“Do you really intend to marry the Earl of Carron?” Aylesbury almost laughed aloud at the stupefied expression on her face. Whatever she had been expecting from him, that wasn’t it. Given the randomness of the topic, it did take her a moment longer than usual to produce the sarcastic retort he was expecting.
“It’s his nephew, you mammering, crook-pated – ”
“Charmer?” he interrupted. “Certainly anyone would be better than an ass like Ram…”
Fiona’s hand lashed out as if it hand a mind of its own but Aylesbury caught it in midair before it could make contact. “Always for the violence, my dear. Why is that?”
“Perhaps you deserve it.”
“And perhaps you deserve my hand on your arse,” he shot back.
“Oh, of course!” Fiona drawled sarcastically, withdrawing her hand. “That is how one deals with an annoying child, isn’t it?”
“It’s become a shield for you, hasn’t it? You bring up the past to hide behind whenever the present becomes too uncomfortable for you. You use the anger to drive a wedge between us. You’ve become so embittered you’re practically stewing in it. Well, perhaps I deserved your anger at one time, perhaps I deserved to be slapped,” he admitted, his eyes softening with regret that dulled her defensive flash of anger. “I was an ass, Fiona. A bastard, even. I treated you badly and you will never know how deeply I regretted all that happened between us. How I hurt you. I denied us both by refusing to see you as the woman you already were. I can only hope that one day you can see beyond the past. Look to the future we might have. I hope that you can forgive me. Can you?”
Fiona could tell his regret was sincere and her heart was aching with sorrow. His and hers both. She had put her entire heart in his hands only to have him toss it away. Could she trust him with it again? That was the question. One she wasn’t certain of the answer.
“You broke my heart, Harry.”
It was barely a whisper but Aylesbury heard it and knew a sharp pain in return. “I know. Let me mend it.”
Having pulled to a stop in Eaton Square, the driver jumped down from his perch and waited patiently by the door but Aylesbury paid him no mind, his gaze locked with Fiona’s as hers was with his. There was pain in her olive green eyes, a bright sheen of tears …
And then regret in her tight whisper.
“I’m sorry, Harry. I cannot.”
Chapter Fifteen
From the diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh – Mar 1893
Harry told me today that I am nothing but a spoiled, willful child! I don’t understand how he can say such a thing. Even if it were true, what should he expect when I have ten older brothers who all insist upon doting upon me? Who treat me like a child?
He certainly didn’t seem to be thinking I was a child when he caressed my cheek so tenderly just before saying such hateful things. Indeed, I had thought he was on the verge of kissing me …
Residence of the Earl of Harrowby
9 Belgrave Square
Belgravia, London, England
The following night
“What are you doing standing here all alone?”
There was little chance Fiona was going to give any credence to Ilona’s playful accusations in the park by admitting, even to her brother, Connor, that she had been covertly watching Aylesbury dance the Galop with the widowed Lady Billings. Or that she had followed his movements through the polka with the mousy Miss Bradford just before or paid more attention to his waltz with the perpetual wallflower, Lady Meredith Ansley, than she had to her own with Lord Temple.
Aylesbury had always been one to seek out ladies who otherwise might not be invited to the dance floor. According to Abby, it had been his habit since the first days she had known him, and in all truth, Fiona considered this habitual kindness to be one of his finer qualities. But even knowing that his efforts were most likely conducted for those reasons, she couldn’t help but wonder if Aylesbury had a care for any of them.
If he had a care for her.
Their unexpectedly intimate conversation in his carriage had raised a wealth of questions and doubts in her mind. It had her rethinking the past, wondering at the future, and pulling at the bandage of her aggression opening that wound even further.
When she had spoken to her sister-in-law afterward, Eve had assured her that she believed Aylesbury was pursuing her with honorable intentions but Fiona knew the proverb about good intentions. The road to her own personal hell might be paved in them if she relaxed her guard around him.
She was not a child any longer, Fiona reminded herself. A child who tossed her affections away willy-nilly and waited with bated breath for them to be returned. Lessons hard learned were also the hardest to forget. She couldn’t find the courage to entrust him with her heart again.
Moreover she couldn’t trust herself not to fall for him anyway. Fiona felt doomed either way but wasn’t going to mention that, either. Instead she arched a brow at her brother and responded with a pert retort along the lines he would expect from her. “Alas, I no longer stand alone but stand instead in unfortunate company.”
Connor, understanding that he was to be the unfortunate company, grinned in appreciation. “So I will not join you then.”
Fiona turned her back but could feel his presence lingering still behind her. A glance back and Connor was staring fixedly at the ceiling with his hands stuffed deep into his pockets, rocking from his heels to his toes in an exaggerated motion. “Are you still here?”
“Aye, much as you are, what a surprise and I shall stay here, I think, ’til you have gone as well,” he parried neatly.
Fiona’s lips twitched reluctantly. “Here? All but attached to my side? A good thing for the women of London to be spared your company then, while you keep mine, but woe on me.”
Connor threw back his head and laughed, drawing the eyes of many young women who clearly wouldn’t mind his company. “Spared of I? Sister dear, for all my wealth and most truly for my handsome face, the ladies all love me and love all of me,” he sighed dramatically with his hand over his heart.
“Vanity!” Fiona mocked scornfully.
“Truth!”
“Truth to man is a frail thing.”
“No more frail than the love of a woman,” he volleyed back.
Fiona scoffed at that good-naturedly, reaching out to straighten her brother’s cravat affectionately. “So speaks a man with no greater experience in love than I, yet he constantly criticizes me for not having found that which he has no knowledge of himself. Contrary. Such again is the way of a man.”
“And such is the way of a woman to hear that which they want rather than that which is actually said. For indeed, we spoke of truth and not of love.” Connor held up a hand. “Cease, wee Blossom, and keep me company, safe from the predatory throng.”
Fiona laughed merrily at that, attracting no little appreciation from nearby men herself, though she was unaware of their attention.
Connor however, was not. He cast them dark glances and shifted neatly to block his sister from what he construed as their leering eyes.
“The women won’t grant you a moment’s peace, yet I might well be an old hag for all the attention I’ve garnered tonight,” she teased with artificial sorrow. Though she loved all her brothers dearly, Connor was her favorite. Of course, she would never admit it to the others, for it would hurt them. Connor knew, though and that was all that mattered. These verbal exchanges of theirs were a challenge to her wit and tongue. She reveled in them.
“As for love then,” Connor continued, taking her hand and tucking it protectively into the crook of his arm, “how can I not believe in it when I see it in sickening abundance every day now? Our brothers have had the devil’s own luck and have left no woman as fine behind for their younger kin.”
“Spare me please,” she said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “Perhaps I shouldn’t seek love at all but a man with the sense to occasionally keep his tongue silent.”
“Do you imply I
have an overly nimble tongue?”
“Most always.”
Wafting her feathered fan lazily before her, Fiona scanned the heavy crush around her, taking in the heavily pomaded men around her, so similar in their evening dress it was hard to tell one puny Londoner from another. “It’s possible there are simply no good men left who are not my brother, and yet I am being forced to choose one! For better or worse,” Fiona complained not for the first time. “Perhaps if I tell Francis that there are no men available as handsome and witty as he?” she raised an inquisitive brow at him.
“Flattering but I doubt it will change his mind,” Connor said with a frown.
Fiona looked out over the sea of dancers, watching one brother after another waltz by with the woman he loved in his arms. Vin and Moira smiled madly at one another. Richard and Abby, married longer but happy still. Colin and Ilona, waiting impatiently for a child of their own but loving one another nonetheless, and Sean and Coline, so young and in love. Eve’s sister, Kitty, and Abby’s brother, Jack, laughing with one another. Joyful in one another.
Still, her gaze drifted helplessly to Francis who was escorting Eve around the perimeter of the room. His hand covered hers, his head bent down. Every part of him canted toward her as if his body could not deny the pull she had on him. Fiona had been living with them for most of the past three years and had seen every day the love between them, so palpable it could fill a room. Adoration, tenderness, absolute and utter love.
Yes, being around her family every day had proven that true love abounded but awkwardly one outside that love was struck by a certain sense of loneliness and despair when realizing it might never be theirs in turn.
She wanted what they had so badly it gnawed at her, making her question every decision she had made. She wanted children to play with at the park, a husband at home who adored them all. To wait to wed, as they had suggested, would mean continuing to torment herself on a daily basis. Marrying would spare her from always being the odd number at the dinner table. To spare her from coming upon love-struck couples kissing in the hallways.
She needed remove herself from a situation that had become intolerably painful to bear before she became nothing more than a gelatinous massive of quivering self-pity.
Fiona sighed. “The relationships our brothers have found … they don’t truly sicken you, do they, Connor?”
“Most always,” Connor shrugged carelessly.
Before he left to explore the wilds of America, James, too, had said that he found the love-struck faces about him too nauseating to bear and couldn’t abide being about any longer. James might have been half serious and Connor might tease, but Fiona considered the love that flowed so rampantly around them not at all sickening, but enviable. And she rather suspected deep down that Jamie felt the same way.
“It must be nice to be loved so openly.”
Connor raised his eyes to the sky. “She admits there is love.”
“For the lucky.”
Connor realized his normally sassy, sarcastic sister was serious and tempered the flippant response that leapt to his lips. “They say there is someone for everyone. If you show some patience in the matter, you will find someone, Blossom, if he does not find you first. What of Aylesbury? You seemed to like him well enough before.”
Another endless refrain. “Your chorus is in wont of new material, Connor. Besides you worry too much over my ideal match. What of yours?”
The flippant response to that question was not to be contained. “What of me?” he countered with a broad smile. “I don’t know. Perhaps yours will have a sister. It matters naught right now. I am young, handsome, charming and …”
“Utterly conceited!” Fiona tried to contain her laughter but it wasn’t meant to be. One could never be serious in Connor’s company for long.
Chapter Sixteen
From the correspondence of the Marquis of Aylesbury – Mar 1893
…needed in Aylesbury, yet I linger here in Edinburgh and have to wonder for what purpose? Moira is safely wed and my business here is long done. There is nothing to be gained by remaining when my attention would be best placed elsewhere.
In any case, I rather suppose it would be best to leave before I either make an utter fool of myself or end up staring down the barrel of a gun. And so it shall be. Expect me soon. I am resolved to return to my duties posthaste.
But I do wonder, my dear, have you ever known someone with a smile so terribly engaging that you felt you had no choice but to smile in return?
“Lady Onslow!” Aylesbury called, scooping the lady’s fan from the floor where it fell. “Your fan, my lady!”
The lady turned with a frown, searching her reticule before offering a smile for Aylesbury as he held out the feathered fan to her. “Thank you, dear boy! I would have hated to lose it. It is quite my favorite.”
“I am at your service, Lady Onslow,” Aylesbury paused briefly before adding, “And might I again offer my apologies for my inexcusable behavior at your ball last week?”
The matronly woman patted his arm. “No need for another apology, my lord. The flowers and note you sent around the next morning were more than enough. However, in your – how shall I put it? – rush to depart our little gathering, you did forget to dance with my daughter,” Lady Onslow added without even attempting to disguise the reprimand in a hint. “It was her come out, you know.”
Turning to the young miss Lady Onslow was tugging forward, Aylesbury offered a short bow. “My apologies Lady Sybill. I hope you will do me the honor tonight?”
“I would be glad to, Lord Aylesbury,” the fresh-faced debutante rushed to assure him. “I have the supper dance available.”
Lady Onslow gave her daughter a nod of approval then turned to him expectantly. It was a move well played by Lady Sybill, neatly trapping Aylesbury into not only a dance but dinner as well. But while Lady Sybill was a lovely girl with soft blue eyes and dark hair, she did not tempt him as much as another brunette he knew.
“I would be happy to attend you,” he murmured with Lady Onslow looking on as if she were a cat who had guzzled an entire bowl of rich cream.
Achingly familiar laughter drew his attention and Aylesbury turned from the ladies, wondering who provoked that rich outburst.
Connor. At least there was that to be thankful for, that it was her brother rather than another beau, like Lord Temple, who roused her spirits. But even if it had been, the mere sight of Fiona amidst that burst of humor was enough to lift his as well. Despite the fact that he seemed to be taking two steps backward for every step he gained forward where she was concerned.
“They do rather make one want to grimace, do they not, my lord?” Lady Onslow commented under her breath, mistaking his sigh for one of impatience.
“Not at all,” Aylesbury disagreed. “I find their unfettered enthusiasm rather refreshing.”
Fiona had never been given to polite social tittering. She did not giggle or simper. When she laughed, she did so with her entire being, from deep within. That boisterousness was uncommonly becoming. Now, tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear, she tossed her head with a wide, toothy grin as she laughed. Her eyes narrowed, crinkling at the corners. The apples of her prominent cheeks bloomed with becoming color and those long dimples cut deeply.
A tender ache tightened in Aylesbury’s heart at the beauty of the sight. Not just the beauty of her person but the beauty of the inner glow that lit her from within. For what seemed to be the hundredth time, he cursed himself for not having made the realization sooner and snatched Fiona up while she would still have him.
She was glorious tonight in a bottle green silk gown that he imagined was just the same shade as her eyes. It hung off her shoulders, leaving them deliciously bare. The only embellishment on the elegantly simple gown was a band of ruched tulle that shadowed the rise of her breasts above the loosely draped silk of her bodice. It made for a décolletage that tempted a man’s gaze to linger but Aylesbury’s eyes dipped for only a brie
f appreciative glance before rising once more.
Aylesbury drank in the sheer beauty of Fiona’s features, the eyes that danced, the dark hair lit with the fire that burned deep within her. The radiant glow of health and vitality. The deep dimples and smile that had been constant in years past but painfully absent again when they had met that morning.
One didn’t meet a woman like Fiona very often. At least not in London where high class women seemed to feel it their duty to be cool and sophisticated. Aloof like Lady Onslow and her daughter.
No, what appealed to him most about Fiona was that she was so open with her emotions. He had never met a female capable of such sustainable and emotive demonstrations of her moods as she. When she was happy, she was overjoyed to the point of bursting. When she was angry, her fury could shake the walls. And clearly, when she embraced hatred, she did it with every fiber of her being and never let it go.
Yes, she did a quite fine job of expressing it.
Still it was an oft-repeated axiom that hate was but the flip side of the coin from love. Aylesbury wasn’t much for such platitudes but he rather hoped that particular one had been founded in some truth, because though he had never been a jealous man – Moira had once said he did not have a possessive heart – Aylesbury wasn’t surprised to feel it burning within him now. He wanted to be the one to provoke her laughter, to bask in its joy. He was like a greedy moth circling the flame, wanting that light for his own.
He’d be damned if a vile fellow like Ramsay would be the one to have her.
Knowing that Fiona would balk even more obdurately under duress if he cornered her, Aylesbury had given her the white glove treatment, handling her as if she were something fragile. It had gotten him nowhere. Well, the gloves were off now and he was prepared to don an entirely different kind of glove now.
It was time for round two.
A Question for Harry Page 12