One Golden Ring

by Cheryl Bolen

  Nick would have sworn his brother gazed at him with wistful admiration. “She really did.”

  “Now I see why you couldn’t go to the ’Change this afternoon. You’re the victim of profound emotions brought on by your betrothal.”

  So Adam did not understand him as well as he thought. “There is,” Nick said, a scowl on his face, “no betrothal.”

  Adam spun around in his chair. “You didn’t turn down the lovely creature?”

  “Of course I did! I couldn’t take advantage of a woman in a time of such stress.”

  “How could you be so cruel to the lady? Do you realize how difficult it must have been for her to grovel to you?”

  “Of course I realize it. That’s why I went against my better judgment and offered her the damned money.”

  Adam spit out another mouthful of tea. “I don’t believe you! I’ve known you all of my one and thirty years, and I’ve never known you to give away money—except, of course, to the orphanages and free schools you established, and I hardly think Lady Fiona fits in that charitable category.”

  “I did offer her the money. She refused it.”

  “Do you mean to tell me,” Adam said, his face screwed up in disbelief, “that the lady was willing to sell herself to a strange man she’d never seen before but she was not willing to accept that same man’s charity?”

  “She had seen me before. Twice.”

  “I don’t understand. Are you saying you and she have a tendré?”

  Nick shook his head with exasperation. “Of course not! The first time I saw her was at Tat’s—”

  “Women don’t go to Tat’s!”

  “This woman did. With her brother. He couldn’t avoid introducing her to me, though it obviously pained him to do so.”

  “And the second time you saw her?”

  “Last night at the theatre. Her box was opposite mine, and I believe she spent the better part of the evening staring at me.”

  “Good God! Do you think . . . ?”

  “The woman is not enamored of me.”

  “I don’t know how you could have turned her down. You’ve said yourself you’re seeking a wife, and what woman could be more desirable than Lady Fiona Hollingsworth?”

  “I can’t deny her desirability.”

  “Hell, it’s like guineas raining from the heavens, and you trod over them instead of scooping them up!”

  That same feeling of elation Nick experienced with Lady Fiona this afternoon swept over him again. It had been rather like guineas raining from the heavens. How could he have been such a fool? “Call me a fool,” Nick said, shrugging, “but somehow I always fancied I’d wed a woman who was as attracted to me as I was to her.”

  “With your legendary bedchamber charms, I’ve no doubts the lady would have come around.”

  The sudden vision of Lady Fiona’s bare body beneath him sent a painful throbbing to Nick’s groin. “I shouldn’t wish to take advantage of the lady’s misfortune.”

  “You’re too damn proud! Papa didn’t rise from the gutter on pride. He made his fortune by humbly catering to the swells. Pride, dear brother, won’t warm your bed at night!”

  “The pity of it is,” Nick confessed, “she’ll make the offer to someone else. And quickly, too.”

  Adam uttered a curse. “Can you honestly tell me you would not want her for a wife?”

  “Quite honestly, the lady’s spectacular.”

  “Then push your pride aside. Go to her before it’s too damned late.”

  Chapter 3

  As he and Fiona settled into the carriage, Trevor swiped snowflakes from his greatcoat and screwed his face into a pout worthy of a spoiled princess. “Perfectly odious man, that bookseller! Offering you a piddly five thousand for your pere ’s library. Daresay it’s worth at least fifty thousand.”

  “It wasn’t my father’s library, actually,” Fiona said with a shrug. “At least not originally. My grandfather’s the one who built the collection, but remember, Trev, he was buying new. Since the books are no longer new—though I daresay most of them have never been opened—their value, quite naturally, plummets. And the bookseller has to make his money.”

  Trevor folded his arms across his chest and stomped his expensively shod foot. “You simply cannot give the books away to that thief.”

  “I won’t unless I’m forced to,” she said. “Tomorrow we’ll see how much Mama’s jewels will fetch.”

  “Nowhere near twenty-five thousand, I’ll vow.”

  “You’re likely right.”

  Her family coach, which should have been replaced a decade earlier, turned onto Cavendish Square and screeched to a halt in front of Agar House. The afternoon sun had almost shed its brilliance. Fiona sighed. Another day gone, and she was no closer to raising the money to save Randy. “Come help me draw up a list of well-to-do bachelors,” she said as they disembarked.

  Trevor grumbled his dissatisfaction while he trailed after her.

  Fiona swept into her house, then stood deadly still upon its marble entry hall, stunned. Bouquets of sweetly pungent flowers crowded the entire hallway. Roses reposed on the sideboard—six vases of them, each sprouting roses of a different color. Fat arrangements of marigolds and daisies graced the first half dozen steps of the iron-railed staircase. Colorful posies were strewn across the floor like a fragrant carpet.

  “What the devil?” Trevor exclaimed.

  Fiona’s gaze flicked to the butler. “Pray, Livingston, whatever is going on?”

  “I couldn’t say, my lady. A stream of urchins has been delivering these for the past hour.”

  “Did the urchins say who engaged them?” she asked.

  He thought for a moment, then strode to the sideboard where he extricated a letter from beneath a vase of pink roses. “This note was delivered with the first batch.”

  She eagerly snatched the now-damp missive and nearly tore the page in her haste to read it. The note was short:

  My Dear Lady Fiona,

  I hope in some small way these flowers will express my high regard for you more eloquently than can my abominable tongue, and I beg that you will consent to see me when I call upon you in the very near future.

  Sincerely,

  Nicholas Birmingham

  Trevor’s impatience to read the note outweighing years of instruction in the art of good manners, he peered over her shoulder as she read. “Very nice, utterly masculine penmanship, don’t you think?” he asked.

  She turned and glared down her aristocratic nose at him. “I hadn’t thought at all about the man’s handwriting!”

  Trevor effected a contrite expression—for all of ten seconds, then his gaze circled the hallway. “You can’t say Birmingham doesn’t have a flair.” His glance lit upon a basket of flowers all in hues of purple and lavender: pansies, violets, lavender, orchids, periwinkles, and primroses. “I declare, this primrose is positively blue!” He withdrew it from the bouquet and inhaled it deeply. “I ask you, my lady, have you ever seen a primrose this color?”

  She beat down the impulse to laugh. Trevor was surely the only man of her acquaintance who knew every flower by name. Her heart caught as she remembered Randy taking a stab at naming a rose. “It’s got thorns, must be a rose!” her brother had exclaimed dubiously, anxiously watching his sister for confirmation.

  “I refuse to discuss primroses or penmanship with you, Trevor,” she snapped. “We’ve more important inferences to draw.”

  His expression suddenly less demented, he bent to her ear and spoke in a low voice. “Shall we repair to the library where we can speak in private?”

  She slipped her arm into his. “An excellent plan.”

  Once they were in the library—which unlike Windmere Abbey’s library, contained very few books—they dropped onto a fern-colored sofa.

  “I perceive that Mr. Birmingham means to offer me the twenty-five thousand pounds again,” she said.

  Trevor’s mouth puckered in concentration as he got up and went to pour himsel
f a glass of wine. “Madeira would do your nerves good,” he said, turning toward Fiona.

  She favored him with a smile. “I believe I would like a glass.”

  He poured the two glasses and returned to sit beside her. “Daresay you’re wrong about Birmingham.”

  “I’m rarely wrong about men,” she argued. “My perceptions of men come from having an older brother and a younger one, neither of whose behavior ever surprises me.”

  “Be that as it may,” Trevor said, his fingers flicking away lint from his golden breeches, “you’ve missed the mark this time.”

  She set down her glass and faced him. “What makes you think so?”

  “The flowers.”

  Her brows lowered. “I don’t follow you.”

  “A man don’t send flowers when he plans to give away his money.”

  “Then?” Suddenly, Fiona understood. A man sends flowers when he is courting. God in heaven, did that mean Mr. Birmingham was going to accept her pathetic proposal? She spun to Trevor. “Surely you don’t think . . .”

  His slender hand holding the stemmed glass, his pinky finger extended, Trevor swished the wine around in his mouth. “Methinks the man has changed his mind about marrying you.”

  A pity the entire spectrum of emotions collided within her. Why could she not be perfectly blasé about Mr. Birmingham’s probable interest in wedding her? Her pulse pounded, her chest tightened, her stomach sank—at the same time her heart was skipping with a lighter-than-air fluttering—all of this while picturing the darkly handsome Mr. Birmingham’s black eyes regarding her. The very memory of him had the oddest physical effect upon her. Her meager breasts seemed to swell, and a tingling settled low in her torso.

  Marriage to Mr. Birmingham, she decided, held far more appeal than marriage to bald-headed, potbellied Lord Strayhorn, whose fortune had placed him at the top of her list of matrimonial prospects.

  Livingston tapped at the door, then entered. “A Mr. Birmingham to see you, my lady.”

  Her heart thumped as she and Trevor exchanged wide-eyed glances. “I really must be going,” Trevor muttered. “The man can’t offer for you when another man’s in the room,” he whispered.

  She supposed he should go, though she was rather reluctant to face Mr. Birmingham alone. Not that the man was in the least bit terrifying. Fiona’s apprehension had less to do with Mr. Birmingham’s presence and a lot more to do with her own embarrassment at facing him after this morning’s fiasco. “Show Mr. Birmingham in,” she told the butler.

  She sucked in her breath as she watched the two men—Trevor quite short, Mr. Birmingham rather tall—exchange greetings. The top of poor Trevor’s head came only to Mr. Birmingham’s chest.

  Once Trevor had departed, Mr. Birmingham came to stand before her, and she was powerless not to gape at his magnificence. From the tip of boots so shiny she could see her face in them, up long, sinewy legs to his trim waist and sloping upward to a manly, though not bulging, chest clothed in an exquisitely cut frock coat, she gaped, coming to settle on his sinfully handsome face and the tuft of dark hair that carelessly spilled onto his forehead.

  She offered her hand and prayed he would not detect its tremble when his enclosed it, and he bent to kiss it. Why had she never before noticed how completely provocative a kiss on the hand could be? “Please sit down, Mr. Birmingham. Won’t you join me in having a glass of madeira?”

  “An excellent idea, my lady,” he said, his eye roaming to the decanter on a nearby table. “Allow me to get it myself.”

  To her utter surprise, after he filled his glass he came and sat next to her on the sofa. Her gaze dropped to his smoothly muscled thighs, which ran parallel to hers but were many inches longer than hers. Why had she never before noticed how utterly provocative a man’s thighs could be? She quickly forced her gaze to his face. “I’m indebted to you for all the lovely flowers, Mr. Birmingham,” she began.

  “It seemed the least I could do after my shabby treatment of you.”

  Her heart fluttered as he nabbed her with those pensive black eyes of his. “Your idea of shabby and mine must be vastly different,” she said. “I don’t think offering me twenty-five thousand could be considered shabby.”

  He shook his head. “Not that. The other part.”

  The other part? Her heart thudded. Her marriage proposal. His quick refusal. Her complete humiliation. That “other part.” She gathered her courage. “You’ve nothing to apologize for, Mr. Birmingham. You weren’t interested in marriage. I was.” She shrugged. “End of scenario.”

  “I’m somewhat distressed over your use of the past tense, my lady,” he said.

  Her use of the past tense? She thought back to try to remember her exact words. I was. She was interested in marriage. But no more? Is that what it sounded like to him? And that distressed him? How perfectly wonderful! “I still am,” she said cryptically, hoping she would not once again be forced to brazenly declare her bizarre proposal to the almost-complete stranger.

  “Then I must tell you,” he said, not quite meeting her gaze, “that I regret my hasty refusal. Attribute it to my utter surprise and previous hostility toward matrimony—a hostility I no longer possess.”

  This was without a doubt the most deuced peculiar sequence of vague proposals she had ever heard of. What was needed at this juncture was a clear declaration, but far be it from her to set herself up for ridicule twice in the same day. No matter how much the man squirmed, she was not about to offer for him again. This time, he must do the asking.

  So they sat there, as silent as a long-married couple in church, neither of them so much as glancing at the other. From the corner of her eye she saw that he took a long drink from his glass, then spent an inordinate amount of time twirling around his glass, the liquid swishing until it lapped at the glass’s rim.

  For some unaccountable reason, she pictured the beautiful actress who was his mistress. Was Miss Foley responsible for his reluctance to marry? For his reluctance to spell out his intentions toward Fiona?

  No sooner had that thought taken root than he removed himself from the sofa, dropped down on one knee, took her hand in his, and blatantly met her gaze. “I would be the happiest of men if you would consider being my life’s partner,” he said, his thumb stroking sensuous circles on her palm.

  “I will not refuse your generous offer, sir, but you must tell me why this change of heart.”

  He continued holding her hand but did not respond for a very long while. She was beginning to think he might reverse his reversal when he finally said, “It suddenly became clear to me that marriage to a woman of your . . . your background is precisely what I should like most in a wife—not that I ever would have been so presumptuous as to seek out one of your pedigree, you understand.”

  The tables had truly been turned. She fully understood how vulnerable he must feel at this moment, for she had been every bit as nervous this morning when she tossed aside her pride and begged him to marry her. “You may get up, dear sir! I assure you I have no intention of turning down your welcome offer, and there are many things we must discuss if we are to marry.” She could scarcely credit her own words. Was this man really to become her husband?

  Not without a trickle of affection, she watched as he returned to the sofa and took her hand again. “I won’t expect any settlements,” he said.

  She chuckled. “Then you must know I’m dowryless. I daresay a man in your position knows everybody’s financial affairs.”

  “Not everyone’s.”

  “When should you like to be wed?”

  He patted his pocket. “I’ve a special license. Would tomorrow be too soon?”

  “But . . . tomorrow’s Christmas Eve.”

  “Christmas is a time for giving. I can think of no better day to marry.”

  She closed her eyes. This was all so unexpected. “You really do have a special license?”

  “I do.”

  “You were that assured I would accept?”

  “I
wasn’t at all assured, my lady, but I’ve schooled myself to always be ready for any eventuality.”

  “Then tomorrow is agreeable to me.”

  “You know,” he said with an atypical lack of confidence, “you don’t have to marry me to save your brother. I could negotiate some sort of loan to secure his release.”

  She shrugged. “Marrying you is not repugnant to me, Mr. Birmingham. At six and twenty, I’m too long on the shelf not to leap at the chance of marrying—and I’m no longer the adolescent idealist who longs for a passionate love match.”

  His flashing eyes narrowed as he silently regarded her. She had the feeling he was carefully choosing his words. “You’ll never convince me,” he finally said, “that your being on the shelf is not of your own choosing. Any man in the kingdom would be only too happy to make you his wife.”

  “But not the one man I had hoped to wed,” she whispered ruefully. She had to bring up Warwick. Everyone knew how thoroughly besotted she had been over the man, how humiliated she had been when he married another. If Mr. Birmingham was to become her husband, he had the right to know everything about her past.

  Mr. Birmingham stiffened, and he spoke sternly. “I don’t think I’d like being wed to a woman who’s in love with another man.”

  “Please be assured, Mr. Birmingham, I’m no longer in love with Lord Warwick. I’m just wounded enough to be wary of giving my heart to another man.”

  His jaw tightened as his lazy gaze flicked over her. “And what of giving your body to another man?”

  Her heart nearly pounded out of her chest. She could not believe he was bold enough to speak to her of so delicate a matter. Then it suddenly occurred to her that in a day’s time she would belong to this man. He would have the right to possess her body. The very thought stole her breath and suffused her in a warm tingling sensation. “If I’m to be your wife,” she said, drawing in a deep breath, “I shall belong to you in every way.”

  “I shouldn’t like for you to close your eyes and pretend I’m someone else, Fiona.”