In fact, Payton had insisted on testing it, even knowing that it had not been fully distilled.
Whatever the cause, he was feeling so poorly that he went straight to his chambers, and a wee bit unsteadily at that. Inside his master suite of rooms, he made his way to the bed, stared blurry eyed at it with the vague thought that perhaps he ought to remove his clothing first, but fell onto his back on the soft goose-down mattress, looked up at the embroidering of the canopy, and made a mental note to speak with his master brewer about the water.
He closed his eyes, and the image of oak barrels of whiskey danced around his mind’s eye. Yet he felt as if he’d not even closed them for a moment when he heard her voice.
“Ye’ll no’ rouse him like that,” he thought she said, which he thought rather odd, since he did not need to be roused at all. Someone grabbed his boot and roughly twisted his foot until he yelped. Incensed, Payton came up quickly, and dizzily noted that the room was spinning. When his vision cleared, he was vaguely surprised to see before him a worried Beckwith—in his nightshirt, no less—and Mared, who was still wearing the purple gown she’d been wearing this morning.
He thought it all very strange and meant to ask the time, but he couldn’t speak because of a sudden and blinding rush of pain to his head.
“There, do ye see?” Mared asked, apparently of Beckwith, as Payton rubbed his forehead. “It takes a wee bit of force to arouse a man from a drunken stupor.”
“Miss Lockhart!” Beckwith gasped.
With what little strength he had, Payton lifted his head and bestowed a frown on her. Mared was clearly amused, so Payton shifted his frown to Beckwith. “I closed my eyes for only a moment,” he said thickly.
Beckwith and Mared exchanged a look. “Beggin’ yer pardon, milord, but ye’ve been lying here for more than an hour,” Beckwith said carefully.
Payton blinked up at his butler and shook his head, wincing at the pain it caused him. “No, no, only a moment. I closed my eyes, that’s all…there’s something no’ quite right with the barley-bree,” he tried to explain.
Mared snorted; Beckwith leaned over him. “Shall I help ye to undress, milord?”
“Diah, no!” Payton wearily exclaimed and put his hand over his eyes. “No, thank ye, Beckwith. Just…just turn down the bed, will ye?”
“Aye, of course. The man canna sleep without his bed turned down,” Mared said blithely. “I’ll do it, Mr. Beckwith. I’m sorry that I roused ye from yer bed.”
“Are ye certain?” Beckwith asked, but whatever Mared might have returned was lost on Payton, for the lightheaded feeling suddenly dipped to his belly, and he felt as if he would be ill and bowed his head again, forcing the illness down.
He heard whispering and the sound of a door opening and closing, and when the feeling finally passed, he opened his achy eyes and looked up.
Mared was bent over him, peering closely. She slowly straightened, folded her arms, and frowned down at him. “Aye, ye’ve that look, ye do.”
“What look?”
“The look of a man who canna hold his barley-bree.”
“Ach,” he said gruffly, falling back onto the bed and closing his eyes. “I can drink barley-bree as well as any man in these hills. But no’ green barley-bree.”
She made a clucking sound, and he heard her move around to the other side of the bed, felt her turn down the linens there. In a moment, she had come back around to where he was half lying, half hanging off his bed.
“Do ye intend to sleep in such a manner?”
“What difference will it make?” he asked and rolled over onto his stomach, clawed his way to the top of the bed, so that his head was resting on a pillow, and closed his eyes at another lurch of his belly. “It was green whiskey,” he said again.
“Mo chreach,” she said softly and put her hands on his foot.
“What are ye doing?” he protested weakly.
“Removing yer boots, lad, what do ye think? Ye canna sleep like a rapscallion.” She tugged at his boot. It finally slipped off with a bit of grunting on her part, and she repeated the process on the other leg. He heard the boots drop, one by one, onto the floor, then could sense her moving closer to him, could smell the faint scent of lilacs as she leaned over him and put her hand on his shoulder.
He wanted to move, but he couldn’t; the pain in his head was making him ill.
She shoved a little, and when he did not respond, she leaned over; her braid dropped from her shoulder to tickle his cheek. “Payton,” she whispered, “ye must roll over now.”