“Dearest Ilona …” Eve sighed sadly, gleaning Ilona’s meaning as easily as Fiona. She took Ilona’s hand in hers and squeezed it sympathetically.
“Do not cry for me, my sisters,” Ilona said with her usual good cheer. “I have the love of a man I adore, friends like you, and hope. It is all I need. What do you need, Fiona?”
“More than I have,” she confessed. “I cannot continue to bear witness and unlike Jamie, I haven’t the option to run off to the Americas to escape it all.”
“Marriage has become your escape plan.”
Fiona shrugged, reluctant to verbally concur with Eve’s conclusion. Escape was such a desperate word.
Ilona laughed softly, and to Fiona’s surprise, humor danced in her chocolaty eyes. “And Ramsay is your ‘more’? Tsk, tsk, dear. What a poorly considered plan.”
“Ilona!”
Her sister-in-law giggled. Eve was smiling as well. “I shan’t apologize. While you might find temporary relief with him, such a hasty course of action will only bring you misery in the end.”
“I would at least have a family of my own. Children to love,” Fiona pointed out.
The light in Ilona’s eyes dimmed. “There is no guarantee in that, I’m afraid. You’d be a fool to pin your hopes on it.”
“I’m sorry, Ilona,” Fiona said once more. How she hated hurting Ilona’s feelings when she was never anything but kind to her. “I’ve put my foot in it this time, haven’t I?”
She smiled, her spirits rebounding quickly as always. “No. Never.”
Eve looked down at the baby in her arms and at the other children around her. “I’m sorry that I hadn’t realized how unhappy you had been living with us, Fiona. You as well, Ilona dear.”
“Oh, Evie! I am not. I love you all and am glad for the joy each and every one of you has,” Fiona assured her. “I just want more for myself. If I can’t have the one thing I every truly wanted in this life, I must at least have this.”
“What did you ever want that you could not have?” Eve asked curiously.
Ilona was also piercing her with those all-seeing eyes, searching for an answer but Fiona refused to offer anything more. Still her eyes widened, then danced as if she had been privy to some titillating gossip. “Did you know, Eve,” she said, turning to Eve, “that just a few days ago, I was saying that even without having met Lord Ramsay, I knew Fiona did not love him?”
“Is that so? What did you say to that, Fiona?”
Fiona pressed her lips together, declining to speak.
“She agreed of course but wondered how I knew.” Ilona leaned toward Eve with an air of confidentiality and whispered. “No fire, you see?”
“Ilona!” Fiona protested.
“Hmm,” Eve nodded. “I do.”
“Evie, please!”
“The funny thing is,” Ilona continued, “I have seen it now. Yes I have, but not in regards to Lord Ramsay. Isn’t that odd?”
Eve nodded, casting a sidelong glance of amusement at Fiona who was all but huffing in outrage.
“But you know the oddest thing?” Ilona went on blithely, as if she were completely unaware of Fiona’s outrage. “Lord Ramsay seems to bear a striking resemblance to Lord Ayls –”
“Ilona MacKintosh!” Fiona cried out, climbing to her feet. “Enough! It is one thing to disparage my choice but quite another to imply that I… that he … Oh!”
Aware that her sisters-in-law were smiling a trifle smugly as she left them behind, Fiona stomped off to the water’s edge where Laurie and Preston were still throwing bread to the waterfowl.
Surely their conversation would be far easier to bear.
Chapter Eleven
From the diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh – Feb 1893
So much happened last night at Vin’s welcome ball. Rumor has it that Vin caught Harry kissing Moira in the hall and nearly beat the stuffing out of him before Vin was caught scandalously kissing her as well by that horrid, gossiping toad, Reginald Wallis!
I cannot even countenance the former as surely my brother would have caused Harry some visible damage but the real news is that because of the latter, Vin and Moira have become engaged!
I will have my chance with Harry at last!
The Glenrothes Townhouse
117 Eaton Square
Belgravia, London, England
Three nights later
Two years.
The last words she had said to Aylesbury then had been hurled at him in anger and then the bitterness she harbored toward him had lain dormant until she had seen him once again. One would think that such a length of time would diminish it but her blood boiled each time she saw him and now yet again, it began to simmer at the mere sight of him standing at the drawing room door with Hobbes at his side as the butler announced him.
“My lady, the Marquis of Aylesbury.”
As overwhelming as his appearance was, Fiona didn’t want the anger that fired her blood. Didn’t want the past to encroach on her future. She resented its intrusion into her life almost as much as she resented his. In fact, she had decided that the best course of action would be to avoid his company all together while they were in London. To focus her attentions on performing her role in her brother’s little production as planned and moving forward with her own sub-plot to his scheme.
And it would have played out just fine if Aylesbury had properly taken his cues from her and stayed well enough away.
“What on earth is he doing here?” The question was asked of no one in particular, but Eve provided the answer anyway as Moira played hostess and went to greet the interloper.
“I invited him to dine with us.”
Fiona shook her head, struck witless by incomprehension. “But–but … why?”
Eve eyed her curiously. “I thought that with the numbers odd at the table tonight, what with all the younger lads out for the evening, you would enjoy a pleasant dinner companion.”
They expected her to sit next to him, as well?
“Besides, we like him.”
Granted Fiona had never breathed a word of what had occurred between her and Aylesbury to anyone in the family, but surely they must have taken some hint from her unmistakable displeasure at seeing him again? From their recent conversation? At least enough to assume she was not as overjoyed with his presence as they all were.
Even an inkling that she might be irked to find him as her dinner partner.
“Evie, whatever it is you think you might accomplish with this, you’re wrong.”
Vin spoke from her other side. “What is he doing here?”
Fiona raised a brow to Eve. “It seems he is here because we like him.”
“Like him?” Vin scoffed, tossing back his drink in a single swallow. “He’s as irritating as a horse’s ass, is what he is. There’s not a serious bone in his body. He’s … What’s the word? Irksome.”
“Hubristic,” Fiona added with relish, pleased to have an ally who shared her dislike of the marquis.
Vin nodded, casting her a satisfied grin. It seemed he felt the same way. “Cocky.”
“Pribbling.”
“Vainglorious.”
“Nonsense,” Eve countered with a smile for Vin. “You’re only saying that because he was in love with Moira.”
It stung to hear it out loud. But then, the truth often did. Just as it had to hear him admit his love for another unknown woman so publically.
Moira’s laughter had them turning to find her nearby on Aylesbury’s arm. “In love with Harry? Heavens no!”
“Not at all,” the marquis concurred smoothly, his somber gaze falling on Fiona though she refused to meet his eye. “We were too good of friends. Like an old married couple. Like a comfortable slipper.”
“Well, I like that!” Moira laughed, hugging his arm affectionately. “I’m a slipper now, am I?”
“Yes.” A shadow of a smile passed over Aylesbury’s lips. “All worn in.”
“I rather think she’s like a new pair of shoes,�
� Vin said dryly. “Always pinching. Do you mind, Aylesbury?” he added over the laughter. “I’ll take my wife’s arm and put it back where it belongs.”
Moira abandoned the marquis in favor of her husband quickly enough and Vin led her away, whispering something in his wife’s ear that prompted what could only be labeled as a provocative laugh. Fiona watched them go, but Eve caught her eye, looking pointedly at Aylesbury before she, too, slipped away leaving Fiona standing alone with the marquis in the middle of the room.
Aylesbury rocked back on his heels but didn’t speak. Fiona didn’t know what he was waiting for but whatever it was, he wasn’t going to get it from her. Instead she stared up at a landscape in oil hanging above the fireplace until the brushstrokes began to blur. He studied her just as intently.
Finally he spoke, the deep, melodic baritone that had once rang musically in her ears, grating against her tightly strung nerves. “I wanted to apologize for abandoning you so rudely in the park the yesterday. Business called me away.”
“Business?” Fiona repeated, lifting a mocking brow. “Is that what you call it?”
Aylesbury winced at her suggestive tone. He had never considered what his departure might have looked like from her point of view. “Of sorts. I’d like to explain.”
Her lips compressed into a flat – regrettably familiar – line. “You needn’t explain anything to me, Harry Brudenall,” she said with brisk indifference. “I am not your keeper nor does it matter to me what your business is.”
“That’s too bad. I was hoping you had missed my company.”
“You hoped wrong. I do quite well without it, thank you.”
“Do you?”
Unable to bear his company and proximity even a moment longer, Fiona turned on her heel and walked away from him yet again. Taking a glass of wine from a footman as she passed, she made her way to the corner of the room where Richard and Abby were chatting with Ilona and Coline.
With a tight smile, she worked her way to Ilona’s side, fuming internally as the conversation wended its way around her. But Fiona heard not a word of it. Aylesbury’s presence had her so tied in livid knots that all she could hear was the blood pounding in her ears while tension roiled in her gut.
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t be here with him. Sharing the same city was bad enough, but to occupy the same room? To sit next to him at dinner? The anger she harbored for him might have worked from a distance but it was useless with Aylesbury standing right next to her. There was too much behind them. Too much pain still in her heart when she was near him. And she hadn’t even met his eye yet and already he had her dwelling in the past.
She didn’t need to look back, only wanted to move forward. With Ramsay. Or if Francis denied her that, with someone else. Good God, anyone else at this point.
Not even if Aylesbury came to her on his knees …
Not that there was even a chance of that happening.
“You could freeze hell with that look,” Richard said quietly. “Are you not glad to see Aylesbury again, Blossom? I can clearly remember you once saying that he was everything a woman could want in a man.”
Yes, she had said that once upon a time. Aylesbury did have everything a normal woman would want. He was titled, wealthy, charming, and witty. And that smile! Oh, he hadn’t shown it yet tonight but he soon would. The barely contained humor, the endless cheer. All of it practiced and calculated to melt a woman’s heart.
“He is still a bachelor, I hear,” her brother added.
Was he? Then who was she? No! I don’t care!
Fiona gnashed her teeth. “Obviously a far better choice than Lord Ramsay, right?” she asked with bitter sarcasm. “Is that why he’s here?”
Good Lord, if her family somehow thought to neatly substitute Aylesbury for Ramsay at her side, Fiona thought she just might have to elope after all.
“No, but it is an intriguing idea, isn’t it? We all like him and he is a handsome one, isn’t he?” Abby teased, squeezing her husband’s arm.
“Enough of that from you,” Richard growled under his breath, hugging his wife to his side. Aylesbury had a long history of irritating the men in her family. If only he might affect the women just the same, thus keeping him from the MacKintosh home and hence, her presence.
“Quite honestly, I have to agree with Abby,” Coline said with a broad smile while Ilona nodded her concurrence as well.
“He is. Isn’t he, Fiona?” Ilona asked pointedly, eyeing her thoughtfully.
“Isn’t he what?” she countered evasively.
“Handsome?”
Fiona looked at Aylesbury who was now conversing with Eve and Francis near the fireplace. She wasn’t about to admit that there was anything attractive about him, not anymore. No, there was nothing about him that was handsome to her any longer. Nothing about those strong features that might be called beautiful or even godlike. Nothing about the clarity of his bright blue eyes that invited a woman to look into his soul.
Nothing about his wavy black hair that made her fingers itch to run through it. Nothing about the curve of his lips when a smile lifted the corner of his mouth that could inexplicitly call an answering smile to hers. Nothing about his height and muscular physique that could conceivably drive a woman to distraction with fantasies of what might lie beneath his finely tailored dinner jacket.
Her fingers tightened around her glass, her knuckles turning white until Ilona discreetly took it from her and set it aside.
No, there was absolutely nothing about Harry Brudenall that could possibly make her blood rush like a flame through her veins. Or make her feel as if she were in a constant flush. Or make her heart race like the wind over the Highlands.
Nothing! Damn him.
“Is he?” Fiona’s voice dripped with deliberate disdain. “Showy, perhaps. Like a peacock.”
Richard laughed at that, tossing back his head but Abby only frowned. “That is rather unkind, Blossom. You rather fancied Aylesbury at one time.”
As if he could feel her eyes on him, Aylesbury lifted his eyes to hers, holding them before lifting his glass in a silent salute. Fiona’s eyes narrowed, now welcoming the return of her anger.
“No, Abby,” she said tightly. “Not any longer. Will you excuse me? I have a frightful headache, I’m afraid.”
Chapter Twelve
From the diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh – Feb 1893
The wedding was today. Vin and Moira are now safely wed. I watched Harry all the way through the ceremony – I mean, of course I watched Vin as well! I am so happy for my brother – but while he didn’t seem heartbroken to have lost Moira, there was still something rather melancholy about his expression.
Perhaps I should see what I can do to cheer him up?
Two years, Aylesbury thought as he watched Fiona once again do her best to avoid and ignore him. Two years since they had last met, last argued and still she was angry with him for the way they had parted.
What an infuriatingly stubborn woman she was!
Not that he blamed her really. In many ways, he deserved the sting of her displeasure but in some ways he did not. She didn’t know his reasons for acting as he had because he had never bothered to explain them.
If Fiona kept avoiding him as she had been, Aylesbury might never get the chance.
And he did want one.
A chance for forgiveness and so much more.
More than he had even allowed himself to consider two years past. Two years back when he had forced himself – as a man of honor and a friend to all the men of the MacKintosh clan – to treat her as they did. A young sisterly lass and nothing more.
It had been the hardest thing he had ever done but since coming upon her again, Aylesbury had been unable to gainsay his less-than-brotherly thoughts for her. Nor did he try to repress the attraction he felt for her. Instead, he allowed himself to look at her in a way he had once denied himself.
As a beautiful, desirable woman.
Sure, it might still be w
rong – the MacKintosh brothers were still, one and all, his friends. He had no place lusting after their only sister, but he was done denying it. He’d had a thousand indecently carnal thoughts for her in the past. He had hated himself once for wanting her but now, when there was so little in his life to enjoy, he intended to relish it.
Aylesbury sipped his whiskey and watched her over the rim of his glass. She was gorgeous, but the anger he had roused in her, keeping her color high and her eyes snapping at him somehow made her even lovelier.
Lovelier even than Abby whose pale beauty was almost ethereal. Lovelier even than Eve and her sister Kitty who were both carved in cool blonde perfection. And still more than the Madonna-like splendor of sisters Ilona and Coline. Even Moira, exquisite Titian beauty that she was, couldn’t hold a candle to the stunning woman Fiona had become, because not only was she a match to them all in looks, she was life.
Vibrant, irrepressible life. It emanated from her laughter and even her anger like a beacon guiding him like a lost ship to the shore.
Yes, seeing her as she was tonight, it was difficult not to drift to her side. Though she wasn’t dressed as opulently as she had been at the Onslow ball, her gown’s simple bodice seemed to hang precariously at her shoulders leaving her arms bear before plunging low in the front, displaying the delicate curve of her collarbone and the ample swell of her cleavage without a single piece of jewelry to hinder his view. The clean lines accented her narrow waist and hugged her hips before falling in straight lines to the floor.
And no sequins or feathers for Fiona. No, the only embellishment on the silk gown was but a slightly darker hue of a cut velvet design against the silk taffeta gown. But the gown was red, a lush crimson that brought to mind life, passion, and yes, rage.
The bold color stood as stark contrast to her pale skin but also highlighted the creamy expanse of her bosom, the slender length of her arms before her gloves covered them. It brought a thread of auburn to her dark hair.
A Question for Harry Page 9
