire. In truth, her entire body was on fire. The pulse at the base of her throat was racing as fast as a horse cart barreling down a steep hill.

Nothing to do with Mr. Cameron. Or the fact that his hands were still settled on each side of her waist. Or that her own hands were on his rock-hard arms, clinging to them for support… goodness they were hard.

“You’re covered in dog hair,” Dillie added unhelpfully.

“Och, lass. I’ve done it again, ruined your new clothes.”

She finally found her voice. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me,” he said in a husky brogue that sent her bodily organs into happy spasms. “I’ll replace your riding habit too.”





CHAPTER 4


ANOTHER BOX ARRIVED for Lily the following morning.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Dillie asked, hastily closing their bedroom door and presenting the package to her.

“No. I know what’s inside.” She turned away and began to fuss about the room, straightening drawers and pulling aside the cream lace curtains to allow in the sunshine. Despite an earlier rain, it seemed another beautiful day in the making.

“If you won’t look inside, then I will.”

“Don’t!”

But it was too late, for Dillie had lifted the cover and was digging into the box. “Oh, my! Madame de Bressard must have charged him a fortune.” She shook out an exact replica of the tea gown Jasper had ruined the other day.

Lily glanced at the shimmering yellow silk. Goodness, it was beautiful. However, she wasn’t going to admit it to her sister, especially since Dillie was taking his side just to irk her. “Obviously, he can afford it.”

Dillie grinned. “You’re still angry with him.”

She stuffed her arms into the bare sleeves of an apricot-colored pelisse and buttoned it over her white frock. “Not at all. Why would I be angry with Ewan? Just because it turns out he really is the duke’s grandson? To think, I fretted over him!”

“Needlessly, as it turns out.”

“Nonetheless, I fretted! He might have been tossed into a dungeon, locked up in chains, and left there to rot.”

“But there was no danger of it.”

“He ought to have advised me of that fact sooner.”

“He did, or at least he tried to. Does it matter who he is? He used his own funds and he’s got his own Scottish title… Laird something-or-other.”

“Laird Carnach.”

“Right, Laird whatever-you-said. And he’s a bachelor,” Dillie continued in that slow, pensive way their mother often used when contemplating her daughters and marriage. “If someone were to polish his rough edges, he’d make quite the suitable catch.”

Lily glowered at her sister. “It certainly won’t be me. He laughed at me!”

“He did not.”

In truth, he’d appeared quite confused as she’d rambled on about her concerns, merely grinning in that infuriatingly charming way that set her internal organs tingling, as he listened to her declare that she’d spent a sleepless night worrying about him and whether he’d found a place to stay. He could have said something to stop her, but did he? No. Not a word. Instead, he burst out laughing when she offered to help him escape back to Scotland. That he’d just stared at her, seeming to devour her with that confident gaze of his while she made a fool of herself, still rankled.

“Mo creach!” he’d finally said, once more laughing out loud. “You thought I was a card short of a full deck?”

Yes! She had. But a lady did not show it, even when the man she considered daft, unhinged as an old gate, thanked her for her good intentions by taking her face in his big hands and kissing her on the nose. In public, no less!