Free With This Kiss: Part One by Eloisa James Page B

sleepless, until the noise stopped next door and she knew that they had moved Colin to another room because his bed was wet.
    The next morning her mother said, “Sweet pea, you should have rung for a maid when you realized Colin was in need of help. And how did he end up soaking wet?”
    “He moaned, Mama. I heard it right through the wall.” She couldn’t stop herself from telling the rest. “He thought I was Lily, and he said that he’d love me forever. I mean, he’d love Lily forever.”
    Her mother raised a slender eyebrow. “Why would he love Lily forever?”
    “If she would give him some water.” Grace swallowed. She’d never had to admit to naughtiness before. “So I gave him the water.”
    Her mother pressed her lips together tightly, as if she were trying not to laugh. Then she said, “Grace, you do know that one never throws water at a gentleman, no matter how irritated one might be?”
    Grace nodded.
    “And a lady never visits a gentleman’s bedchamber in the middle of the night, particularly if she hears moaning?”
    Grace didn’t quite follow that last part, but she nodded again.
    The duchess stooped and gave her a hug. She smelled so good, like wildflowers and silk. “It sounds as if Colin deserved it,” she whispered.
    Her mother was like that. She understood things.
    Grace leaned against her shoulder for a moment. “He thought I was Lily,” she repeated, unsure why that hurt so much.
    “It was because you are a young lady who doesn’t even sleep in the nursery any longer,” her mother said, giving her a kiss. “Colin wouldn’t dream that you would be wandering the halls… but Lily, of course, is another matter.”
    “But he said that she was his favorite.”
    “He’s changed his tune this morning. He can’t believe that she overturned a pitcher of water on his head!”
    Her mother’s eyes were dancing, and that made a little giggle bubble up inside Grace.
    “He won’t die of a chill?”
    “Absolutely not. He’s already feeling better.”
    No one else ever learned the truth. Lily was furious when Colin told the whole drawing room that she had been the one to break his fever, and perhaps save his life.
    “I wouldn’t save his life if he paid me a half a crown!” she told Grace later. “He’s a horrid boy and I think it’s mean of him to tell everyone that I poured water on his head. Not that I wouldn’t, because I would !”
    Lily’s eyes gleamed in a way that Grace recognized, but she didn’t really care. She’d caught Colin’s fever, and it was making her head ache.
    The rest of the feud became family lore among the Ryburns and the Barrys. Lily marched down to the lake and carefully skimmed off all the frogspawn she could find. Then she sent the youngest maid in the household to Colin’s bedchamber with a plate of hot toast spread with “beef jelly,” the better to strengthen him.
    Colin ate every piece.

 
    Two
    Two years later
    December 1829
    On the way to Ryburn House
    C olin Barry, the eldest son of Sir Griffin Barry—but not heir to his father’s title, as he’d joined the family by way of adoption—was absurdly pleased to be home for Christmas. Although in point of fact he wasn’t headed home; after leaving his ship, he had picked up his brother Fred at Eton and they were on their way to the country house of the Duke of Ashbrook.
    He hadn’t been in England in more than a year; he’d been at sea, fighting the wind and the waves, wearing the uniform of the Royal Navy. His father had taught him everything he knew about sailing, and inasmuch as Sir Griffin had been a notorious pirate—before he became an equally notorious justice of the peace—Colin had an unfair advantage over other young men his age. Those lessons explained why he was carrying with him a commission from His Majesty’s navy stating that Mr. Colin Barry, midshipman, had received a commendation from Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn.
    Colin saw that commendation as an expected step on