A Question for Harry (3 page)

“Pick one for me
?” she parroted, laughing incredulously. “Well, thank God this isn’t the Middle Ages!”

But her brother didn’t join her laughter
. None of them did. Glenrothes shook his head tiredly. “You want to marry him? Truly?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will agree …”

Grinning with satisfaction
, Fiona beamed at him while Vin and Richard gawked at Glenrothes incredulously. How could they be so surprised, she wondered. Didn’t they know Francis always let her have her way?

“If,” Glenrothes added, bursting her bubble
. “He will agree to an engagement of one year. A year to prove that that you didn’t make this decision in haste and to make sure it’s the right one.”

“A year?” Fiona gaped
. “That’s ludicrous.”

“Or traditional,”
Richard said with a shrug. “Depending on how you look at it.”

“This family
has never managed a year-long engagement!” Fiona shook her head, dumbfounded. “You’re balmy on the crumpet. All of you.”

“Mayhap that’s what happens when you start having your babies past thirty,” Vin said softly as
they reached the tee box for the eighteenth hole and Fiona cringed. Vin might forgive easily, but his temper could spike just as quickly and flare hotter, too. Baiting him was like poking a tiger and Fiona usually tended to refrain from doing just that. Unfortunately, when
she
was angry, she tended to speak without thought, though usually didn’t regret what she said – but perhaps she had gone too far. Fiona chewed her lip. Was this their way of punishing her for her flippant tongue? “This is ridiculous. I don’t want to wait a year.”

“Or
…” Glenrothes went on. “If it’s a husband you want more than Ramsay himself – and given the madness of your decision, I have to think that is the case – then find another suitor who will convince me that your future will at least be a happy one.”

Fiona eyed him suspiciously
. “Another suitor? How do you suggest I do that? Let’s face it, if Donovan Ramsay is not acceptable, another Season in Edinburgh is not going to produce another eligible bachelor for me to consider.”

“We’ll go to London for the Season.”

Horror seized Fiona’s insides, freezing her mind and taking her breath. “London?” she gasped, shaking her head vehemently. “No.”

Three
sets of male brows shot up in surprise. Clearly none of them were expecting such a flat rebuttal.

“Why not
? You’ve always wanted to have one, haven’t you?” Vin asked.

“
I did. When I was seventeen!”

“We had already been planning on taking you down to London for the Ladies’ Open …” Glenrothes went on.

“I told you, I withdrew,
” she said quickly.

“I believe Hobbes might have withheld the letter from the post just in case it was sent in haste,” he told her
. “A London Season will expose you to a whole new crop of bachelors.”

Bachelors
? Fiona scoffed inwardly. A Season would expose her to much more than that. “No.”

Glenrothes sighed
. “A year then. If Ramsay will wait that long.”

“I doubt it,” Richard murmured under his breath.

Damn, Fiona thought. Caught between a rock and an even harder place. It was not a comfortable place. “Three months.”

“A year
.”

“Six months,” she countered
. “A compromise, Francis.”

“Here’s my compromise,” her brother said
. “You go to London and show a concerted effort toward finding a more appropriate match. If I feel you are doing your part and at the end of the Season you are still set on Ramsay …”

“And he is willing to wait on you,” Richard
reiterated.

“Then I will consider his suit for a
six-month engagement.”

A
wait of a year or a Season? Neither was a palatable option for her.

“But the Season is almost over,
” she stammered, scrambling for an excuse. Not true at all. Indeed it had hardly begun, but the simple fact of the matter was that the Season in London was always almost over even as it began. But there had to be something, some excuse that would confine her time in London to a golf course and keep her from the ballrooms. “What of Eve? Surely she shouldn’t be traveling so soon after Alice’s birth?”

Glenrothes just waited, ignoring her excuses.

“From the end of the Season?” she clarified and her brother nodded in turn. “No, I’ll be twenty-one come September. Let me wed then and you have a deal.”

He nodded again
but added a caveat. “But a real effort, Blossom. You will partake of the Season fully and allow acceptable gentlemen to court you with an open mind.”

“
Oh, I’ll be the belle of the ball, Francis,” Fiona’s voice was as cold as the dread that ran like ice through her veins. “I will simper, giggle, and mince with the best of them, but in the end things will still be as I planned and you will have done little more than waste my time and theirs.”

“
You might be surprised,” he countered. “I think you’ll find that you have options where you might least expect them.”

Fiona
turned without another word and stalked off the green. The sharp spikes of her shoes sank into the low grass as she left them behind, but instead of heading for the clubhouse, she left the fairway entirely steering herself blindly toward the pair of carriages awaiting them beyond.

Waving
a waiting footman aside when he rushed forward to help her, Fiona carried her heavy rattan golf bag herself, if only to prove a point to the trio of men she knew were still watching her.

H
er brothers might think that they could get medieval with her but Fiona had never been one to take a challenge lying down and she had no intention of getting bullied into changing her plans. She would go to London and play their little game. In the end, she would still have her way.

She always had.

And it wasn’t something she wasn’t going to let London, and whomever she might inconveniently happen upon there, change that.

Her steel
spikes soon left the soft grass and ground roughly into the gravel with each step. And with each step so did her anger ebb away, leaving only consternation behind.

How had Francis
done that? Somehow he had used her own intractability against her, maneuvered her into an impossible situation. She couldn’t go to London! Couldn’t face …

T
he painful banging of her precious clubs as she flung them unceremoniously into the boot of the larger carriage was no more agonizing than the apprehension that twisted her heart. Behind the carriage and out of sight from them all, Fiona finally buried her face in her hands, pressing her fingers against her eyes to stem the tears that threatened to fall.

Whomever she might inconveniently happen upon
…

Such impersonal words for something
so potentially devastating.

No,
she couldn’t do it. No matter the sting to her pride, she should go back now and tell Francis that she accepted his original bargain. That she would wait and hope for Ramsay’s patience. Could waiting another year really be so bad? Surely anything would be better than going to London.

Because w
hatever her brothers hoped she would find in waiting for the right man to come along, she knew all ready that she would find him in London. In fact, there was only a minute, dismal chance that Fiona would
not
happen upon him.

How could she not?

He
lived there.

Chapter Two

From the diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh –
March 1892

Francis has promised to take me to London!

Well, he hasn’t actually promised but I do think that perhaps he might be o
n the verge of agreeing if Granny might be convinced to take me on for the Season. While I understand that a single gentleman – even if he
is
an earl – cannot be expected to properly launch a debutante properly into Society, I might have liked to have had someone more … well, young and energetic to sponsor me.

Still,
beggars cannot be choosers.

I’ve never understood why that is
.

The home of Lord and Lady Onslow

Mayfair,
London, England

Early
May 1895

The London Season was everything Fiona had always imagined it might be, and so much less.

“Fiona, please do not slouch!” Lady Hyde, her maternal grandmother, poked Fiona in the back with the end of her fan, the sharp
blow mercifully dulled by the stiff steel of her corset.

Aye, this was
exactly
how she imagined it. It was like being seventeen all over again when she had dreamed of a Season.

Vin had been right
. There had been a time when she wanted nothing more than to have a London Season. To attend balls, garden parties and the theater. To dance and flirt and find the man of her dreams.

She had managed
that without a Season at all.

Since then, i
t was the potential to see
him
, meet
him
again that had kept her from pressing for a true London Season these past two years.

And here she was anyway.

“Yes, Granny,” she sighed and dutifully straightened her shoulders, knowing that any other response would only make things worse.

But even the worst of her imaginings hadn’t included being prodded with the business end of a surprisingly sharp fan
, and Fiona was in possession of a luridly vivid imagination. Vivid enough to cast ghostly sightings of a certain gentleman in every crowd. To hear haunting echoes of a deep, rich voice and warm laughter.

To conjure
enough dreadful anticipation to catch at the very fibers of her nerves until they were frayed to the last thread.

Only the dogged unwillingness to back down from a challenge kept her nerves intact
. Of course it was the same cursed stubbornness that had landed her in London to begin with. She was her own worst enemy in so many ways.

She had been on pins and needles all week
. Waiting. Dreading.

Thankfully, the very worst of what she expected from the Season hadn’t yet come to be
. They’d been in town a week already without the reason for her reticence making an unwelcome appearance as yet and Fiona was beginning to feel the first stirrings of optimism that she might not face that awkward encounter at all.

It was optimism enough now, half
way through her first ball, for Fiona’s natural good humor to begin reasserting itself.

Another jab
. “Posture!”

It was a good thing
, too. Two nights past the tension of waiting for a glimpse of him would have had Fiona snatching that fan from her grandmother’s hand and snapping the delicate mother-of-pearl blades in half. Thankfully, tonight she was able to comply, if not cheerfully, at least without a sharp retort.

Unfortunately, t
hrowing back her shoulders also caused a forward thrust of her breasts. They swelled against the low neckline of her ball gown, prompting another frown to crease the older woman’s brow.

“Demure, Fiona,” her grandmother dictated, lifting her head and shoulders gracefully by example
. “You must be more reserved if you want any potential suitors to approach.”

“I
am finding that being surrounded by nine overly protective brothers seems to frighten off any potential suitors far more efficiently than my demeanor,” Fiona responded pertly. Sadly, the only reward for her rediscovered sense of humor was yet another arrogantly raised brow, but it wasn’t enough to deter Fiona’s tongue. “’Twould be like passing beneath the stare of the Sphinx to approach.”

“
They do serve to filter out the rabble, however,” Lady Hyde countered as she fanned herself haughtily. “We cannot simply have you thrown to the wolves like a robber baron’s only daughter. No offense intended, of course, Evelyn,” she added to Glenrothes’ wife, who stood at her other side.

“None taken, my lady
.”

Fiona shared a grin with her sister-in-law who was not technically the
only
daughter of an American robber baron. She had a sister.

“
Wolves, Granny?” Fiona addressed her grandmother with a low chuckle. “Nay, they are not wolves but sharks. See how they circle me, like a tasty bit of bait in these frigid waters? Every one of them ready to devour me.”

Fiona smiled
flirtatiously at a passing gentleman, even going so far as to hold her fan in front of her face with her left hand to indicate in the age-old language of the fan that she desired his attentions. Though the man nearly tripped over his own feet as he turned to watch her, he still did not approach, proving her point. “My brothers have become the shoals that protect me and keep me safe, and you as well, Granny, as colorful as an anemone that enfolds me. Little do my brothers know that their behavior is counterproductive to their edict that I let myself be courted –and so is yours, Granny. One cannot court where one cannot first meet.”

Lady Hyde’s
lips pursed. “Evelyn,” she said tightly aside once more. “Your influence upon my dear Fiona has made tremendous strides these past several years. She
can
be everything that is proper and demure, a true lady … when she wishes to be. However with such unseemly outbursts continuing, I fear that her more rebellious nature is not to be contained.”

Eve
smiled serenely and offered ruefully, “I did try to beat it out of her again and again, my lady, but to no avail. At least she no longer indiscreetly hangs out over the balcony at the theater to call greetings to her friends and wave at random gentlemen.”

Lady Hyde snorted indelicately as Fiona
beamed fondly at Eve. There was a reason Eve was one of her favorite sisters-in-law. “Thank goodness for small favors,” the elderly lady said, taking Eve’s hand in hers and patting it lightly. “Indeed, my granddaughter’s more flamboyant displays are now thankfully largely confined to the privacy of her own home. Quite unlike your behavior, dear girl, when you had your first Season here.”

Eve squeezed the dear old lady’s hand between hers and
winked at Fiona. “I blame my American upbringing, of course. Why with your tutelage at a younger age, perhaps it might not have taken me quite so long to become a proper lady.”

“Perhaps not
. Perhaps not,” Lady Hyde patted Eve’s hand again, as if her words were not blatantly tongue-in-cheek. “Though you are now, of course.”

Eve winced but added smoothly,
“As Fiona will surely be one day as well.”

Lady Hyde only raised a brow but did not verbal
ly concur. Not that Fiona expected her to, of course. She’d long been a trial to her grandmother, especially in the unhindered years between her mother’s death and Richard’s marriage to Abby. Perhaps Lady Hyde might have taken her more firmly in hand when Fiona’s mother died if she hadn’t been mourning the death of her only daughter, her only child, and things might have been different for Fiona now. She might be more ladylike, more subdued, but she was not and was, admittedly, thankful for it. In truth, she was rather glad to have been raised as she was.

It had made her who she was
… exasperation to her grandmother and all.

Dear old thing
…

“Posture, Fiona!” Lady Hyde
prodded Fiona with the point of her fan once again, effectively poking away any tender sentiment that might have hovered in Fiona’s mind.

She scowled at her grandmother, lips parted for a retort when Eve
shifted uncomfortably by her side.

“Lady Hyde,
I am feeling a tad fatigued after all this standing. Would you mind terribly if Fiona helped me to those chairs on the far side of the room?”

“Not at all, Evelyn,” Lady Hyde allowed grandly
. “I have said it before and I shall say it again, it was quite wrong of my grandson to bring you out so soon. Away with you!”

“She’s said it about a thousand times,” Fiona whispered fiercely as Eve took her by the arm and led her away
. “She’s driving me batty and wields that fan like a bloody sword! I’m as bruised as a prizefighter and we’ve not even seen supper as yet!” Noticing that Eve was leading her toward the refreshment table and not the chairs set aside for wallflowers and matrons, Fiona frowned. “Didn’t you need to sit down, Evie?”

Eve’s musical chuckle mingled softly into the melodic strains of the Strauss waltz being played by the orchestra and she whispered confidentially, “
La, Fiona, after three babies in three years, I’m fairly certain I could take a break from dancing to birth a child and return for the next set without delay.”

It was Fiona’s turn to laugh
at Eve’s uncharacteristically bawdy comment. “I knew that must have been a piece of flummery but I didn’t dare to call you out since you were so kindly freeing me from Granny’s arm’s length. I don’t know how I am to endure much more of this.”

Eve only smiled
. “Your grandmother is merely relishing having her only granddaughter presented for the Season. You should take so much pleasure.”

“
How can I? We’ve been here a week already, and I haven’t been able to meet a single gentleman who did not cower away under her hawkish glare or my brothers’ overbearing presence. I haven’t even been asked for a dance.” Eve opened her mouth to respond but Fiona rushed to add a proviso to her statement, “Someone other than one of my brothers. Did they
all
have to come along? I’m surrounded by them. Why even Jack Merrill is here and he’s not even related!”

“Oh, pish posh, Fiona,” Eve dismissed with a
wave of her hand. “If you’re not enjoying the Season it is because of your own determination not to. If I had been the one to tell you that we were coming for the Season, you would have been overjoyed, and I said as much to Francis. You’re simply upset that your brothers have finally denied you something when they’ve done nothing but spoil you your entire life. But, dearest, in spiting them, you only spite yourself.”

She
had
been spoiled, there was no point denying it. But when one’s every wish was granted, over time a certain expectation for more of the same became understandable. That her wishes hadn’t been granted in this instance still befuddled Fiona. Even so, it wasn’t spite that kept her from enjoying herself.

If she were honest with herself, Fiona knew that it was the
fading but still tangible possibility of spotting one particular head amongst the crowd that had kept her on pins and needles, leaving her feeling far too testy to enjoy much at all.

Ever perceptive, Eve’s eyes narrowed
. “You know, I’m beginning to think that’s not it at all. You haven’t been yourself for weeks. What is it that has you so tied in knots?”

“The fact that Francis brought me here against my wishes isn’t enough?”

“If it were only that, I could understand your anger,” Eve said. “But this isn’t anger I’m seeing. What is it?”

Since fear was the last emotion Fiona would ever
admit to even at the confessional, she only shrugged. “Bafflement, pure and simple, that I must endure this at all. Lord Ramsay is a lord, not a stable lad nor a shopkeeper.”

“Nor is he at all what we imagined for you
.” Eve managed a serene smile though clearly she did not credit Fiona’s defense. “But there are a hundred gentlemen here in this room who might be. If not, a hundred more still to be met. Perhaps if you worked as hard at enjoying yourself as you do holding this grudge, you might not have a frown on your face that can be dreadfully off-putting to any other gentlemen who might dare to ask for a dance.”