Miss Fiona's Fancy (The Royal Ambition Series Book 3)

by M C Beaton

  “Your servant,” whispered Fiona.

  “He may consider himself privileged to witness the first kiss between the most amusing people in London. Dear me, Fiona, never say you do not like me!”

  “It is not that, my lord. I have never been kissed before. I am shy.”

  “Shut your eyes,” he teased. “’Twill all be over in a trice—like getting a tooth pulled.”

  Fiona screwed her eyes shut. His mouth came down on her own, warm and pleasant and firm. Nothing to be afraid of, she thought with relief, not realizing the marquess was deliberately giving her nothing to be afraid of.

  When he raised his lips, she drew away. “Good night,” she said breathlessly. “I must go. I really must go.”

  “Till tomorrow,” he said. He raised his hand in salute and sprang back into his carriage.

  Fiona let herself in by the garden gate. The marquess sat and watched her until she disappeared into the blackness of the trees.

  “Now, how will Sir Edward receive my proposal,” he said to himself. “Rumor has it he has been winning recently so he will probably be high and mighty. Fiona will collect her winnings and then send me to the rightabout. I am sure I could make her love me, given a little time. Ah, well, it will be interesting to see what excuse she finds to break the engagement!”

  When the Marquess of Cleveden called next day, Sir Edward Grant was in two minds whether to receive him or not. His wife was out shopping and Fiona was in her room. He at first wondered whether he owed the marquess any money, but he was sure he had settled all debts, and although the people he had gambled with during long drunken evenings were often hard to remember, he was sure the Marquess of Cleveden had not been one of them.

  He told Dougal, the butler, to show the marquess in.

  The marquess was interested to notice the change in Sir Edward’s manner. Here was no Scottish landowner on the edge of ruin fawning over him, but a rather testy, grim-faced man who curtly asked him why he had called.

  “I wish to marry your daughter, Fiona,” said the marquess.

  Sir Edward rang the bell. “Dougal,” he said, when his butler reappeared, “I think we’ll have some whisky if there is any left in that barrel we brought down from the north.”

  “You shouldnae touch the stuff,” said Dougal. “Claret’s better for your head.”

  I hope Fiona doesn’t thrust a household of Highland servants on me, thought the marquess. They always answer back.

  “Get it, man,” said Sir Edward. “That is, if you haven’t drunk the lot yourself.”

  Dougal growled something in Gaelic. Sir Edward growled back in the same language and the butler left to return some moments later with a decanter and two glasses. The marquess looked suspiciously at the clear liquid and then cautiously took a sip. It scorched its way down his throat to make, he felt, a large hole in his stomach.

  Sir Edward drank his own glassful in one gulp and then poured himself another one. Then he turned bright curious eyes on the marquess.

  “Why on earth do you want to marry Fiona?” he asked.

  “Why does any man usually want to marry a lady?” countered the marquess.

  “This being London,” said Sir Edward dryly, “I should say, most of the time, for money.”

  “Not in this case.”

  Sir Edward thought hard. He could not be sure his phenomenal run of luck would last. Cleveden was rich, very rich. And titled. Quite a catch. But now that the panic about debts had gone, he was once more concerned for the happiness of his daughter.

  “May I ask your age, sir?” he demanded.

  “I am thirty-seven years of age.”

  “Fiona is nineteen. She is young. You are middle-aged.”

  “Sadly, yes. I trust that the great difference in our ages will not prevent your daughter from accepting my offer. Come, sir. I am prepared to be generous in the matter of the marriage settlements.”

  Sir Edward’s eyes gleamed, but then he shook his head. “I cannot press my daughter to marry anyone she does not want.”

  “Then why do you not send for her and ask her yourself?”

  Sir Edward sent for Fiona, and while the two men waited for her, he surveyed his visitor while he made general conversation. The marquess, he reflected, looked a hard-faced sophisticate. He was handsome and well built. His thick black hair had no trace of gray. But his aura of mastery combined with the almost terrifying elegance of his dress made him, to Sir Edward’s eyes, a foreign creature, unsuited to be the husband of a Highland girl.

  Fiona came into the room. She was wearing a morning gown of gray silk with a high white crepe ruff. It had white crepe sleeves and a belt ornamented with a clasp of jet and she wore a long necklace of Whitby jet, purchased on the journey south.

  Her lashes were very long and dark, the marquess noticed, and once more he was fascinated by those little red lights like sparks that glinted among the thick tresses of her hair. He remembered the fresh, young feel of her lips against his own and his heartbeats quickened. Up till that moment, he had resigned himself to going along with that ridiculous bet—even prepared to take Fiona’s breaking of the engagement. But now, he realized, he would do anything to keep her. Well, almost anything, he thought cynically. Driving Sir Edward back to the gambling tables and into debt again he could not do, although it would be a certain way of ensuring his support.

  “Fiona,” began Sir Edward, “the Marquess of Cleveden has asked my permission to pay his addresses to you.”

  “Yes, Papa,” said Fiona meekly.

  “He wants to marry you,” went on Sir Edward, thinking she had not quite understood.

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “You mean you accept him?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Well, I’m d—Never mine, here is your mother. Annie, Cleveden here wants to marry Fiona and she’s accepted.”

  “Oh, my silly child,” said Lady Grant, “there is no need to do that. We are not in debt.”

  Goodness, thought the marquess, I am going to have some very plain-speaking in-laws.

  “I know we are not in debt,” said Fiona. “I have, nonetheless, agreed to marry Cleveden.”

  The marquess listened, highly entertained, as his beloved proceeded to try to convince her parents that she actually wanted to marry a man who had been for years regarded as one of the biggest catches on the marriage mart.

  “We are getting married in two weeks’ time,” added the marquess gently when Fiona had finished speaking. “We have no reason to wait.”

  “And no reason to rush either, I hope?” snapped Sir Edward.

  “No, no,” said the marquess soothingly.

  “When did you discuss all this with Fiona?” asked Sir Edward. “When you were touring the slums?”

  “We have met since then,” pointed out the marquess.

  “That is true, my dear,” added Lady Grant, quite forgetting that the marquess had not addressed a word to her daughter at any of the social gatherings they had attended.

  “Then we shall leave you alone with Fiona for a little,” said Sir Edward. “We shall discuss the question of the marriage settlements later.”

  The marquess and Fiona faced each other when her parents had left the room.

  “Well, my love,” he said. “if you do not know what to do now, I shall tell you. I say, ‘Alone at last.’ You blush shyly. I take you in my arms and you tremble with rapture.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “You are going to have to tremble with rapture sometime or another, my sweeting. We are to be married.”

  “Can’t we leave all that… er… side of things until after the wedding?” said Fiona.

  “As you like. But I would not mind a kiss just now.”

  “Very well,” said Fiona, pursing her lips and closing her eyes.

  Nothing happened. Her eyes flew open.

  “No,” he teased. “No more kisses, Fiona Grant, until you at least look as if you want one.” He bowed to her and left.

  Fion
a had to endure an hour of questions from both her parents, feeling guiltier by the minute as she persuaded them she really wanted to marry Cleveden.

  Then into the family discussion walked the Duchess of Gordonstoun with Lizzie in tow. They had not liked Bath, said the duchess, accepting Lady Grant’s warm welcome as if there had never been any breach in the friendship. The famous watering place had been full of provincials, went on the duchess, and so they had decided to return to London. The fact was that after only a few days at the Bath assemblies, it was evident that Lizzie would not “take.” The duchess had found life a very lonely place without the friendship of Annie, Lady Grant, and therefore rushed to see her at the first opportunity after her return to London. Fiona, feeling uncomfortable in the duchess’s presence, slipped from the room, murmuring an excuse. In her absence, the duchess was told of Fiona’s forthcoming marriage. She gave Lady Grant her wholehearted congratulations, more grateful to her old friend for not having snubbed her than Lady Grant would ever guess. The duchess was so delighted with Lady Grant that she was even prepared to help with the arrangements for Fiona’s wedding. Lizzie sat forgotten in a corner, and then she quietly left the room.

  Upstairs, Fiona was regaling Christine with the whole story. “But you can’t jilt a marquess!” cried Christine.

  “Yes, I can,” said Fiona with a laugh. “I shall collect the money for the bet. The money will no longer be needed to get Papa out of debt and so it will be all mine to do with as I wish. I could go away and take you with me, Christine. Would you like that?”

  “I am going to marry Angus, if I can,” said Christine.

  “Of course you are, dear Christine, if that is what you want.”

  “It’s what I want, Miss Fiona,” said Christine. “But I may not be allowed to.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “We illegitimate Grants are of the family, although not in the family. They like us as privileged servants, but the minute we want to marry another servant, they get hoity-toity and say we could do better. Although Angus is the piper, he’s still a servant. Servants are not allowed to marry anyway.”

  “Then the three of us shall think of something. I can give you money so that Angus can buy a bit of land—”

  “It’s very kind of you,” said Christine, “but Angus is a piper first and last. He would never work the land.”

  “Never mind. We shall contrive something. I do wish you well, Christine.”

  “I wish you well, too, miss. Are you sure you are not going to marry Lord Cleveden?”

  “Not I,” said Fiona. “I’d rather die. Thank goodness Papa has sworn to keep the money he won and never gamble again. He told me in front of Mama he’d promised her on the Bible. Of course, if he were in debt, he would probably drag me to the altar by the hair!”

  “There’s a noise on the landing,” said Christine. She opened the door. There was no one there.

  “Probably one of the maids,” said Christine, shutting the door again.

  The Duchess of Gordonstoun looked up as Lizzie crept quietly into the drawing room. “Where have you been?” she asked.

  “I thought I’d left a fan behind when I was doing my packing,” said Lizzie. “I looked in my old room, but I could not find it.”

  Then she meekly sat down and folded her hands in her lap and lowered her eyes as the duchess, Sir Edward, and Lady Grant went on discussing the wedding of Fiona Grant to the Marquess of Cleveden.

  EIGHT

  Mr. Harry Gore found he was behindhand with the gossip for the first time in his life. What made it doubly shocking to him was that such a prime piece of gossip should be about one of his closest friends. Although he affected ever afterward to have known about it all along, the announcement of the marquess’s engagement to Fiona Grant came as much of a surprise to him as it did the rest of London society.

  He fussed round to the marquess’s town house and was ushered into that gentleman’s bedroom.

  “Morning, Harry,” said the marquess. “What on earth has roused you from bed so early?”

  “Why the news—the news of your engagement. I say, you might have told a fellow. I shall look the most utter fool.”

  “No one else knew beforehand, apart from the lady and her parents, and, oh, yes, the crosspatch Duchess of Gordonstoun and that tiresome female she is puffing off. But no one else.”

  “But you never mentioned to me that you were taken with Fiona Grant!”

  “Down, Harry. Down. Good boy. Sit. Have chocolate. Listen! I did not mean to propose to the lady until two nights ago and I have not seen you in the intervening time. Where have you been?”

  “Out to Box Hill with the Four-in-Hand Club. I left you wholehearted and fancy free.” Mr. Gore poured himself a cup of hot chocolate from a pot on a little spirit stove, raised the cup to his lips, and then put the cup down in the saucer, the chocolate untasted. “And the wedding?” he asked eagerly. “When is that to be?”

  “Very soon. About ten days from now, I think.”

  “Ten days! Such haste. Why?”

  “I am a romantic. I fear, should I wait longer, Miss Grant might change her mind.”

  “No lady in her right mind would jilt you,” said Mr. Gore loyally. “There must be many disappointed ladies in London. In fact, I am not the only one the news has caused to stir early. I passed the Grant home a short time ago and witnessed the arrival on the doorstep of three young ladies, all looking extremely sour.”

  “Ah, yes,” said the marquess. “Now, let me see. They would no doubt be Miss Euphemia Perkins, Lady Yarwood, and Miss Letitia Helmsdale.”

  “Goodness! You have the right of it. How?”

  “A clever guess, Harry. Nothing but a clever guess.”

  “So, Miss Grant,” Lady Yarwood was saying in chilly accents, “we have all called to offer you our felicitations and to say that we will all be here on the morrow to settle the bet.”

  Fiona’s conscience gave her a sharp stab. She felt she should tell the ladies to forget about the bet, but her gambler’s soul told her that a wager must always be paid, and besides, she badly needed the money.

  “Thank you,” said Fiona.

  “I am to be betrothed as well,” said Euphemia Perkins.

  “My felicitations,” said Fiona.

  “Thank you,” said little Miss Perkins in a hollow voice.

  “So,” said Fiona brightly, “that only leaves you, Letitia. Penelope is to be wed next week, before me.” Penelope was Lady Yarwood.

  “I have always been unlucky,” mourned Letitia.

  “Who is the lucky gentleman, Euphemia?” asked Fiona.

  “Mr. George Delisle,” said Euphemia, looking at her hands.

  Penelope Yarwood and Letitia Helmsdale looked at Euphemia sympathetically. Fiona did not know this Mr. Delisle. She wondered what was wrong with him but did not like to ask.

  They talked for a little about the balls and parties they were to attend, and then the three ladies rose to take their leave.

  “Tell me, Fiona,” said Penelope Yarwood, drawing on her gloves, “does Cleveden know about our little wager?”

  “Oh, no,” said Fiona.

  “Mmm,” murmured Penelope, looking at her thoughtfully. “You are as lucky in love as you are in your wagers. No one thought to see Cleveden drop the handkerchief.”

  Fiona wondered whether to tell them that she had no intention of marrying the marquess. But it seemed a heinous thing to do—to get someone to propose simply to win a bet and then jilt him.

  “Tomorrow,” said Fiona to herself after the ladies had left, “I shall have the money tomorrow, and then I must face Cleveden.”

  She felt nervous and strung up at the prospect. What would the Marquess of Cleveden be like in a rage? Angus passed the open door of the drawing room and Fiona called to him.

  “Play me at hazard dice, Angus,” she said when the piper came into the room.

  “I haven’t any money,” said Angus.

  “We will play for pretend
money. Come, Angus. I have much on my mind and would forget my troubles.”

  “Very well,” said Angus reluctantly. “But I have a feeling that one of these days, Miss Fiona, you will play for real stakes—and lose.”

  Fiona gave a superstitious shiver. If only tomorrow was over and finished with!

  Fiona’s game of hazard with the piper did not last very long. Sir Edward walked into the drawing room, dressed for the street. Since he had forsworn gambling, he had returned to his studies for the English bar.