My Fair Lily (16 page)

“Does Meggie know about this?” Eloise asked.

Laurel shook her head. “No, she wasn’t with us.”

“The girl must be told. She’s fragile and will fall into hysterics when she hears the rumors. And she will. These things have a way of burning through London with the speed of a wind-driven fire. I’m of no use here. I’ll fetch her. Lily, why don’t you come with me? She
won’t be so frightened if you’re there to calm her.”

“No, I want to stay.”

Lily kept her gaze on Ewan, expecting him to protest, but he didn’t.
Her heart lurched. He was more seriously injured than he’d let on. Though she’d only known him for a little more than a week, she
understood his nature. Were the injuries minor, he’d be on his feet ordering everyone to stop fussing over him. But he was silent.
“Please, Eloise. Laurel will go with you. I need to stay here.”

Ewan finally did protest, a weak attempt that quickly died out when he saw the determination on her face. “Och, lass. It won’t be a pretty sight.”

“I know. That’s why I want to be here. I can help my uncle tend to you.”

Lily waited until her sister and Eloise left the room and then helped Ewan off with his jacket. “Uncle George will be here soon.
Can you raise your left arm?”

“Aye.” He surprised her by obeying, which meant he was hurt even worse than she’d thought. “Good, now your right. Can you lift it?”

“Aye, lass. Let me do it myself.” A request that she ignored because he was pale and she was now terrified that he might
actually die from his injuries.

She set his jacket aside and moved to his shirt, the fine white lawn bearing a fat, crimson stain along the front. She helped him to remove his shirt and used it to apply pressure to the site of the wound that was still spewing blood.
Oh, God!
“Ewan, why didn’t you tell me how bad it was?”

***

Ewan was worried. He’d been stabbed between his ribs, and though it was not a life-threatening injury, it was serious enough to
worry about fatal complications if not properly cleansed and treated.
He didn’t want Lily here, yet her gentle touch and the no nonsense manner in which she moved around him was incredibly soothing. Her hands trembled
as she carefully lifted his shirt to see if the blood had stopped
pouring out of him.

“Oh,” she said in a choked whisper.

Guess it hadn’t stopped yet.

She looked ready to cry, her beautiful blue eyes laden with
unshed tears. For him. Just for him.

“Lass, it’s just a nick.”

She blinked her eyes—still beautiful—and cast him a look of exasperation. “The heroes in Eloise’s books are just like you. Strong, ready to suffer in silence so as not to overset the delicate sensibilities of the young lady in question. Their behavior is supposed to be
manly, but I think it’s idiotic.”

He tried not to laugh. Damn, even the smallest chuckle sent pains
shooting up his ribs. Hot, intense pains as though someone were
jabbing a hot poker in him. “Why idiotic? It seems quite noble to me.”

“Noble and foolish in the extreme. How is the young lady in question to know how seriously the man she loves is hurt? And if she doesn’t know, then how can she do something about it? The answer is that she can’t. She has no choice but to watch the man she
loves fall into manly unconsciousness and die in manly silence at her feet.”

He arched an eyebrow, wondering whether Lily loved him. She’d mentioned the word twice, but the look on her face was one of frustrated disgust and not wide-eyed adoration. She thought he was
an ass. He probably was. “Point taken.”

“Here, keep the shirt firmly pressed to the gash while I look at the rest of you.” That she thought so little of him did nothing to stem the desire he felt for her. He almost leaped out of his skin when she put her soft hands on his shoulders and began to run them outward
down his
arms, then across his chest, then downward in a slow, sensual
stroking motion to his waist.

A little lower
, he silently urged, knowing he would die happy and with a smile on his lips if she unbuttoned the flap of his trousers
and took him
firmly in hand
.

He was beginning to like that expression.

Then she did move lower, to the top buttons of his trousers.

His heart exploded and whatever blood had not yet seeped out of him pooled in his groin. “What the hell are you doing?”
Besides
torturing
me.
He caught her hands in his when she moved between his legs and placed her roving fingers on his thigh. She would be the death of
him. The hot, delicious death of him.

“You have the start of some serious bruising at your hip. I need to examine it, as well as take a closer look at your extremities.” She grabbed the shirt he should have been pressing against his bleeding wound, caught it as it slid down his chest, and quickly set it back in
place. “Your limbs. You know, arms. Legs.”

“Not necessary, lass. My hip is just bruised, that’s all. And the rest of me is fine.”

“Are you certain? Because I don’t need you being stupid and
dying in manly silence in my arms.”

“I’m quite certain, Lily.” The lie rolled off his tongue with ease. In truth, none of him felt fine. He was writhing in agony, aching to strip the clothes off Lily, toss her beneath him on the bed, and bury himself
deep inside her. It didn’t matter that one of his ribs was probably broken, or that his damned wound was still gushing. If it didn’t stop soon, he’d bleed to death. All worth it to feel Lily’s soft body beneath
him.

“Oh, dear. You’re hot.” Her hands were on him again. All over
him, bless her adorably methodical brain. “I hope you aren’t
developing a fever.”

“No, lass. It’s simply my body’s response to pain.”

“Pain makes you hot?”

You do.

She nibbled her lower lip. He really needed to taste her lips,
drink in their cherry sweetness.

“How odd? I thought pain left one cold.” She shook her head and sighed. “Let me see your wound again. How deeply did the knife penetrate?”

Deep. Really deep. About as deep as I’d like to penetrate you.

Bollix. Now he was just being an idiot male again. A dying, idiot male whose last thoughts were to seduce his ministering angel. Nothing noble or valiant. No. Just hot, baboon male lusting after virginal baboon female.

“Oh, thank goodness. It’s small. No bigger than a thimble.”

He was not. He was big and hard as a stallion. Hades big and hard. All
she had to do was spread her legs and he’d prove it.

“Lily, where are the others?” George’s voice was like a splash of
cold water, the icy splash Ewan desperately needed, for he was within a hair’s breadth of doing something very, very stupid. Why did Lily have to be so pretty? And smell like roses in the evening
dew? Why did her hands have to feel so soft and loving on his skin?

“They went to fetch Meggie. What took you so long, Uncle George? I’m worried about him. He’s been rambling about baboons and stallions and roses. I couldn’t make out any of it. I’m afraid he’s
delirious. His skin feels hot.”

Her uncle frowned at Lily. “You touched him?”

“Of course. How else was I to check for hidden injuries? I’m sure there’s more than that one knife wound. There must be. He shot off
the bed each time I touched him.”

Ewan coughed.
Ow, that hurt like hell.

George turned his frown on him. “I’ll take over from here. Lily,
why don’t you go downstairs and wait for the ladies?”

“I couldn’t. Please don’t make me go.
Please,
Uncle George.” She cast him the most sadly pathetic gaze she could muster, and Ewan had to admit, were he her uncle, she would have had him in utter
surrender.

“Very well. Sit over there and be quiet,” her uncle said.

She nodded. “Be very careful when you touch him, Uncle George. He
must be developing a fever. That’s why his skin is so hot and sensitive.
I tried my best to be gentle whenever I touched him, but I only
seemed to make matters worse. Was I doing it wrong?”

Ewan coughed again. The girl obviously didn’t understand the meaning of quiet, which was fine if she were naked and writhing in ecstasy beneath him, crying out his name between breathy moans. But right now, not so fine.

Her uncle glowered at him.

Indeed, George understood exactly what was going through his depraved Scots mind. Perfect. The one man he depended on to save his life now wanted to pull out his own knife and mercilessly cut him to pieces.

All worth it for Lily.

Too bad he couldn’t bed her before he died. Then he wouldn’t mind
so much when her uncle carved him into little pieces and fed him to the hogs.

“Uncle George, why is he talking about hogs now?”

“EWAN, LISTEN TO THIS,”
Meggie said three days later, a grin on her face as she bounded into his room, dropped into the armchair beside his bed, and unfolded the London scandal sheet that passed for a newspaper.
He was still at Eloise’s recovering from the injuries received during his
brawl at Tattersalls, and though George Farthingale had ordered a regimen of rest and quiet, the days had been anything but that.

A steady stream of Farthingales had passed through his door. George, of course, who was his doctor and in competent charge of his care, despite concerns that Ewan was lusting after his niece. John Farthingale, Lily’s father, apparently unaware that he
was
lusting after Lily, had stopped by to thank him for coming to Lily’s rescue.
“No thanks necessary,” Ewan had muttered, feeling worse because he liked her father.

John Farthingale was tall and in fit condition for a man in his
mid to
late fifties. His hair was dark but salted with gray, and he
appeared
remarkably calm for a man saddled with five independent-minded
daughters and a houseful of relatives who had no intention of ever leaving—or so Eloise had remarked earlier with a roll of her eyes and a sad shake of her head.

Ewan had made clear to Lily’s father that
she
had rescued
him
,
probably saved his life with her quick thinking. “That sounds like my daughter,” he’d said with a chuckle. “Smarter than the lot of us
by the age of three.”

Then Lily’s sisters had arrived, supposedly to pay a call on Eloise and Meggie (who had moved in at Eloise’s for the duration of his recovery), but it came as no surprise to him when all four sisters
entered his room at once and began chattering at him, completely ignoring that he was
injured and
not dressed
. A circumstance that neither Dillie, Daisy, Laurel, nor Rose found awkward, inappropriate, or embarrassing for
him or for them.

Where was Eloise and why hadn’t she stopped them?

Fortunately, when the Farthingale sisters had marched in he’d been under his covers and able to hastily don a nightshirt left at the foot of his bed, one that had belonged to Eloise’s late husband. Fortunately, Lily’s sisters hadn’t stayed long. Unfortunately, all had been fascinated by his ability to tell Lily apart from her twin sister. It wasn’t hard to do. Where was Lily anyway? Why hadn’t she been with them? You’d think he had performed a miracle as grand as the parting of the Red Sea, but all he’d done was recognize Dillie at once.

How could they think he’d ever mistake her for Lily? Lily’s eyes were brighter and she always had a slightly dreamy, hopeful look about her that tugged at his heart. Dillie had an alert, clearly attentive look and often smirked. Lily never smirked. She smiled
openheartedly.

“Ewan, are you listening to me?”

“Sorry, Meg. My mind drifted. What were you saying?”

“Here it is.” She laughed lightly, a distinct improvement from the
weepy girl who’d joined him in London. “Lily must have written the
item appearing in Lady Hardstocking’s ’It Is Rumored’ column.
Grandfather will be apoplectic. What fun. She’s so brave, standing up to him despite his attempts to thwart her.”

Ewan sat up. “Go on. What does it say?”

“It is rumored that a certain despicable grandfather—”

“Let me see that.” He grabbed the newspaper from Meggie’s hands. “A certain despicable grandfather has set his grandsons against each other in a fiendish and maniacal plot to control them. A plot that’s
doomed to fail and certain to make his grandsons detest him more than they already do. And if he thinks the spineless, cowardly grandson doesn’t detest him, he ought to think again. It is suggested that despicable grandfather apologize to spineless, coward grandson as
well as to brave, honorable grandson—”

“She means you.”

Ewan groaned. “…apologize to them... as soon as possible, or risk dying alone and unloved in that marble mausoleum he calls a
home.” Ewan set the paper on his lap. “Is she demented? Grandfather will eat her alive.”

“Then you’ll have to stop him.”