Aylesbury stilled, instinctively knowing where the question was leading and wondering how to answer. He wasn’t a coward by any means but quite frankly, he had no desire to be bludgeoned by the fists of nearly a dozen outraged highlanders if he spoke wrongly. “Pardon?” he asked, just to buy himself a moment to think.
“What time did this all happen today? Fiona was to tee off at noon, I believe.” Glenrothes’ gaze turned to the clock on the mantel and back to Aylesbury.
Sensing the tension emanating from him, Fiona lifted her head gazing up at him curiously before her eyes followed his to her eldest brother, the head of her family. If possible, her grip on his hand tightened even more. Still talking amongst themselves, no one else in the family besides Eve seemed to hear the exchange, as softly as it was spoken.
Like Fiona, Eve looked to her husband with an inquiring if somewhat surprised look before following his penetrating stare to Aylesbury and then to Fiona. Her eyes widened as if she were seeing the situation under a whole new light, and with a jolt of what might have been amusement, Aylesbury felt Fiona surreptitiously rotating the diamond ring he had given her into her palm.
“Let me clarify,” the earl said softly enough, though to Aylesbury’s ears the threat in his voice was as loud as a cannon’s boom. “What hole was she playing on when the kidnapping took place?”
Not enough time for even the quickest calculation. “The seventh.”
“The ninth,” Fiona said at the same time.
The finger stopped tapping and if possible the earl’s eyes narrowed even more as his usually warm muddy green eyes sharpened glacially.
“It was the ninth,” Fiona said more firmly. “I’m sure Aylesbury hadn’t played there often enough to be familiar with the course.”
It was a good try, Aylesbury thought. But not good enough. There would be the devil to pay for the pleasure he had taken that afternoon. No doubt about it.
“Dinner is waiting, my lady,” Hobbes said from the door, addressing Lady Glenrothes. “Shall I have it put aside?”
Eve opened her mouth and closed it indecisively, looking to Glenrothes. “You go along, my love, and take the others,” he said quietly, leaning over to kiss her cheek tenderly. “I will need a … moment alone with Lord Aylesbury before I come along.”
The countess shot Aylesbury a pitying look that he hardly had a chance to acknowledge before Glenrothes’ piercing stare was back on him. He held it unflinchingly while Eve herded everyone toward the door.
Fiona stood but hesitated at his side. “Whatever you have to say to Lord Aylesbury, you can say to me.”
“Are ye ready to spill all yer secrets to me, lass?”
“I don’t know,” she replied stubbornly, crossing her arms over her chest. “Have you shared all of yours with me?”
“Faith, Blossom, we will have that conversation soon enough,” her brother said quietly, but with firm command that brooked no argument. “Now out while I have a word with Aylesbury.”
Aylesbury could feel Fiona’s uncertainty, her nerves. Her palpable worry as she went to the door where Hobbes was waiting patiently.
For him. Aylesbury almost laughed at the realization.
Every girl thought her older brother immortal, unbeatable. Piper had thought the same of him, but as men, they were all fallible. All weak in some way. Nor was Glenrothes the Goliath Fiona thought him. No, they were evenly matched in height though the earl might have a stone or two on him. It would be a fair fight … if, of course, Aylesbury were allowed the benefit of having that fight one-on-one rather than ten-on-one.
Hobbes closed the door, blocking Fiona from sight and leaving silence behind. Such silence that Aylesbury could almost hear the blood pounding in his temples.
“Aylesbury,” the earl said at last.
The marquis nodded slightly in return. “Glenrothes.”
“We do need to talk, don’t we?”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
From the diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh – May 1895
While it is flattering to have a man fight for your honor, it is quite another thing to have a man fight for your life.
To have him take then face one’s brother with such composure …!
I know Harry said that he would risk his life for me, but this is a gesture so much more profound than that.
Hobbes closed the door, shutting in Aylesbury with her brother. Effectively locking Harry in to meet his fate. Fiona bit her lip indecisively, wondering if she should go back in and defend Harry further or just leave them to it. Harry was a perfectly capable man after all, but Francis was … Well, when Francis was wronged, it was better to just get far, far away.
“I heard it all, my lady,” Hobbes said from behind her. “May I say that I am ever so glad that you’ve come out of it unharmed and at home?”
Fiona smiled at the starchy old curmudgeon. “That is about the nicest thing I’ve ever heard you say to me, Hobbes.” Stepping close before he might step aside, Fiona wrapped her arms around his stiff, straight shoulders and hugged him tightly. “I knew you liked me,” she whispered, dropping a quick peck on his taut cheek.
To her surprise, Hobbes patted her back and squeezed her shoulder before easing her away. He cleared his throat and met her gaze ever so briefly before his gaze shifted over her shoulder. “I do in fact like you a great deal … Lady Fiona.” He cleared his throat again. “You’ll want a bath drawn, I imagine. And a warm fire as well. I’ll see it done immediately, my lady.”
That was how he showed his care, Fiona realized. By caring for her needs. She had never understood that before. It just went to show that love in its many forms was more often demonstrated by more than mere words.
It was a realization that could be applied to the motives of others as well. Glenrothes by thinking to shield her from the world at large. Aylesbury by protecting her from danger. It was a notion that deserved some deeper consideration.
But not just now.
She was bone weary and ready to relax, forget and regroup.
“Thank you, Hobbes.”
“I will give instructions for your meal to be brought to your room,” he continued, practically babbling, for him. “Shall I … shall I have a maid to escort you as well?”
“I shall do it, Hobbes.” Ilona had been lingering with Eve at the head of the stairs, waiting for Fiona. She glanced at Eve, who might have meant to protest. “I haven’t been hungry anyhow, you know how it can be? Perhaps I might be able to take a bite or two … if another tray is sent up?”
“Of course, ma’am,” Hobbes bowed, the proper butler once again but still he met Fiona’s gaze briefly once again and almost – almost smiled before leaving.
Ilona hooked her arm through Fiona’s as they went up another flight of stairs together. “I nearly thought he was going to hug you or something equally shocking,” Ilona whispered conspiratorially as they climbed.
“The day has had too many surprises all ready,” Fiona answered with a grin. “That might have been more that my poor sensibilities could handle.”
They laughed together as they made their way to Fiona’s chamber where Ilona fussed over her, drawing her bath and adding chamomile salts to help sooth away Fiona’s troubles while she chatted about the kidnapping and Ramsay’s suspected involvement in it all.
As she helped Fiona undress, her no-nonsense conversation calmed Fiona’s nerves in the way a dozen expressions of sympathy could not. It was just the facts as they were. The facts, Fiona could handle. The emotion of it all was useless and even debilitating, better pushed aside to deal with at a later time.
Sliding into the steaming bath, Fiona let the water wash over her, whisk away the troubles of the day. The heat relaxed her muscles and she sank deeper with a contented sigh.
But as straightforward as Ilona was with one subject, it was a simple thing for her to work her way to other topics. Other matters Fiona had already rejected as beyond immediate consideration. Things she really didn’t want to think about
. Leave it to Ilona to make the entire issue impossible to ignore.
“And Aylesbury!”
Fiona opened one eye, watching her sister-in-law warily. “What about him?”
“Imagine him coming to your rescue so precipitately! I gather his timing couldn’t have been better. If he hadn’t been there …” Ilona trailed off, letting the possibilities weigh significantly in the silence before adding the question that no one had yet thought to ask. “Why was he there, I wonder?”
“He wanted to speak to me, I suppose.” Fiona took up a washing cloth and soap from the tray next to the tub and began to lather the cloth with undue focus.
“And all the other times as well?”
It wasn’t really a question. Nor was Fiona ready to provide much of an answer. “I suppose,” she repeated evasively, as she continued to soap the already sudsy cloth. “I mean, who can say, really?”
Ilona studied her for a long moment. Her warm brown eyes burrowing effortlessly into Fiona’s soul. She didn’t say anything, though. Instead, she took the soap from Fiona and began to wash Fiona’s hair much as her nanny had done when she was but a wee lass. Her fingers worked through Fiona’s long hair, massaging her scalp and relaxing Fiona almost to the point of unconsciousness.
Fiona should have known Ilona was merely waiting until her guard was down to add something more. The subject, when it was dropped, was even more shocking than the bucket of water Ilona dumped over her head.
“Two years ago? What happened between the two of you that night, Fiona?”
It was a softly spoken entreaty followed by forbearing silence. Ilona didn’t press nor prompt, but allowed Fiona time to wipe the water from her eyes as if she understood the struggle Fiona was fighting internally.
The need to speak of what had happened aloud for the very first time.
The desire to forget it ever happened at all.
After all it was far more humiliating than when Harry had found her in his bedchamber, something far more devastating. Unlike that incident, Fiona was fairly certain that Harry wouldn’t be able to offer a different point of view that might make it any less upsetting.
“I think I fell in love with Harry the first time I ever saw him,” Fiona began almost inaudibly as she lifted the soapy cloth and began to wash her arms and shoulders. “It was right after Francis and Eve wed. I was staying with Richard and Abby for a few months. You might not remember as you and Colin were off on your own honeymoon by then. Richard brought Harry home for dinner … You have to understand, Ilona. He was…”
Ilona smiled kindly when Fiona trailed off. Taking the washing cloth, Ilona soaped it up once more and began washing Fiona’s back in soothing strokes. “He is very charming, isn’t he?” she whispered with a smile in her voice. “It is difficult not to be taken by him. Even a married woman in love, such as I, might have sighed over him a time or two.”
“It was a crush, of course. I was just seventeen and was very susceptible to that practiced charisma. But I might have gotten over him easily enough.”
“If he hadn’t come back.”
“Yes.” Fiona leaned forward with a sigh, allowing Ilona greater access to her back. “If he just hadn’t come back.”
“But he did.”
“Aye, he did.”
Lost in thought, Fiona didn’t even know how long the silence reigned before Ilona prompted, “The next fall, wasn’t it?”
“Winter,” Fiona corrected. “Just before Vin returned.”
Ilona nodded as she rose, moving to the end of the tub and motioning Fiona to lift a leg. Fiona leaned back against the tub once more, with yet another sigh but obeyed, resting a foot against the porcelain tub for Ilona to wash.
“He came to court Moira,” Fiona said at last. “Dinners, the theater, riding everyday … Red roses. He was quite serious in his intent. Red roses, Ilona. A dozen of them. He intended to marry her. He wanted to marry her.”
“Did he?” Ilona asked unexpectedly. “I always rather thought that those roses were given as they were to prompt Vin’s jealousy.”
Fiona frowned at her sister-in-law. “What do you mean? Red roses are practically an unspoken proposal. I was there.”
“As was I,” Ilona countered. “When Aylesbury gave the roses to Moira, he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at Vin with that devilish grin as if he dared Vin to make something of it. I believe he was purposefully trying to make Vin jealous.”
“Hmm,” Fiona closed her eyes, remembering what Harry had told her. He did say that he knew Moira wished to marry Vin, but perhaps he hadn’t shared all of his motivations with her. “Do you really think he did it all a purpose?”
“Perhaps not all of it,” Ilona allowed, reluctantly. “I think he might well have married her if Vin hadn’t come home. They might have been content.”
Content.
There was that word again.
And as Vin had said, even the warmest bath could grow cold.
Finishing hers, Fiona stepped into the towel Ilona held out for her and then into the warm nightrail and robe that followed. Returning to her bedchamber, she sat at her vanity and began to brush the tangles from her hair absently, her eyes on the mirror but seeing nothing but the memories of those days long past.
“But when Moira and Vin wed,” Ilona did press then. “What happened then?”
“I saw my chance, as it were,” Fiona told her, her eyes shifting in the mirror to Ilona’s reflection where she sat perched on the edge of Fiona’s bed. “I flirted madly with him. Even more madly than I had been before Moira and Vin wed. At first he flirted back. He danced with me … once at any rate. We walked, rode, talked. I thought he was beginning to like me, but then he began to avoid me. Studiously.”
“I’m sure the marquis would never be so rude,” Ilona argued.
He might be if he had good reason, Fiona thought. And she had given him good reason. Fiona’s eyes closed as if to block out the memory of her invasion of his room that morning. The humiliation would have killed her to mention it before if it hadn’t been for Harry’s very contrary recounting of the events the previous night.
“I did go to his room once.”
“Fiona Blossom!”
Fiona only shook her head with a blush. “Don’t worry, Ilona, nothing happened. He practically patted me on the head and told me to run along back to the nursery.”
Well, not quite.
“I was always quite safe with him because all I was to him was a child, and an annoying one at that.”
That was true enough.
“So that night in Haddington’s garden, what happened then?”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
From the diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh – Apr 1893
I feel I have no choice remaining but to take my one last chance.
Wish me luck!
Despite Glenrothes’ contention that they needed to talk, the silence hung heavily in the drawing room for several long minutes before the earl finally spoke. “It might be a difficult thing to convince the bobbies that Ramsay is our man in this whole thing with only our unfounded speculation to substantiate it.”
Aylesbury nodded. “But then I rather doubt you and your brothers will be willing to wait for the authorities to take the lead in rounding him up.”
“Quite so.”
“I also doubt that is what you wanted to talk about,” Aylesbury added without further prompting. “Why I’ll be wanting to have a hand in Ramsay’s apprehension is, though.”
“Is there something that you feel gives you the right?”
“Yes. I love your sister, Glenrothes.”
The earl’s fingers curled on the arm of the sofa, fisting before he stretched them out once more. “You can imagine being the youngest of eleven children and the only lass, that we are all very protective of our Blossom.”
“Fiona might say too protective, but I have a sister of my own, Glenrothes. I do understand.”
“It was hard enough to imagine a fellow having
the nerve to ask my permission to marry her.” A finger tapped restlessly against the upholstery before the earl fisted his hand once more. “I am finding it is even harder to hear a man confess his love for her.”
“I understand,” Aylesbury nodded. “To you, she will always be a child.”
Glenrothes nodded curtly. “Does my sister… share this affection with you?”
Aylesbury winced, repressing a sigh. “She hasn’t confessed as much in so many words, but I believe so.”
The finger was tapping again. “I want you to understand, Aylesbury, I’ve always had a good measure of respect for you. You’ve been a friend to this family for a long while now, but when I see you come in here with her like that, when she clings to you … like that … when she has long shown nothing more for you than scorn, well it makes me wonder what more might have happened. In truth, it fair makes me wonder why I’m still sitting here and not over there, beating you to a bloody pulp.”
“I do love her, my lord.”
Glenrothes nodded stiffly. “That might be all that is saving you. But I also cannot help but wonder if there was something more to what happened between the two of you two years past. A fight, Blossom said. I had dismissed the matter because of her most disdainful dismissal of the event, but now … now I cannot help but wonder if something more happened that night. Something perhaps that should have prompted a more brotherly intervention on her behalf.”
The words were calmly said, the threat vague and coolly delivered, but Aylesbury was very aware that Glenrothes was at that moment angrier than Aylesbury had ever seen him. That beneath that calm, a man lurked with what might be murderous intent if the wrong word were said. He tread carefully. “I was ever a gentleman, I promise you.” Not a lie exactly, but certainly not the whole truth when gentlemanly intentions went astray.
“What was it then?”
“You must understand, Glenrothes, that Fiona’s youth and inexperience never escaped me, not for a moment. I was ever aware of her innocence,” Aylesbury ran a hand through his hair. “But I want you to also understand how incredibly difficult it sometimes was not to …”
A Question for Harry Page 27