My Fair Lily(17)

“No harm done. I appreciate your candor. ’Tis hard to know whom to trust,” he said quietly.

“About the request in your note,” she continued, “my sister, Laurel, is the expert on horses.”

“She’s promised to help me select top bloodstock at next week’s auction at Tattersalls,” her uncle added. “Join us there, won’t you? I’m certain Laurel will be glad to give you advice.”

“I’d appreciate it. Thank you, I will.”

“Can you ride?” Lily asked.

Ewan realized that she’d never seen him on horseback, only out walking with Jasper. “A little.”

She shook her head as she studied him. “Are you being honest or modest?”

Ewan chuckled. “Modest.”

“You must have been born in the saddle, probably took to it like a duck takes to water.” She let out a delightful sigh. “I’m a fair rider at best. I understand the motion of a horse, its loping rhythm and the need for one’s body to attune itself to the animal so that both move as one, but I fear I’m hopeless. My body insists on bouncing one way while the horse trots another way, so we always seem to be moving at cross purposes.”

“You’ll have to show me. I may be able to teach you a few tricks.”

Her eyes brightened and she cast him a radiant smile. He drew in a breath, cautioning himself. The girl was like a smooth, aged scotch, easy to drink until the force of it hit you like a cannonball and dropped you to your knees. “The lecture’s starting.”

Lily’s uncle took her arm. “We had better find our seats. Will you join us, Mr. Cameron?”

“I’ll stand back here.” Though Ewan tried not to stare at Lily or notice the gentle sway of her hips as she walked to the front of the hall, he couldn’t help himself. The girl was a fascinating mix of innocence and sensual appeal. Not that she knew it. He watched her take a seat. So did most of the men in the hall.

The innocent was completely unaware.

Having intended to remain only a short while, he decided to change his plans. There was no need to rush off now. He could wait until later to tend to his business affairs. And would wait until next week to acquire his horses. He looked forward to the auction and meeting Lily’s sister, Laurel. She was the one who’d married Graelem Dayne—tamed him, if the rumors were true—but not before she’d almost killed him.

Lily seemed gentle enough.

Probably didn’t take after her sister.

Ewan enjoyed the lecture, listening with interest as the elderly Lord Guilfoil finished his speech on James Hutton’s theories on geological formation of the earth and took questions from the floor. Lily attempted to ask a question, probably several if he knew the girl, but was ignored. She finally stood up and tried to speak but was immediately cut off. “Miss Farthingale, sit down!”

She tipped her pretty chin into the air. “Lord Guilfoil, I will not.”

“Of all the impertinence! I will not have you making a mockery of this lecture!”

“I have no such intention,” she tried to assure. “All I wish to ask is—”

Others in the audience began to call out, not to defend Lily but to shout her down. Ewan was shocked. The very men who had smiled and ogled her before the start of the meeting were acting like insufferable boors. Was he missing something? She’d done nothing wrong. The floor had been opened up to questions, and she had as much right as any man present to have her say.

“Sit down!” Lord Guilfoil said, his face now red and eyes blazing. “We do not wish to hear yet another comparison of our noble English society to your savage jungle baboons.”

“My monograph is on swamp baboons, much of it based on research published by Sir William Maitland, a man greatly admired by all of us in this hall.”

As the crowd began to grow restless, Ewan noticed Lily gazing at a young gentleman who was seated with other Fellows of the Royal Society on the stage behind Lord Guilfoil’s podium. Did she expect the young man to come to her defense? Clearly, he wasn’t about to do so. At first, he purposely looked down, but when he glanced up again, he seemed noticeably angry, and all that anger was trained on Lily.

Suddenly, the lecture did not seem so enjoyable to Ewan. He clenched his hands into fists at the disdainful manner in which all of them were responding to Lily, remarking on her obvious ignorance and lack of understanding before she had even asked a question. Bloody wankers. The lass had more intelligence in her little finger than the pretentious blighters had in their entire bodies.

Ewan started toward Lily, expecting a feisty retort from the girl and wanting to be at her side to protect her if things got uglier. Instead she sat down as though whipped into submission. After a moment, she whispered something to her uncle and quietly slipped from the hall. Ewan followed her out, catching up to her on the street just outside the Royal Society hall. “Lily, are you all right?”