Page 6 of Entrancing the Earl
Her queen commiserated and urged her to keep looking for more stings.
Iona pulled off his lordship’s gloves and pried back his cuffs so she could examine his wrists—always a vulnerable spot. Sure enough, a big welt was turning an angry red on his left wrist. He had thick arms, rippling with tendons and muscle, but wrists were mostly bone and blood vessels, even on the strongest of men. She couldn’t find a stinger, so she applied the honey salve. She had no idea if it would work. It was a remedy her mother had taught her—and her queen insisted would work.
Communicating with bees was seldom helpful, but she trusted hers.
The earl’s other wrist seemed fine. He was wearing good leather boots, protecting his vulnerable ankles. She didn’t think there was any way a bee could have entered his leather trousers—again, thank the goddesses.
While her innocent victim gasped for air, Iona hastily removed his collar and cravat, exposing an attractive brown neck and a curl of hair at the top of his shirt. She couldn’t lift him to check the back of his neck but ran her hand wherever she could reach. No hot spots or swelling that she could find. She’d never touched a man’s neck before. Were they all this solid and sinewy? Touching him intimately stirred odd longings best ignored.
She breathed deeply, testing the air—male sweat, a hint of fear, more than a hint of... anger? Resentment? She could empathize. He’d hate showing weakness.
Beneath that lingered an appealing masculine musk mixed with a vaguely familiar whiff of lime—oh dear. She sat back and examined the wheezing earl with panic. Tall, wide-shouldered, dark and glowering... most definitely the man from the library.
She prayed he didn’t remember her.
What did she do now? Run back to the house? She hated abandoning him here, especially near her hives if he was sensitive to stings. He’d swat at any bees investigating him—causing them to swarm. With his sensitivity, that would be deadly.
She couldn’t possibly lift him. She might trust her queen, but even a bee queen couldn’t control all her workers. He had to be guarded.
She settled on the grass, holding her breath in anxiety while she listened to his rattily breathing. The asthmatic reaction usually eased after a bit, and he seemed large enough to fight it. He hadn’t vomited yet. She didn’t know if that was a good sign. She hummed under her breath, and her queen hummed back. Her stepfather claimed she was insane, but he’d said the same about her mother and grandmother, and Iona had always thought them the wisest people she’d ever met.
They simply talked to bees. It seemed perfectly natural to her.
“You’ll be all right,” she reassured the earl, holding his hand and examining his wrist. Had she ever held a man’s bare hand? Doubtful. Her own father had died before she was old enough to know him. Her stepfather had sent her and Isobel off to a girls’ boarding school in England when they’d been six. Men were foreign creatures to be feared.
She’d learned a little better since, but she remained wary of the gender. Still, she didn’t want to helplessly watch a man die.
The welt on his wrist didn’t seem quite as angry now. She started to withdraw her hand, but his strong brown fingers caught hers. Not dead then.
“Can you stand?” she asked, watching his chest rise and fall. His breath didn’t seem quite so raspy.
“Who are you?” he demanded, rubbing the swelling on his jaw.
“Nan, the beekeeper. The pain will go down if we can pour some willow bark tea into you. I can’t carry you back to the house, but I can’t leave you here in pain.” She tried to tug her hand free. He held it tighter.
“Nan what?” His voice was still raspy.
“Nan Malcolm, of course.” The beauty of being part of a large clan was that she could use her name and live in plain sight and no one would know the difference. That her small world knew her as Lady Iona Malcolm Ross mattered little.
“Of course,” he said dryly. “Let’s see if I can stand without toppling again.”
“You topple verra politely,” she assured him, rising up on her knees. “If you’ll use your walking stick and my shoulder, we might haul you up.”
Dubiously, he studied her slender frame, but Iona was accustomed to being dismissed as weak. He followed her advice and used his stick as a brace to sit up. “Do I detect a Highland lilt?”
She bit back a frown. Her boarding school accent normally disguised her origins. She must be more upset than she realized. She ignored his question and aided him in rising. Assured that he could stand without her aid, she turned toward the house. “I’ll go ahead and let the others know. Winifred will have better remedies than mine.”
“Don’t,” he called after her. “You have no way of fighting off that dog. I don’t need physicking. Walk with me.”
Iona hesitated, watched as he used his stick to steady himself and noted his color returning. A big man like that could fight off adverse reactions more easily than others, she reasoned.
She preferred her usual strategy of avoidance. It was imperative for her safety and that of her sister and all the people at home who relied on her.
She flipped her veil back in place. “On the contrary, my lord, you will be safer without my presence.”
With that she began to hum. As she walked away, a steady stream of bees rose from the hives and followed her, keeping her safe from rampaging animals and reducing the numbers who might attack him.
Three
