Horrible. Horrid. The whisky didn’t smell nearly as pleasant the second time around.
Her stomach convulsed, and she closed her eyes, allowing the heaving to take over her until she was utterly spent.
If not for the warm arms around her waist, she’d have collapsed onto the floor.
Warm arms? Her brain panicked even though her body was too exhausted to do much of anything.
“Drink.”
Ah, yes. Her eyes remained pinched together, but she remembered that voice. He’d forced her to drink spirits. Well, not forced her exactly. Just the first one.
“Trust me. Water helps.”
She opened her eyes enough to see the glass of clear liquid hovering inches from her face.
“I can’t,” she mumbled.
The glass pressed against her lips, and in a very Stone-like manner, was tipped until she had no choice but to allow the liquid to dribble down her chin or drink it.
She managed to swallow a small sip but then summoned enough energy to raise her hand and push back on the glass. It was either that or begin vomiting again.
“My head,” she moaned, vaguely aware that he’d walked her back to the bed and was assisting her under the covers.
Had she thought his chuckle was pleasant at some time? Because at that moment, nothing could have annoyed her more.
She dissolved into the mattress. Unfortunately, she was in no position to reprimand him for his insensitivity. Even the sound of her own voice increased the volume of the pounding in her head.
The mattress creaked from the other side of the bed. She should tell him to go away. Sleeping in the same bed as a man who was not her husband wasn’t at all proper.
She’d demand he sleep elsewhere after the pounding in her head went away. But for now…
She drifted off again, waking a few times in between, but didn’t rationally contemplate her situation until several hours later. Curled in a ball, memories of the previous evening were vague, and she couldn’t quite piece them together.
Whisky, she decided, was poison. Her eyes fluttered open, and testing the condition of her head, she gingerly rolled over and stared up at the ceiling.
The late afternoon sunlight slanting in the room reminded her she’d spent the entire day abed. But that was not the worst of it.
She was not alone. She gaped at the man lying beside her.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, not caring if she woke him. Outrage had her twisting to the edge of the bed. She couldn’t sleep with Stone Spencer!
Was it seeing Stone’s head on the pillow beside her or the whisky that had her stomach lurching this time?
Or was it… everything else?
She’d run away with Culpepper, and then away from Culpepper, and then she’d kidnapped his cat.
She was a… catnapper! Hysterical laughter caught in her throat.
But wait, there was more!
A hot blush swept from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair as she recalled allowing Stone Spencer to assist her with her bath. She never would have done that if she hadn’t just ruined herself. Her brother was going to kill her. Her mother might never speak to her again. Likely, she was going to be the laughingstock of theton.
But for this, her gaze shifted to the poor, unsuspecting vase she’d used earlier, she would blame the man snoring gently beside her.
“Stone!” She poked at him when he failed to respond to her indignation. “You can’t sleep here.”
“Too late. Go back to sleep,” he muttered, turning onto his side, presenting her with the smooth skin of his back.
