A Question for Harry (26 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

From the journal of the Marquis of Aylesbury – May 1895

I never before understood how one could be enraged enough to kill but think I have it now. Of course, I am now well-versed as well in being so aggravated by a woman that I would like nothing more than to …  I know not what, but the indecision will drive me as mad as she.

Hobbes was at the door when Fiona returned to Eaton Square with Aylesbury. The butler looked them up and down clearly bursting with questions, but even Hobbes wouldn’t break form long enough to ask about the state of their clothing, their rumpled hair or the bloody handkerchief Aylesbury held to his neck.

“Where is everyone, Hobbes?” Fiona asked quietly.

“The gong rang some fifteen minutes past, my lady. They should be dressing for dinner.”

“Where is your telephone located, Hobbes?” Aylesbury asked.

Hobbes didn’t even blink. “In my pantry, my lord. Shall I ring up someone for you?”

Aylesbury shook his head
. “I’ll do it myself.” He turned to Fiona, rubbing the pad of his thumb over her cheek. His blue eyes were grave. “I’m going to call the authorities. You need to speak to your brother. In all fairness, he needs to be told.”

Fiona nodded and watched him as he walked away
, his heels beating decisively against the marble floor.

“My lady…”

“What is it, Hobbes?”

There were a dozen questions in the old butler’s eyes when she looked back at him.

“You have a visitor in the library, my lady,” he said at last. “He insisted on waiting.”

Fiona glanced at the closed doors of the library off the foyer, wondering
whom Hobbes would have considered worthy of not only the private room, but admission itself. Harrowby? Temple. Regardless of whatever future she may or may not have with Aylesbury, Fiona knew that kindness demanded that she let them both down gently. “Who is it?”

“Lord Ramsay, my lady.”

Her jaw sagged in surprise and Fiona simply couldn’t help gawking at him. “Ramsay? You let him in?
Now
you let him in?”

Hobbes said nothing but stared steadily over her shoulder
. His expression was as impassive as ever but Fiona swore she could see his lips twitching. “Proving your point, Hobbes?”

“I don’t know what you mean, my lady,” he said without expression
. “You asked me to admit him next time he called. This is nothing more than that time.”

Fiona scoffed at that
. Oh yes, she knew what he was doing. He was trying to teach her a lesson about who knew what was best for her. Unfortunately this was the last thing she needed today.

With a grimace, Fiona glanced at the door again.
  Lord, she was so tired already.  The mere thought of confronting Ramsay was exhausting.

“Consider yourself sacked, Hobbes.”

“Of course, my lady.”

“Lord Ramsay,” she said as pleasantly as possible, leaving the library door opened wide behind her as she entered. “I wasn’t expecting you tonight
. What brings you here?”

“What?” he asked bitterly
, displaying none of the buoyant charm he normally put forth. “No kisses, darling?”

Fiona frowned as he closed the distance between them but refused to yield her ground
. “You seem upset, Lord Ramsay. Is there something amiss?”

“Yes there is
.” He stopped, looking down at her with frigid blue eyes that were nothing, Fiona decided, compared to the warmth of Aylesbury’s. “I’ve waited for you as you asked. Patiently.”

Fiona couldn’t help but raise a brow but Ramsay didn’t notice as he carried on.

“I thought you loved me.”

“You know I did not,” she pointed out immediately
, but he just ignored her.

“I thought you wanted to marry me as well.”

“I did.” Fiona took a deep breath and plunged in. “I’m sorry, Lord Ramsay. But I find I cannot marry where I do not love. I cannot marry you, with or without an elopement.”

“It’s the marquis, isn’t it?” he ground out
. “I saw you hanging all over him. I’ll wager you don’t call him my lord, do you? What do you call him, Fiona?”

Staring at him incredulously, Fiona ignored those questions
. “You saw me hanging all over him? When? Yesterday? Today? Were you following me again?”

“He stole you from me!”

“He did nothing of the sort,” she insisted fiercely. “My reasons for not marrying you have nothing to do with him and everything to do with you, Lord Ramsay. They have to do with rumors of your circumstances and questionable” – obviously justified – “temperament. I will not be wed for my money.”

“You whore
!”

Stars burst behind Fiona’s eyes as his palm met with her cheekbone
. Holding her hand against her wounded cheek, she gaped at him in astonishment. No one had ever struck her like that before. “Get out.”

“This is all your fault!” he spat out, spewing saliva like a mad dog.

“Get out!” she screamed and he lifted his hand again.

Involuntarily Fiona flinched away but the blow never fell
. Instead, Ramsay was thrown to the side by the force of Aylesbury’s body as the marquis tackled him to the floor. Drawing back his fist, Aylesbury hit him and again while Ramsay cowered away, covering his face with his arms.

“My lady
.” Fiona turned to Hobbes where he lingered in the doorway, looking more concerned than she had ever seen him. Biting her trembling lip, Fiona threw herself into his arms. Awkwardly he patted her shoulder. “There, there, my dear,” he said softly.

“Did you br
ing him?” she asked and felt Hobbes nod. “Thank you.”

“My apologies, my lady
. I did not anticipate such an … episode when I granted Lord Ramsay admission.”

“It’s not your fault, Hobbes
.”

“What
the hell is going on down here?” Glenrothes shouted as footsteps thundered down the staircase, harkening more than her eldest brother’s arrival. “Fiona!” He looked at her in surprise, his eyes narrowing dangerously as he noticed her ramshackle appearance and the red mark already blossoming on her check. Looking about the library, he took in the situation in a glance.

“
Eve, see Fiona to her room,” he said with a deadly calm that every one of them knew was more dangerous than his loudest bellow.

Hobbes disengaged himself from Fiona and snapped his fingers, sending curious servants scurrying.

Unmindful of the crowd gathering at the door, Aylesbury continued beating the now mewling Ramsay while Fiona watched in horror. What had happened? How had this happened? Ramsay was right about one thing. It was her fault for not being able to read her own heart. Cool hands caught her gently by the shoulders. “Come, Fiona,” Eve said quietly, trying to turn her away.

Fiona took a step but stopped
. “Harry. Harry, please,” she repeated when he didn’t respond. He looked up then, his blue eyes burning with fury. She held out a hand to him. “Please, Harry.”

Immediately, the anger faded and he was on his feet
. Fiona met him halfway, staring up at him as he stroked his knuckles gently over her swelling cheekbone. He pressed a kiss to her forehead whispering, “Are you all right? Did he hurt you any more?”

Fiona shook her head, taking his hand in hers and kissing the bruises forming on his knuckles
. Tugging gently, she led him from the room, pausing by her brother. “Don’t kill him, Francis,” she said, casting the moaning, fetal Ramsay a pitying look.

Glenrothes ground his teeth as she left the room
. Aylesbury stopped by Glenrothes as well. “Yes, don’t kill him, Glenrothes,” he said then leaned forward to murmur tightly, “But save some for me, will you?”

Glenrothes laughed humorously
. “There’s ten of us, Aylesbury. I doubt there will be much left when we’re finished.”

With a capitulating shrug, Aylesbury left them to it and followed Fiona away.

Chapter Thirty

From the journal of the Marquis of Aylesbury – May 1895

My life flashed before my eyes. The moments long in the past, an enjoyable journey. Others more recent, awash with regrets. Those as I live and breathe them, while pleasant, would have been mired in dissatisfaction were they to end where they now stand.

I feel I must make some greater strides to achieve my purpose before I haven’t another chance.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I am Eve. Thank you. I just need some rest.” After assuring her sister-in-law that she would ring if she needed anything, Fiona went to her dressing table and sat down with a sigh.

It had been all bravado, of course
. She wasn’t fine at all. It was nothing but a veil of humor and nonchalance to mask the real terror that might have overcome her if she had paused even for a moment that afternoon to think about how extreme their situation truly was. And Ramsay – all Eve knew of it – had very little to do with her dejection. Crumpky and his associates been determined to track them down today. To take her even if it meant hurting or possibly killing Harry in the process.

And Harry
! Trying to be light-hearted over the entire matter, Fiona knew, but there was nothing amusing about it. How reckless she had been! How unconcerned when they had both been in very real danger!

While it had been one thing to toy with her own safety, it had been quite another to realize that Harry might have been harmed because of her willfulness
. What would she do if he had been hurt?

What would she do if she lost him?

Truly lost him? Not just his company, his presence, or even his affections this time. What if she cost him his very life and he were gone from this earth forever?

It didn’t bear thinking about.

Show a little respect for the peril we are in, won’t you?
Fiona remembered those words as she brushed out her tangled hair. Real peril. Death. Not theirs, but only because Harry had taken the deathblow before it could be theirs.

He risked everything for her.

Surely that meant something.

F
iona finished brushing her hair and rose, unbuttoning the sumptuous Worth floral silk taffeta wrapper she had donned after slipping out of her ruined day dress. She slipped it from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor before untying the petticoats around her waist. Letting them fall as well, she bent to untie her garters but a deep, pained rumble sounded from the shadows at the corner of her room, freezing her in place.

But a throaty baritone broke the silence then
. “I beg you. Please, don’t stop.”

He’d snuck up to her room while the family was at dinner and the staff occupied serving them. He couldn’t wait until morning to assure himself that she had recovered from their afternoon
or from Ramsay’s assault. That she hadn’t succumbed to hysterics or nerves.

No. 
He hadn’t thought either of those things, really. He just wanted to see her. To hold Fiona against him and feel life, her indomitable spirit cursing through her body.

So he had waited in her darkened room, a thief in the shadows when she had come up with
Eve and disappeared into her dressing room. Watching silently as they spoke in whispers. Waiting to speak until he knew for certain Fiona was alone.

But then she had brushed her hair before the mirror, those caressing strokes through her long dark
tresses mesmerizing him, holding him to silence. He imagined taking the brush from her, performing the task himself. Running those silken locks through his fingers and around his body as he drew her into his arms.

So entangled in the fantasy he had been that she had already begun to disrobe before he came to his senses
. Like some bloody voyeur he watched, unable to move or make a sound as she shrugged her dressing gown from her shoulders. Sensual arousal had burst into blood boiling lust then as her wrapper slid down her body revealing her undergarments inch by inch. Undergarments that he never would have thought a virginal young woman like Fiona would possess.

But then he shouldn’t have been surprised
. Everything he had imagined might lie beneath her simple gowns was true and then some.

No chaste white
cotton for his bold lass, no. Fiona’s breasts thrust upward and held, cupped erotically by nothing less than a black satin corset tied with white strings. The contrast highlighted her narrow waist, the white lace that trimmed the edges was innocence in conjunction with eroticism. Each petticoat that fell was a revelation. The outer, matching the day dress she had on earlier, silk trimmed in a wide, gathered flounce with piped scrolling. Simple like the military styling of her outer garments. The next was white, diaphanous cotton gauze, ruffled and trimmed with purple and black satin ribbon. The next gossamer batiste, so delicate it was nearly transparent.

When the last petticoat fell,
he was treated to the full display. The long black corset silhouetted the outrageous curve from breast to waist and over the rounded curve of her hips. Below, her short knickers of layered batiste dripped sensually with black lace to mid-thigh. Her black stockings molded to her firmly muscled thighs and calves. The decadent white and violet scrolls of the clocking wrapping about her ankles and disappearing into the black and violet delicately heeled slippers she still wore.

She was sin and innocence combined
just as she was all spit and fire on the outside and vulnerable underneath. Aylesbury’s blood pounded in his veins at the sight of her poised in the dim light of the single lamp. But when she leaned over to untie her garters, hair cascading over her shoulders, giving him a perfect view of her cleavage swelling over the edge of her corset as she bent, the moan of pure animal desire that escaped him was beyond containment.

Freezing at the sound, Fiona looked straight at him though he couldn’t think that she could see him in the darkness
. He also couldn’t bear to have her performance come to an end. “I beg of you,” he rasped out. “Please, don’t stop.”

“Harry?”

Aylesbury stepped from the shadows. “Were you expecting someone else?”

“I
-I thought you went home.”

“I could not.”

She’d never been so surprised in her entire life as she was when Aylesbury emerged from the darkened corner of her room. Her first impulse was to snatch up her petticoats and cover herself but Fiona resisted the urge. She had done that once before and she wouldn’t do it now. This was her room, after all. Instead, she laid her hands on her hips and squared her shoulders as if she hadn’t a care.

But she couldn’t stop the questions that raced through her mind
.

How had he gotten there
? When? What was he doing there? But then Fiona saw the look on his face, the raw hunger more voracious than it had been in the alley that afternoon.  It held the answer to one question at least. Still she voiced it anyway, wanting to hear the answer for herself. “What do you want, Harry?”

Her voice was breathless, unwittingly provocative and Aylesbury smiled wolfishly, raking his eyes down her half-clad body
. Her flesh burned under his gaze but oddly rippled with gooseflesh in its wake. As her drew closer, every nerve in her body tensed.

Fiona knew she could deny many things but not this.  Never this.

When he was but a hair’s breath away, he reached for her, running a palm over her corseted ribs. Fiona drew in a deep, fortifying breath and heard his catch as well as his eyes returned to the swell of her breasts against her corset. “You are every man’s fantasy,” Aylesbury whispered huskily. “Where did you get this?”

Fiona licked her lips
. “Paris.”

“
Vive la France
,” he murmured, lifting her hair from her shoulder and letting the length of it through his fingers before he ran them up her bare arm, over her shoulder to tease the sensitive flesh behind her ear. Aylesbury leaned closer, over her, his roughened cheek brushing hers as he bent his head and inhaled deeply.

Fiona’s heart began beating like the big drum from Mr. Sousa’s brass band
. Pounding so hard that her head swam dizzily. She swayed toward him, but steadied herself.

“Wha
–what are you doing in my room, Harry?”

Aylesbury chuckled softly, his breath tickling at her neck
. “Nothing nefarious, I promise you. I merely wanted to assure myself that you were well. I never imagined …”  His fingers continued upward, burying themselves in her hair. “You are magnificent, my love. I had imagined what you might be hiding beneath those proper gowns, sure it would be something sensual. If I had known just how erotic, I never would have been able to stop myself from having you the other night, Pembrooke or no.”

His cupped her breasts in his palms, his fingers caressing the bare flesh swelling above the
satin edge and lifting even as his mouth descended. His lips brushed, teased along the border until Fiona raked her fingers through his hair, urging him closer. Harry’s tongue dipped into the crease of her cleavage as he fondled her breasts, then squeezed … no, the top hook of her corset came undone, then another. His tongue grazed through the widening chasm again and Fiona shuddered with pleasure.

Two more hooks and Harry tugged at the ribbon holding her chemise, freeing her breasts to his hungry gaze
. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he pulled her to him roughly and lifted her to him so that he could feast on the bounty now displayed. He nuzzled the valley between her breasts before turning to catch one sensitive nipple between his lips.

Fiona cried out shortly, catching her lip between her teeth to stifle her impassioned cries as he drew deeply on her flesh
. She held him fast against her, as if he could get any closer but it wasn’t enough. Her body knew what power he possessed now, what bliss he could bring, and she wanted more. “Harry.”

Lifting his head at her whispered plea, Harry met her gaze with eyes so dark Fiona could only gasp at the emotion there
. It wasn’t the turbulence she had seen at the Onslow ball that darkened them to the deep indigo she saw, but raw emotion, carnal hunger, and Fiona’s body trembled with a rush of wantonness to answer the plea she saw there. “Oh Harry, yes,” she breathed.

Aylesbury lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed, pushing the counterpane aside to deposit her on the white sheets
. “You look like a luscious chocolate presented on a white pillow,” he said roughly. “Delectable.”