“It hurts,” she moaned. “I think it left its stinger within me.”
There were any number of jokes he could have made, but he did not think they would fall on appreciative ears, particularly since she would find herself the butt of them. He bit his tongue, keeping his attention upon her skirts, half-expecting a swarm of angry bees to pour forth.
Instead, nothing happened.
The insect in question must have indeed been a honeybee. Satisfied after several rounds of shaking her skirts, he took note of a stone bench and guided her toward it. With the initial terror of the bee removed, she was far more subdued. He had her settled on her rump and was on his knees before her on the gravel path, still playing the gentleman, albeit more reluctantly.
Up went her hems. “Show me where the little blighter got you,” he said.
* * *
Her inner thigh was throbbing,awash with a searing, burning pain. Through the miasma which had overtaken her mind, she became aware of the Marquess of Dorset’s words.
“Show me where the little blighter got you.” He was persistently lifting her skirts once more.
And she could not allow him to do so, regardless of the pain radiating from the cursed bee sting. Of all the days she had chosen to forego her drawers, why, Lord in heavenwhy, had it had to be this one?
“I will retire to my guest chamber,” she told him, trying to wrestle her gown from his grasp. “I shall see to the injury myself. Your intervention is no longer necessary.”
“You have been stung,” he said.
His eyes were a mysterious, inviting shade of green.
Stop staring into his eyes, you ninny.
Heavens.Where was her common sense when she needed it? How was it possible to experience such stinging agony and yet still take note of how handsome her reluctant savior was?
“I am aware that I was stung,” she told him. “The pain radiating through me leaves no question of that.”
His expression was one of distaste, as if he wished himself anywhere else, but he felt obligated by his gentlemanly sense of honor to aid her. “If the stinger is indeed embedded in your flesh, it must be removed.”
“I was stung in a most indiscreet place,” she hissed.
Also, I am not wearing drawers, you stubborn beast.
But she did not dare admit the last aloud. He had already managed to lift her skirts to her knees, where the crisp, white cotton of her undergarments should have shielded her to his gaze. He would have noticed it had not. Any higher, and he would have no doubt.
“Indiscreet,” he repeated, his shoulders stiffening, jaw tensing.
“As I said.” She tugged at her skirts. “There is no need for you to trouble yourself. When the pain lessens, I will return to my chamber and see the injury tended to.”
“The pain will not lessen if the stinger is lodged.”
He was being logical. She knew the truth of his words. She had been stung as a girl, when she had been flitting barefoot through the lawns of Marchingham Hall. Stepped on a honeybee. Her governess had tended to the foot, because of course neither Mother nor Father had been in residence…
She shook her head, as if to clear the ghosts of the past. The marquess was once more fighting with her skirts. “I will remove the stinger in my chamber.”
“And you intend to walk back to your chamber with the stinger in place?” he asked skeptically, nodding over his shoulder toward the looming architecture of Fangfoss Manor house. For her to find her chamber in the east wing…it would indeed be a walk, all whilst her thighs rubbed together in most uncomfortable fashion, the painful bee sting being mercilessly chafed with each step.
“Yes,” she snapped at him. “You may leave me to my misery, Lord Dorset. I shall find my way back to my chamber as swiftly as possible on my own. Or mayhap you might be kind enough to locate Miss Julia for me and let her know of my plight. She may send a servant to aid me.”
“Miss Julia?”
Oh yes. That was no longer her hostess’s name, was it?
“Lady Fangfoss,” she hastened to say. “Forgive me.”
She had grown so accustomed to Miss Julia, the benevolent yet strict instructor of her finishing school, that it was difficult to think of her as the Countess of Fangfoss. Her recent marriage to the earl had caused quite a change of circumstance for Miss Julia.
