“Yes, you may. Now will you agree to come with me?”
“I will, but just for a visit.”
“Fiona, there’s more you need to know.” Hester spoke with admirable calm considering her heart was breaking for the child, for herself, and for the Earl of Balfour as well.
“What else? Unicorns aren’t real, and I don’t want a lion for a pet because he might eat my rabbit and scare my pony.”
“He would scare me as well, and likely even your uncle Tye.” Hester sat on the sofa and patted the place beside her. Fiona abandoned her uncle and joined Hester on the sofa.
“Your uncle is inviting you for a visit, and Uncle Ian thinks it would be nice of you to go. I am worried, though.”
“I’ll write to you, Aunt Hester, and I’m only going for a visit. You’ll miss me, and then I’ll come back, and you can pummel me at the matching game again. Maybe I’ll pummel my grandpapa while I’m visiting.”
“I’m anxious,” Hester said, ignoring her own urge to pummel Lord Quinworth and his handsome, silver-tongued, mendacious son. “Your grandpapa might have such a grand time when you go visit him that he won’t let you come back to us when you want to.”
Fiona’s expression shifted to a thoughtful frown. “Uncle Tye will talk to him, and Mama will come get me.” Her mouth curved into a smile. “Or I can ride my pony all the way home, like Uncle rode Flying Rowan out from Aberdeen.”
“Fiona has the right of it.” Spathfoy came down on the child’s other side. “If she’s not thriving in Northumbria, I will certainly have a very pointed discussion with my father, perhaps several pointed discussions.” He was silent a moment. “Perhaps many such discussions, and I’m sure Balfour will abet me in this regard.”
He looked directly at Hester when he spoke, which cast her into some confusion. He was going to deliver the child to Quinworth, then lobby for Fiona’s return to Scotland? Then why take her south in the first place?
Ian rose from his seat at the desk. “Well, that’s settled, then. Fiona, I’ll be at the train station to see you off tomorrow, and so will your aunt Augusta. I’ll have a letter for you to deliver to your uncle Con, and I want you to pass it directly into his hand. Can you do that for me?”
She bounced off the sofa. “I can do that, Uncle Ian, but I must go tell Hannibal I’m going on a journey, and the hens will want to know.”
“Come along then.” He extended a hand toward the child. “You’ll be up half the night packing unless I miss my guess. I don’t suppose you’d like to take your wee cousin with you when you leave?”
Fiona fell in with Ian’s teasing and left the room in great good spirits.
Hester let the ensuing silence stretch until she couldn’t bear it any longer. “Did you mean it?”
Spathfoy was on his feet, staring out the window, his back to Hester where she sat on the sofa. “That I will take my father to task if Fiona’s unhappy? Yes, I meant that, though I will also make every effort to see that Fiona thrives at Quinworth.”
“I do not understand why you must do this.” She got up to pace, resenting the need for further conversation with him. “You are arrogant, Spathfoy, and you’ve been deceptive, but I don’t read you as cruel or stupid. Why would you do this to a helpless child?”
“I’m arrogant? Fiona says I’m mean.”
“You are not mean.”
He turned to regard her. “I had hoped you would see this as an opportunity for Fiona, Hester, an opportunity she might easily adjust to if you were in the same household.”
“Do not cozen me, Spathfoy. My guess is you considered having Fiona under your father’s roof an inducement to sweeten the offer of marriage you made me. It matters not. I’m not marrying you, and Fiona is being taken away from her family.”
“I am her family too, Hester. More so in some regards than you are.”
“I love her.”
She’d said as much only a handful of days ago, but he was listening to her now. Hester perceived this in the way he regarded her, steadily and maybe unhappily.
“Do you suppose I do not love her, Hester? Is that why I and my relations are such a poor choice for the child? Can a child be loved and cared for properly only in Scotland?”
She didn’t know how to answer that. He looked troubled and tired standing by the window, and very much alone.
“I wasn’t going to go south with you, you know.”
“Ah. You were toying with me, then? Striking a blow for beleaguered women everywhere?”
She didn’t quite believe the mockery in his tone. “I was not. I wasn’t going to refuse you, either. I was going to ask for some time to consider our situation when my head wasn’t so muddled.”
He nodded, a cautious inclination of his head that gave nothing away.
“I don’t trust my judgment, Spathfoy. I laughed with you, you see, and this was… oh, why am I bothering to explain when I am so confused in my own thinking?”
“Go on, by all means. If you’re rejecting a man’s offer—the first such offer I’ve made, by the way—you can at least tell him why.”
“That is not fair, Tiberius.” He waited until now to tell her he’d never proposed to anyone else? And damn him to Hades, for she believed him. He’d lied about the purpose of his visit, but she believed him about this.
And about almost everything else, too.
He shifted away from the window and took the place beside her. “I tried to warn you, if you’ll recall.”
“You said not to trust you, is that what you mean?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face and nodded. “Yes, but then I got muddled too, you see. When I set out for Aberdeenshire, I thought I’d be plucking an orphaned child from very humble circumstances and gaining every advantage for her. I’d appease my father, set some other matters to rights, and be back in England within a week.”
“Are you admitting you’re perpetrating a wrong?” It would put Hester in quite a quandary if he were.
“I’m admitting I gave my word on a matter without properly researching it, and that as a consequence of my negligence, there are now results contrary to what I intended.”
He was back to making grand, obfuscatory speeches. “That is not an apology.” Which ought to relieve her, but did not.
“It is an explanation, also very likely a waste of time in present company.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the cushions, the image of a weary, defeated man. “I am sorry, Hester, for misrepresenting myself in the guise of a guest, and for not clearing up my purpose for being here before I became irrevocably intimate with you.”
“What do you expect me to say to that, Spathfoy? That I’m sorry as well?”
“I am sorry I’ve given you cause to doubt your judgment again.” He spoke very softly. “I would do anything to redress that wrong, but, Hester, has it occurred to you we might already have conceived a child?”
* * *
The list of reasons why Tye could properly label himself an imbecile—and worse—was endless.
He’d egregiously misjudged Hester’s reaction to having Fiona placed in her grandfather’s care.
In the alternative, he’d miscalculated Hester’s reaction to not learning of this eventuality sooner and from Tye himself.
He’d also completely misunderstood Hester’s hesitance in giving him an answer to his proposal. She hadn’t been being coy or manipulative, she’d been… muddled, doubting herself.
He’d underestimated Balfour’s commitment to the child, and shuddered to think what manner of legal and social havoc was going to result when Clan MacGregor took up the cause of Fiona’s repatriation.
He’d badly, badly bungled matters when he’d allowed himself the ultimate intimacy with Hester last night, and for that, mere apologies would not do.
“If you are carrying my child, I hope you will reconsider my proposal, Hester.”
“Our child.” She shot to her feet and marched off on a circuit of the room. “How likely is it that
I’m with child, Spathfoy? I know very little of these things.”
“It’s not impossible, not by any means. My mother would have me believe I was conceived on her wedding night.” Despite the wreckage all around him and the travail lying ahead, Tye found this recollection cheering.
“Merciful Saints. I thought there were things a man did to prevent conception. Jasper assured me I couldn’t get pregnant.”
Tye did not dignify that with a reply.
“He was lying, wasn’t he? And those things to prevent conception, we didn’t do them last night, did we?”
He was not going to give her the Latin now. “I did not do them. I presumed unforgivably on my marital expectations with you.”
“Are you trying to make me hate you, Spathfoy? Or is that grave tone to make me think you’re sorry?”
She was growing increasingly agitated, for which he had only himself to blame. “I do not want you to hate me, Hester. If you’re carrying our child, I want you to marry me. I dare not insist that you do, but I can ask if marriage to me would be so terribly objectionable.”
She stopped her pacing and whirled to face him, hands on her hips. “You’ve betrayed my trust, Spathfoy. I cannot marry you.”
“Your judgment is not trustworthy when you’re tempted to accept my suit, but it’s faultless now that you’re rejecting me? Do you trust that judgment enough to visit bastardy on a child who might otherwise be heir to a marquessate?”
She was once again his personal tempest, ire and indignation radiating from her posture, from her eyes, and her words. “I almost can hate you when you’re like this, Tiberius, all cold reason and precise diction. Do not threaten me with ruin. Thanks to my previous bad judgments, I’m already ruined. I did not permit you into my bed, I welcomed you there. I’ll bear the consequences of that folly on my own, thank you very much.”
She sounded exactly like his own mother when she was in high dudgeon over some folly of his lordship’s. In such a mood, a man could say nothing right, could not appeal to reason or sentiment.
Tye was halfway to the door when he realized he’d just word for word applied the very defenses he’d heard come out of his own father’s mouth on so many tiresome, sad occasions. He stopped, turned around, and kept his tone civil with effort. “What are your terms, Hester Daniels?”
“I beg your pardon?”
He advanced on her, pleased to see she stood her ground—it wasn’t as if he’d ever intend her bodily harm, for God’s sake. “What are your terms? On what terms will you marry me if you’re carrying our child?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
At least she wasn’t shouting, and when he leaned over her like this, Tye could catch a whiff of her lemony fragrance and see the gold flecks in her uncertain eyes.
“I mean,” he said softly, “we are two intelligent people who will want what is best for our child. We can argue over whom to blame for the child’s conception—though I cannot view the matter as entirely unfortunate—but we must not allow an innocent child to suffer for our decisions. On what terms would you marry me?”
She blinked, some of the fight going out of her. “I will not live in England, not while your father is alive and making mischief like this.”
“Done. I have an estate outside Edinburgh, and my mother has just finished refurbishing it. What else?”
He’d surprised her, but the renewed fire in her eyes said she was rallying. “This child will be born on Scottish soil, Tiberius, promise me that.”
“I promise you that to the extent it can be brought about by mortal man. What else?”
She eyed him up and down. “If your idiot father is determined Fiona cannot live with her mother, than she’ll live with us.”
“I’m not sure I can arrange that. Quinworth seems to be legally in the right of the matter.”
“You can arrange it, Tiberius.” She folded her arms, looking very certain of her point. “Something is driving your father’s decision to retrieve Fiona. He’s ignored her existence for her entire life, and now he must have her posthaste. Figure out what his motivations are, and you will be able to wrest her from him.”
Her reasoning was sound, and it spoke to the puzzlement Tye had felt regarding his father’s behavior since the first mention of this Scottish venture.
“I will not make you a promise I do not know I can keep, Hester.”
“Then we do not have an agreement. You had best hope we don’t have a child, either.” She flounced out, every inch a woman intent on having the last word.
He let her have it, silently saluting the library door when she’d gently closed it in her wake.
They had managed to convert an argument into a bargaining session. He decided to be encouraged by that. He was also encouraged that she’d used his given name occasionally, even to express her ire toward him. Then too, she’d given him a great deal to think about regarding his father’s choices in this whole, misguided matter—he was encouraged by this as well.
Though she might not be pregnant.
And he might not be able to meet her terms.
And he was going to have to find his niece two ponies and a rabbit.
And he was leaving in the morning.
Tye went to the sideboard and poured himself a generous portion of whisky, downed it in one swallow, then poured another.
Nine
Fiona found going into Ballater with the knowledge she wasn’t going to come back for quite a while exciting and a little frightening. She sat in the big coach with Aunt Hester on one side and Aunt Ree on the other, the conversation the kind of cheerful talk adults thought up to distract nervous children.
To keep children from missing their mamas and worrying that their mamas might not come fetch them home from Northumbria after all.
“I want to ride with Uncle Tye.”
Over her head, Fee could feel the aunts exchanging a look that spoke silent, grown-up volumes.
“There’s no harm in that,” Aunt Ree said after a small silence. “You’ll be sitting in the train for most of the day, and your uncle ought to understand you need fresh air as much as he does.”
Aunt Hester didn’t say anything. She had not said much of anything all morning, and this too gave Fee an uneasy feeling. Aunt Hester never made things up, never teased and flirted and charmed like Uncle Ian, Aunt Augusta, and even the servants did.
Aunt Hester rapped on the roof three times, and the coach lumbered to a halt. Halfway across the field to the right, Uncle Tye brought Flying Rowan down to the trot and turned for the coach.
“Don’t pet the horse, Fiona,” Aunt Hester said. “You’ll want to keep your hands clean for when you picnic on the train with your uncle.”
Aunt’s voice was tight, like she was keeping more words back than she was parting with.
When Uncle rode up to the window, Aunt Ree explained the delay, and Fee was enormously pleased to find herself shortly up on Rowan, cantering toward the train station. Uncle was quiet today, too, which made Fee think maybe he was homesick or missing his family.
Rowan, though, was in wonderful form, sailing over three stone walls and a burn in fine style. When Uncle brought the horse down to the walk, Fee figured it was as good a time to ask questions as any.
“Do we have to take the train?”
“If we want to arrive in Northumbria before week’s end, yes, we do. Lest you think the prospect of train travel cheers me, Rowan and I are as enamored of trains as you are.”
E-nam-ored. Fee said the word to herself silently three times, and added it to her list of Words Uncle Says. Often she could tell what the word meant from how Uncle used it, and that saved her having to ask.
When they got to Ballater, Uncle got off the horse and did not let Fee get down immediately. Instead, he found a boy to walk Rowan, and when Fee thought she was going to be scooped off the horse, she was instead directed to climb onto her uncle’s back.
“I won’t get lost, Uncle. You can put me down.”
/> “I need to check for wires at the telegraph office, and you would so get lost. I’d spend half my morning trying to locate you, the other half rearranging our plans when we missed our train, only to find Rowan was already in Aberdeen along with all your trunks.”
He was striding along as he spoke, sounding quite bothered. Fee resigned herself to being Seen And Not Heard, which was something Uncle Con swore was written in the Bible, though nobody had shown Fee where it said that.
When they got to the telegraph office, Uncle collected his wires and stood outside on the boardwalk, reading them almost as if he’d forgotten his own niece was clinging to his back.
“I’m going to swear, Fiona. You will neither emulate me nor tattle on me.” He kept his voice down.
Emulate meant copy. “I like hearing you swear. You’re good at it. Have we missed our train?”
“We have not, but the damned nursemaid I hired to meet us in Aberdeen has developed some mysterious blasted illness, and we will thus be cast upon each other’s exclusive company for the entire perishing journey.”
From the sound of his voice, that was probably a bad thing—to him.
“Can’t Aunt Hester come with us?”
Because Fee was on his back, she felt him sigh, felt the way his chest heaved and his shoulders dropped. It would have been fun, except Uncle was unhappy. He maneuvered her to her feet, took her hand, and led her to a bench with a marvelous view of the train station’s front porches and coach yard.
“I asked your aunt to come with us, and she declined.”
“Is she mad at you?”
“How ever did you gain that impression?”
“She sat next to me at breakfast instead of you, she would not look at you, and she barely ate anything. She was like this when she first came up from London too.”
Uncle looked pained, which left Fee wanting to do something to help. “I can ask her to come with us.”
“Fiona…” He cast a glance at her, looking, for the first time in Fee’s experience, uncertain and a little weary. Her mama had looked like that a lot before she married Papa. “It’s complicated.”
Once Upon a Tartan mt-2 Page 25
