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“Yes, I slept fine,” she lied, praying the coffee in front of her was str
ong and hot.
“We were worried. My aunt was restless. When she’s in a mood, it’s rare anyone sleeps.”
“So that was who it was.”
“We did disturb you,” Morgan said. “Sorry. Aunt Glynnis hasn’t been this bad in months.”
The coffee slid down Ellery’s throat, burning her insides. Clearing her brain. “We had a sergeant who walked in his sleep,” she said. “He woke up after taking a wrong turn and climbing in bed with his lieutenant.”
Ruan Bligh, Morgan’s older brother, laughed as he spread gobs of marmalade on his toast. “Poor bugger.”
“It wouldn’t have been so bad if the lieutenant hadn’t thought it a French attack, panicked and bayoneted him.”
Ruan choked on his toast, sputtering and coughing. “He didn’t. Bloody hell.”
Morgan rolled her eyes. “I apologize for my brother. He’s been at sea for eight months, and he wasn’t that refined to begin with.”
“You’re hardly fit to throw stones,” he shot back.
“That is more than enough, both of you.” Conor’s grandmother rapped her knuckles on the table for order.
Ruan flashed Ellery a contrite smile meant to melt her knees.
With his sinfully dark eyes and sleek good looks, it might have worked. That is if he hadn’t had a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth and a dab of marmalade on one cheek.
“This is why I choose to stay as far away from Daggerfell as possible,” he said. “I’d rather be carrying full sail in a hurricane than spend my meals being treated like a two-year-old.”
“Then you should act as if you had some sense,” Lowenna snapped. “Think with your head and not your—”
“Gram!” Morgan shouted.
Ruan eyed Ellery, gauging her reaction. He’d be disappointed. She’d heard far worse.
Even so, his scrutiny made her very aware of the state of her borrowed gown. She nearly spilled out of the bodice. Morgan was far taller and far skinnier. Ellery was all bosom and hips.
“A feast for a man,” one of her father’s women had commented once. “Something they can sink themselves into like a meal.”
Ellery had been disgusted, even if she had understood. She hadn’t been blind to the stares then. She wasn’t now. She’d just grown immune to them.
Conor pushed open the door to the dining room. His eyes scanned the group, his gaze centering on her. Her temperature shot up just seeing him. All right, so maybe not immune to every man’s attentions. She deliberately looked away.
Another man followed him in. A slighter, blonder version of the others she’d met, she knew him instantly for a Bligh. But his smaller stature did little to lessen the impact of his prowling grace, lean muscled body, and hard angled face. This family didn’t turn out anything but man-god material.
Before anything else, he approached Lowenna, dropping a kiss on her cheek. “Good morning, Dama-wynn. Sleep well?”
It was the man’s voice from the hallway last night. Lowenna patted his cheek. “Sleep is for the old. I have too much to do.”
“You have to rest sometime.”
She shooed him toward a seat. “I’ll do plenty of resting in the grave. Now, where have you two been? Breakfast’s cold.”
“I had work,” Conor said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. Ellery watched him from beneath lowered lashes. He caught her staring, and she looked away, frightened of the intensity she encountered in that sun-gold gaze.
“Then Jamys and I rode the boundary lines,” he added, dropping his gaze to his eggs.
“Checked the ward stones. Strengthened a few. Seemed the energy across the lines was fluctuating. And we need all the protection the wards can provide right now.”
