Page 114 of What a Highlander’s Got to Do

She winced at Catriona’s call, rolled over in her bed, and covered her face with her arm. She wasn’t in the mood to see anyone, not after the night she’d had.

It had been awful, tossing and turning, recalling the fight with Nick and then his parents’ lovely gift and the expressions on their faces.

They’d been so . . . happy.

She hated that she was to rip that happiness from them.

It would have been so much easier if they’d been horrible people.

Why couldn’t they have been horrible people?

Why did they have to be people she . . . loved?

The thought of leaving them, of leaving him, made her ill. Guilt was like a ravaging beast in her. She hadn’t slept a wink and now her stomach was churning.

“Isobel! You have to get up. We have to go soon.”

Today was to be the tea party at the Penningtons’.

She groaned, and then pulled the covers over her face.

Catriona was not to be ignored. She tugged them right back down. “Isobel. You need to get dressed.”

“I doona feel well.”

A hand touched her forehead. “You’re not warm. Perhaps you’ll feel better after you eat something.”

The very thought made her bilge rise. “Nae.”

“Some tea, perhaps? I’ll call for a tray.”

Anything to get her to go away.

But she didn’t. She didn’t go away. She stayed and chattered incessantly while Isobel ground her teeth and tried to ignore her. When the maid arrived with the tray, Catriona sat on the bed. “Come now. Sit up and have a sip.”

Isobel complied, but just to get Catriona to stop bothering her.

The tea was warm and sweet and trickled down her throat in a comforting balm—

And then came right back up.

Isobel shot for the bedpan and barely made it before she cast up all her accounts and, perhaps, someone else’s.

When she was finished, she turned to find Catriona staring at her in horror. “Oh, my. You are ill. I’ll go get your mother.”

Before Isobel could call her back, she was gone.

Well, hell.

Mama would make a to-do of this to be certain.

And she did. She swept into Isobel’s room like a general marching to war, and started barking orders to the maid to bring a warm cloth and a cool compress and some gingerroot.

“I’m fine,” Isobel said, if only to get her to stop fussing. “I think something I ate last night disagreed with me, that’s all.” She forced a cheery smile, but in the end, to prove she was fine, she had to get out of bed and dress for the party.

But she didn’t eat breakfast.

She couldn’t bear to.