“Perhaps,” Fiona told him softly. “I’m willing to wait and see what happens.”
“I hope that’s true.”
Chapter 25
A thousand times a fool and now a thousand more. Will the humiliations never end?
If there is anything quite as terrible as finding out that you were wrong about something, it is finding out that everyone other than you knew of it.
~From the diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh—May 1895
“Francis?” Fiona tapped cautiously on the half-opened door to the private parlor her brother shared with Eve. It never served to walk into a room unannounced in this family. One never knew what degree of intimate congress they might be interrupting—open door or not.
“Come in, Blossom,” Glenrothes called and Fiona peeked tentatively around the corner before entering. While it wasn’t a romantic setting she was intruding upon, it was still an intimate one. Her brother in his shirtsleeves and open collar sitting on the floor, building block towers with Preston and Lela while Eve sat nearby in her dressing gown nursing Alice.
It wouldn’t be the first nor the last such scene Fiona would ever see, but as she had told Eve and Ilona, it was getting harder and harder to witness something she didn’t have.
And might never have if what Aylesbury had said about Ramsay was true.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Francis, but might I have a word?” Fiona missed the look the adults exchanged as she bent to hug Preston as he ran over. Lela tried to stand once, then again before crawling over as well. Fiona scooped the toddler into her arms. “I wanted to talk to you about Lord Ramsay.”
“Would you like me to leave?” Eve asked but Fiona shook her head.
“That’s not necessary. I suspect what I have to say will come as no great surprise to either of you, but first,” she frowned at Glenrothes. “We had a bargain, you and I. I give you the Season here and in turn, I was to be free to wed where I please. But that wasn’t it at all, was it? I was free to wed but only with your approval. I would like to know, Francis, what was your plan for the end of the Season if I didn’t meet another gentleman?”
“Fiona…”
“No, Evie! We had a bargain and if I am to hold up my end, Francis had bloody well be prepared to hold up his! I did not come here…I did not endure what I have these past weeks only to have my compensation for it all. What would you have done if the end of the Season came about and I still preferred Ramsay?”
“Hauled you back home kicking and screaming I suspect,” he answered dryly.
“I’m not a child to be coddled, Francis,” Fiona told him. “You’ve all been quite vocal against Lord Ramsay without—I believed—just cause. Why didn’t you simply tell me the truth, Francis? Why did you feel so compelled to enact this farce? Wasn’t there anyone who thought I was adult enough to handle it?”
“What truth is that?”
Fiona threw up her hands. “Even now? Aylesbury tells me that Lord Ramsay is nothing but a fortune hunter. That his uncle is looking to bypass him as his heir by remarrying. Is that true? Did you know?”
Glenrothes sighed and pushed himself to his feet, holding out a hand to her before dropping it to his side. “In truth, I did not trust your temper, Blossom. I feared in a spurt of anger you might run off with him and be wed before common sense prevailed.”
“Instead I was nearly to the point of eloping with him just to assuage my anger with all of you, Francis,” Fiona said, shaking her head. “You put me in a position I didn’t want to be in, something I would have avoided at almost any cost. Only my pride forced me to come along. All of this could have been avoided. All of it.”
“We didn’t want to see you hurt, Fiona,” Eve said gently.
“Hurt?” Fiona turned to her sister-in-law. “What hurts me is that my entire family would go behind my back to pull this ruse without ever thinking to trust me to do the right thing. You knew I didn’t love him.”
“Don’t blame, Eve, Blossom,” Glenrothes said, protecting his wife as usual. “Perhaps it wouldn’t have broken your heart but it would have been a blow to your pride, which we all know is as brutal as a January blizzard. It’s true we didn’t want to see you hurt in any way. None of us did. Not by one fortune hunter or the next who might follow him. I thought if I could force you into a situation where you would meet some men who were more eligible, your infatuation with Ramsay might fade away before it was fully bloomed.”
“I am not hurt by Ramsay’s intentions but I am infuriated by yours, Francis,” she said sadly. All she had seen in Ramsay was the pleasant heir to an earldom. A man she liked well enough and seemed to share enough common interests with. A man who played her very well and promised her the escape she needed. “Is that why you hit him when he went to see you at your club?”
“Aye, especially after the bastard said he’d marry you with or without my permission.”
That would explain Ramsay’s persistent pleas to elope. “Why would he do that?” Fiona asked. “My dowry was at your discretion. He needed your approval to have my fortune even if it came after the fact. I assume you made it very clear that he wouldn’t have it?”
“I did, but somehow he knew about the rest of it,” Glenrothes said, running a hand through his hair. “I still don’t understand it.”
“The rest of it,” Fiona asked in confusion. “What rest of it?”
“You are Granny’s heir, Blossom. Her sole beneficiary, and you will have the fortune Father set aside for you as well. It will all be yours to do with as you will when you turn twenty-one.”
“Twenty-one!”
“Father did not believe his daughter should have to wait any longer than his sons for what would someday be hers,” he added. “Somehow, Ramsay knew that. If he got you to the altar, it would all be his.”
It took a moment for Fiona to absorb it all. How utterly humiliating to be taken in so easily by a man with such ignoble motivations! Talk about a blow to her pride. “Yes, I can see that very clearly now. Thank you. I suppose I must be thankful then that I learned the truth before yielding to his requests.”
“Yes, thank God,” Eve agreed. “I’m sorry, Fiona. I did want you to know. Vin, too.”
“Out-numbered, were you?” she jested. “I know well how that feels. Well, that is that, I suppose, unless there is anyone else’s intentions you’d like to revile now before I take a liking to them?”
“Are you still open to finding another match here this Season then?” Eve asked, smiling with pleasure. “With the fortune that will soon be yours, you do not have to marry.”
Even if he weren’t the best solution to her problem, Ramsay had been the easiest and most expeditious. She doubted another would come along that quickly. “If I did not wed straight away perhaps I could stay here in London with Granny.”
Fiona cringed even as she said it. Not only the contrary sentiment to her choice already made but the alternative as well. Stay in London indeed! Not only would she place herself within constant reach of the sharp end of her grandmother’s fan but she also would throw herself into constant contact with Harry. There was no saying which would be more painful.
Thinking back over the previous days, the confessions that tore at her heart and the passion that had overtaken her good sense, she knew the answer. She didn’t fully trust him yet. She could not bear seeing him again and again, knowing she might have him.
Fearing she never truly would.
The thought was beyond bearing.
Yet so tempting.
It would be so easy to throw her reservations to the wind. To have the only man she had ever really wanted.
“Or travel,” she rushed to offer an alternative. “Yes, the Continent perhaps. A Grand Tour of my own like the lads all enjoyed. Though I know ladies aren’t traditionally allowed them, but Francis, surely you would not object? Connor could accompany me. Perhaps I might meet a foreign prince.”
Glenrothes laughed. “A prince in Europe is far preferable to a snake in Scotla
nd.”
With a sigh, Fiona negated the options herself. “No, it wouldn’t do. I still want a family of my own so I suppose I really have no choice unless you would like to have me follow in Miss Pearson’s spinsterish footsteps.”
Glenrothes grunted at that. “I would not. I would rather you wait for a man you can love, as I said before.”
“It’s not that easy, you know? Not everyone finds what you lads have in a marriage. Perhaps it is simply not out there for everyone.” But her brothers couldn’t understand that. Each of them had found real, lasting love in the past couple of years. Love that Fiona had thought to emulate but instead had been able to do little more than envy. “I’ve accepted that and am content to move on without it.”
Glenrothes caught her eye and held it, and Fiona could see the caring and sympathy in his muddy green gaze. He loved her; she knew that. All her brothers did but it was that sympathy she saw in all of them that was becoming too much to bear.
Eve was the one to speak up. “You’ve used that word before, Fiona. Content. Do you really want to lie in the same bed each night with someone you are merely content with?”
Picturing herself in such a situation with Ramsay sent an unidentifiable shudder through Fiona. If she were honest with herself, she knew she hadn’t thought so far ahead as to what her day-to-day life might be like as Ramsay’s wife.
Picturing herself with Aylesbury was an entirely different matter.
To Eve, she said only, “Most married couples do not share a chamber every night.”
“The ones in this family do. We do because we want to, because we want to feel that bond, that intimacy. It’s like saying most mothers only see their children for an hour each day. Is that the kind of life you want for yourself?”
“No, and I promise I will take more time to consider the ramifications of my choice in the future. And speaking of my choices,” Fiona considered her options. “How about Harrowby? He’s a nice enough fellow. Can I count on him to look at me without being taken by visions of a fat bank ledger?”
“Very possibly,” Glenrothes nodded. “But what of…”
“Perhaps Lord Temple?” Fiona interrupted. “I believe he might see me as something more than an heiress of untold wealth. Indeed, given his long standing with our family. If he knew and cared enough for my fortune, he would have been pressing his suit long ago.”
“Lord Temple is a fine man,” Glenrothes agreed. “But Lord A–”
“What of that fellow…oh, what was his name, Eve? Finley? Friendly? Or some such?”
“You do not even want to take consideration of Aylesbury, Blossom?” Francis cut in firmly, brooking no other interruptions. “His indefatigability in the face your persistent disrespect is impressive.”
Fiona rolled her eyes. “I’m sure he’d find that statement any more flattering than I do.”
Glenrothes chuckled. “Face it, Blossom, you’ve met your match in Aylesbury. He will never back down no matter how hard you push. He’ll never give up. Never surrender.”
“And I’m supposed to like that?”
“Don’t you?”
Chapter 26
It was astonishing really. I can’t say what I enjoyed more, that moving picture or the look on Fiona’s face as she watched.
~From the journal of the Marquis of Aylesbury—May 1895
Home of the Marquis of Aylesbury
44 Belgrave Square
Belgravia, London, England
Several days later
Incredible! She was utterly, foolishly, incredible.
Aylesbury blinked hoping the vision in a violet day dress standing—alone—in the middle of his marbled foyer was nothing more than a mirage. As much pleasure as the sight brought him, he wished that he was wrong. Unfortunate when he opened his eyes, she was still there. Swinging an extravagant parasol by her side as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
Pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers, Aylesbury said a prayer for patience. “Please tell me you did not come here alone.”
“That’s about as fine a greeting as being left standing in the hall like a beggar,” Fiona retorted as she turned to face him, her militant expression perfectly complimented by the severe tailoring of her deep plum silk suit with black braiding marching in rows down the front of her waist length jacket and uniformly banding three times near the hem of her skirt and at her cuffs. She was dressed to do battle. “Besides, I never took you as a stickler for propriety. If you are, I have to wonder at all the times we’ve been alone together.”
The front door was standing open behind her, giving Aylesbury a clear view of the street beyond as he took the remainder of the stairs. The very empty street. “Did you walk? Fiona, have you gone quite mad? I cannot believe that your brothers allowed it.”
“They are brothers, not wardens, my lord. They do not own me.”
The truth of it hit him. “They don’t know, do they? My God, Fiona, have you even bothered to tell them that there is a criminal out there stalking you?”
Fiona scoffed. “It’s been nearly a week, my lord. Besides, he’d be a fool to try again.”
“Who says he’s not?”
“Fool or not, I refuse to live my life in fear.”
“Bugger it, you are as obstinate as the day is long,” he ground out. “And perhaps twice as foolish as your assailant might be. It doesn’t take a Cambridge education to know it. You could have been snatched right off the street!”
“It’s none of your concern.”
“It’s very much my concern.”
Her brother’s words whispered through her mind once more. Yes, he was as stubborn as she. A perfect match for her…if she was courageous enough to accept him.
Unfortunately, it had taken all her daring even to walk out the door on her own. Though she hadn’t said a word about it to anyone, the incident with the fortuneteller the previous week had shaken Fiona badly. She’d spent an entire week skulking in the shadows of one brother after another. Begging them to accompany her. Hanging on their arms at balls and garden parties. Or riding at her side as they had a few days before.
Oh, she had put on a confident face, especially when she had seen Aylesbury here and there, but it wasn’t the same and Fiona was tired of it all. Coming out today as she was, wasn’t so much a defiance of her would-be kidnapper’s attempts as a defiance of her own faintheartedness. Thumbing her nose at it, as it were. “I can’t live my life peeking from behind curtains, afraid to go outside because of what might be, Harry. I can’t be so cowed to become a virtual prisoner in my own home just because a male wasn’t handy. I needed to get out. I need to be out.”
Aylesbury’s anger lessened a tad as Fiona had her rant. He understood, he truly did. Fiona was a creature of the outdoors. She lived and breathed physical activity, required it daily whether it be walking, riding, cycling, or golfing. Penning her up indoors was comparable to caging a tiger.
Fiona sighed. “I couldn’t let fear of what might be rule me, Harry. I was seeing black carriages lurking at every corner these past few days and after that…”
“After what?” Aylesbury asked with a frown when Fiona cut off, biting her lip. “What? Was there something else? Something you haven’t told me?”
Fiona shook her head. “Pax, Harry, I came straight to Belgrave Square seeking your escort,” she steered away from his questions. “The pair of streets in between were but a test of my nerve.”
Yes, Aylesbury thought. She had plenty of that but an abundance of pluck wouldn’t provide the arsenal of defense Fiona would need if she were attacked again. “An escort where?”
“To the Empire Theatre,” she told him. “Mr. Brit Acres is showing his first cinematograph of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race at the Empire this afternoon.”
“Really?” he asked instead, intrigued despite himself. “How brilliant. Still, you should have sent a message, I would have come to take you up.”
“I just found out about it. One of the household s
taff had a handbill,” she explained. “I wanted to see it and no one was about but I thought you might enjoy it as well. Will you join me? Or shall I go alone?”
Every time he thought he couldn’t be more confounded by her, she continued to surprise him. Go alone? Though located in Leicester Square east of Piccadilly and near the eminently respectable National Gallery, members of all classes seeking amusement frequented the popular theater district. It was not the best of neighborhoods for an unaccompanied woman and Fiona likely knew that.
“And if I don’t care to join you?”
“I thought I might go up to the Marble Arch to catch the omnibus.”
“The Marb–” The station was almost a mile away, and she could easily be taken anywhere along the line. Gone before she had a chance to pass a whimper. The horror he felt at the thought was sickening. He wouldn’t, couldn’t let her go alone and likely she knew it. “I ought to hog tie you and send you back to Eaton Square.”
“But you won’t.”
Aylesbury ran a hand through his hair, counting slowly until his redoubled frustration eased a fraction. “No, I won’t.”
“Because you want to see it, too.”
Damn it all, he did.
Opening the door, he called for his carriage and left instructions for a message to be taken to Eaton Street letting Glenrothes know where she was and that he would have her home before supper.
“Don’t think this means anything,” he warned her as he handed her up into his carriage minutes later. “I still think this might be the most thoughtless thing you’ve ever done.”
* * *
“Incredible,” he whispered again in awe as the flickering image of the boats being rowed down the Thames moved across the white curtain hung across the front of the theater.
He had photographs framed around his home, of course. Older daguerreotypes of his parents and dozens more recent vignettes of his family, his sister, and even his childhood hound. However, never had Aylesbury imagined that they could be strung together to express such movement as this cinematograph. “Incredible.”
All You Could Ask For Page 138
