Read Online Amethyst by Lauren Royal - Free Book Online

something to do with her, but she wouldn't be much help if she persisted in answering him with three-word sentences.
    He glanced at her hand and winced. "Ouch!" he said with a mock shudder.
    "It's not so bad."
    "Bad enough." He gently placed her hand in one bowl. "We'll soak it for a few minutes, shall we?"
    Her long black lashes swept down as she squinted at the bowl. "What is it?"
    He smiled distractedly. "Cream."
    "Cream? You mean, from milk?" She gave a slight shake of her head, making her dark hair shimmer in the flickering light. The glossy waves tumbled to her waist, and throughout the entire supper, Colin had been quite unable to keep his eyes off it.
    "Why cream?" she asked.
    "Huh?" He shook himself. "Good question. Doesn't everyone put cream on burns?"
    "I think not," she mused, drawing her eyebrows together. Then her face cleared. She lifted her left index finger and raised it as though to make a point. "Butter. In my family, we put butter on burns."
    "We always use cream," he asserted. "As well as honey. I hear tell butter's no good."
    "That's not what I've heard," she said dubiously.
    "Well, how does it feel?"
    She paused, considering, then tilted her head. "A little better, I guess."
    "See?" His smile was triumphal.
    Amy smiled back; the smile was shy and more than a little bit sad, but a smile nonetheless. Colin congratulated himself.
    "That should do it." She started a little when he took her hand, but he pretended not to notice. While he held it over the bowl, watching the cream run off in tiny rivulets, the air between them crackled with unasked questions. Her hand stopped dripping, and he rinsed it in the bowl of water.
    Her eyes closed, and he felt her relax, her hand limp as he swished it around, pulled it out and turned it over.
    "Hmm…" He dabbed gingerly at her palm with one of the linen strips. "It's clean now, and a bit less red." He held it up for her to see. "What do you think?"
    Her eyes popped open. "It's fine."
    But she was grimacing, and the longer she looked at it, the more he felt her stiffen. Not that he could blame her. The puckered blisters were an angry hue.
    "We need it perfectly dry." He dabbed at her hand again, trying not to hurt her. "There. Now the honey…" He opened the jar, dipped in a spoon, and drizzled the sweet thick substance onto her injured palm, spreading it gently with one finger.
    She sat silent as he wound a fresh linen bandage around her hand, tucked in the end, and rinsed his fingers in the bowl.
    "Davis is watching the young ones." Wiping his palms on his breeches, he rose. "Would you care to take a walk?"
    Without waiting for her answer, he took her by the elbow.

    THE ROAD OUT FRONT was noisy, crammed with an endless stream of people fleeing London. A well-worn path in back of the inn led up into gently rolling hills, and it was here that Lord Greystone guided her.
    It was a cloudless night, the wind having blown every wisp over the horizon, and Amy could just make out his profile, dark against the moonlight. Aided by what seemed a million stars, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. As the lines of his face became more distinct, she decided his features were so perfect, so symmetrical, that he straddled the line between handsome and beautiful.
    Then, without warning, he stopped and turned to face her. His magnetic eyes burned into hers, searching, and she decided he wasn't beautiful after all.
    He was much too intense to call him that.
    Twisting the gold ring on his finger—the ring she had made—Lord Greystone cleared his throat and looked away.
    "How is your hand?"
    "Not too bad."
    "Are you right-handed, or left?"
    "Right."
    "It will be a spell before you can write, then."
    She shrugged. "I expect so."
    Lord Greystone sighed, and the fingers of one hand drummed against his thigh. "Amy…"
    His voice sounded serious. She didn't want to discuss it. Not yet, not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Or, if God was just, perhaps this was all a horrible dream, and tomorrow she'd