My Fair Lily(32)

“Now, Meggie—”

“No!” Those red curls bobbed again. “You see, Lily. See what I mean? Those people were our cousins. They really do want Ewan dead. They want me dead, too!”

She began to wail again.

***

“Is she feeling any better?” Lily asked Ewan, rising from her chair in the duke’s library where she had been left to wait for him. After departing Madame de Bressard’s shop, they had climbed into Eloise’s carriage—the one loaned to her and Meggie for their shopping outing—and gone straight to Lotheil Court. The carriage was still waiting outside. She could have used it to return home, but she wanted to stay close at hand until Ewan assured her that Meggie was settled in her bedchamber and moderately calmed down.

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “She’s a little better. I’ll take you home now, lass. I ought to have done it first.”

“No, Meggie was hysterical and it was important to take care of her right away.” She had been happy to wait in the library, at first thinking to skim through the duke’s vast array of books. Ewan had also ordered refreshments for her, but she hadn’t touched them. Nor could she concentrate. So while he was upstairs with his sister, she settled in one of the overstuffed chairs beside the massive hearth and did nothing but stare into the fire. She’d needed the warmth of the flames to chase the cold that had set into her bones after the incident with his cousins.

“You don’t look all that well yourself, Lily.” He knelt beside her, offering the glass of warm milk still sitting on the silver tray beside her. “Drink this. It’s laced with a smooth, aged whiskey to help calm your nerves. Have you ever had spirits before?”

“Of course,” she said, though she hadn’t really. Nothing more than a mild champagne was all that had ever touched her lips. She took the glass from his hand with a muttered thanks and managed a sip. Ugh! It was vile.

He let out a pained laugh. “Och, Lily. Drink it slowly.”

She nodded and took another, more careful sip.

“Better?”

She nodded again, for he was kneeling beside her and gently stroking his thumb along the palm of her hand. She took another sip. More of a gulp. Actually three gulps. She gagged, then let out a strangled cough.

Sighing, Ewan removed the glass from her hand and set it on a nearby table. “Excellent, lass. I think you’ve had enough. Let me take that from you.” He remained beside her, his expression tense and worried. “How is your shoulder?”

Painful. Throbbing. “It’s just fine.”

“I’ll take you home now.”

“No need. Eloise’s carriage is just outside.”

“Lass, if ye think I’m going to let ye ride back alone, well, think again. And I’ll stay with ye until I’m sure your uncle has tended to yer injuries and confirmed no broken bones.” His face was close to hers, his brow furrowed, and his brogue thick and husky, those deep, melodic tones as soothing to her insides as that vile concoction of warm milk and whiskey that now had her entire body buzzing. Like a little bee. A little drunk bee.

A very drunk bee.

Which explained her next inexplicable actions. And had she been sober (alas, she wasn’t, for the whiskey had roared through her bloodstream like a raging current), she never would have closed her eyes, leaned forward, and kissed him squarely on the mouth, that beautifully shaped mouth almost hidden by the auburn bristles of his beard. But she did close her eyes, pucker her lips, and let out that breathy moan as her lips touched his. There was no taking it back. Not that she wanted to. Goodness, no. His mouth felt exquisitely warm against hers, and the soft, bristled hairs of his beard tickled her nose.

A delightful heat welled within her as Ewan deepened the kiss. Or was she the one doing all the kissing? Then something less delightful welled within her... rather, it heaved upward from the bowels of her stomach. She heaved again.

Ewan unlocked his lips from hers. “Och, lass.” He reached for one of the duke’s priceless Chinese urns that stood beside the hearth and stuck it under her chin at the same instant she gave a third and final heave that thrust everything she’d eaten since the day she was born—nineteen years worth of digested food and stomach juices—in a perfect arc into that urn.





CHAPTER 7


“HOW IS SHE?” Ewan rose as Lily’s uncle George entered the Farthingale salon where Ewan had been waiting—mostly pacing for the better part of an hour—and quietly shut the door behind him.

“She’ll recover. Her shoulder’s bruised, and she’s still feeling a bit queasy, but that’s all.”