On both sides of the street, honey-colored shops and houses jutted their steeply pitched gables into the air. Everything smelled different. Cool, fresh, like last night’s thunderstorm and morning.
Rain still glistened on the square-trimmed bushes, the brown-and-gray cobbles, and different-colored shingles swaying from shop fronts. Shelves and books and hats and shoes and dresses were displayed behind the endless windows.
She had lived here?
“Look there.” Lord Cunningham pointed across her. “Fires are most unfortunate. I daresay, though, it speaks well to the competence of the villagers. That they were nimble enough to stop such a blaze before it spread is remarkable.”
Between two squat shops, the black, crumbled shape of a building fumed a heavy scent of smoke. The odor scratched at her throat. Irritating her. Making her sweat.
“Ah, just the thing.” Something else must have drawn Lord Cunningham’s attention, for he leaned forward, said something to the driver, and then helped Meg alight in front of a red-painted bookstore. “I am always on the hunt for more medical books. Father kept a list of rarer titles, and since he was unable to complete it before his death, it is now upon me to carry the mantle. Do you mind?”
“No. Of course not.”
Ring, ring, ring.
A tiny brass bell rang above the door as they entered. Her heart tripped in time to the noise. She followed him down an aisle of books, wiped more sweat from her forehead, then tugged at the too-tight ribbon choking her neck.
Ring, ring, ring.Her head split.Ring, ring, ring.Why would it not stop ringing?
“Miss Margaret?” Lord Cunningham, supporting her arm, pressing her against a row of books. “Are you ill?”
Ring, ring.
“Perhaps you should sit.”
“No.” Breathy. She doubled over, caught her mouth with her hands, and barely kept back the sickness surging from her stomach.
Lord Cunningham pulled her to the floor and barked something to a stranger in the bookstore. Or maybe the woman wasn’t a stranger, because she shrieked Meg’s name.
“Oh heavens! It is you.”
Ring, ring, ring.
“The poor child.”
Ring.
“I shall fetch water … smelling salts … oh, I cannot believe you are back when we all thought …”
Everything faded, all the rows of books and musty scents and stifling shelves. The blackness was warm, but too warm. Flames licked at her. Her throat scratched again, but this time, she could not breath—
Water.
The cool liquid splashed down her throat, spilled down her chin, as tender gloves wiped it back away. Lord Cunningham shifted her nearer. “Better?”
She welcomed air into her lungs as his face came back into focus. She couldn’t find her voice, so she nodded instead.
His lordship smiled.
So did the woman, peering over Meg with wire-rimmed spectacles.
“Something overwrought you, I think, though I am not certain what.” Lord Cunningham grazed a hand along her temple. “Does your head still pain you?”
“No.”
“Dizzy?”
“No.”
