A Question for Harry (34 page)

Chapter
Thirty-Eight

From the diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh – Apr 1893

I feel I have no choice remaining but to take my one last chance.

Wish me luck!

Despite Glenrothes’ contention that they needed to talk, the silence hung heavily in the drawing room for several long minutes before the earl finally spoke
. “It might be a difficult thing to convince the bobbies that Ramsay is our man in this whole thing with only our unfounded speculation to substantiate it.”

Aylesbury nodded
. “But then I rather doubt you and your brothers will be willing to wait for the authorities to take the lead in rounding him up.”

“Quite so.”

“I also doubt that is what you wanted to talk about,” Aylesbury added without further prompting. “Why I’ll be wanting to have a hand in Ramsay’s apprehension is, though.”

“Is there something that you feel gives you the right?”

“Yes. I love your sister, Glenrothes.”

The earl’s fingers curled on the arm of the sofa, fisting before he stretched them out once more
. “You can imagine being the youngest of eleven children and the only lass, that we are all very protective of our Blossom.”

“
Fiona might say too protective, but I have a sister of my own, Glenrothes. I do understand.”

“It was hard enough to imagine a fellow having the nerve to ask my permission to marry her
.” A finger tapped restlessly against the upholstery before the earl fisted his hand once more. “I am finding it is even harder to hear a man confess his love for her.”

“I understand,” Aylesbury nodded
. “To you, she will always be a child.”

Glenrothes nodded curtly
. “Does my sister… share this affection with you?”

Aylesbury winced, repressing a sigh
. “She hasn’t confessed as much in so many words, but I believe so.”

The
finger was tapping again. “I want you to understand, Aylesbury, I’ve always had a good measure of respect for you. You’ve been a friend to this family for a long while now, but when I see you come in here with her like that, when she clings to you …
like that
… when she has long shown nothing more for you than scorn, well it makes me wonder what more might have happened. In truth, it fair makes me wonder why I’m still sitting here and not over there, beating you to a bloody pulp.”

“I do love her
, my lord.”

Glenrothe
s nodded stiffly. “That might be all that is saving you. But I also cannot help but wonder if there was something more to what happened between the two of you two years past. A fight, Blossom said. I had dismissed the matter because of her most disdainful dismissal of the event, but now … now I cannot help but wonder if something more happened that night. Something perhaps that should have prompted a more brotherly intervention on her behalf.”

The words were calmly said, the threat vague and coolly delivered
, but Aylesbury was very aware that Glenrothes was at that moment angrier than Aylesbury had ever seen him. That beneath that calm, a man lurked with what might be murderous intent if the wrong word were said. He tread carefully. “I was ever a gentleman, I promise you.” Not a lie exactly, but certainly not the whole truth when gentlemanly intentions went astray.

“What was it then?”

“You must understand, Glenrothes, that Fiona’s youth and inexperience never escaped me, not for a moment. I was ever aware of her innocence,” Aylesbury ran a hand through his hair. “But I want you to also understand how incredibly difficult it sometimes was not to …”

Glenrothes shifted
, his anger succumbing to discomfort. “Perhaps this is not something I really wish to hear.”

“No more than I would rather not speak of it,” Aylesbury admitted
. “But I feel I must. I cannot have you imagining the worst and envisioning my head on the proverbial platter.”

The earl closed his eyes for a moment as if begging for strength
. That not being enough for him it seemed, Glenrothes rose, crossed to the sideboard, and poured himself a glass of what Aylesbury knew was the best Scotch whiskey to be had. He lifted the glass, saying, “I might need this to brace myself for what I am to hear from you.”

Aylesbury chuckled
. “I might need one just to say it.”

Glenrothes snorted but did pour a second glass before topping
off his own. Joining the earl at the sideboard, Aylesbury took his glass and a welcoming sip.

There was a reason they called it Dutch courage
. It gave a man the balls to do things he’d rather not.

To
say
things he’d rather not.

Fiona’s brother remained standing near the sideboard so Aylesbury did not resume his seat
, though he did think to remove himself from the earl’s arm’s length … just in case.

“All right then, go ahead.”

It took a deep, fortifying breath and another longer sip of the whiskey before Aylesbury could speak. “That night of the ball at Haddington’s, I was out in the gardens ruminating upon my failure to secure a mistress for Aylesbury once again.”

“Ruminating?”

“I was fairly deep in my cups by that point,” Aylesbury clarified. “In truth, I was also avoiding Fiona. She had been… pestering me. Pardon me, I hate to use that word, but she had moved beyond subtle hints – but she
was
pestering me for a dance that night. A waltz specifically, but I simply could not waltz with her.”

“Why
…?” The earl paused as understanding struck and grunted. “So that’s how it was.”

“That’s how it was,” Aylesbury nodded
, tipping back his glass. “I shouldn’t have been drinking as much as I was, all things considered. You fellows do stock the finest whiskey though. So I can perhaps blame you to some degree for what happened when Fiona found me out there in the garden as I was – as I said – fairly deep in my cups.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

From the diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh – April 1893

It was utterly horrid. Mortifying! Humiliating! I cannot think that I will ever be able to speak of it should anyone dare ask.

Their dinner arrived, allowing Fiona a few moments to gather her thoughts, her composure, as Ilona joined her at a small table near the fireplace to dine. “Well, as I said, Aylesbury had been ignoring me,” Fiona prevaricated as she dipped into her soup.

“Studiously
. Yes, you said that part,” Ilona reminded, ignoring her own meal with a grimace. “Then what happened?”

“Well, he had been
diligently avoiding me all night that night, so when I saw him slip out into the gardens, I followed him,” Fiona told her between spoonsful.

“That was very bold,” Ilona said carefully.

Fiona laughed then, lifting her napkin to her lips before tossing it aside. “Considering all I had already done to gain his attention without much success, I thought it quite tame really. But I was so damnedly, dementedly in love with him, I simply couldn’t comprehend that somewhere deep down, he didn’t feel the same. So I decided to take my one last chance. I went out there to prove to myself that I was right, that he did love me more than he had ever loved Moira. Ahh, Ilona, I was such a foolish child, wasn’t I?”

“I don’t know, I might have done the same with Colin if he had ever ignored me so. I was quite determined to have him. Much the same as you.”

“Aye, I was
. There he was in the garden. The night was warm for spring, the music drifting from the house. It was such a romantic setting and he … he was so bloody handsome, damn him,” Fiona recalled. “I couldn’t help myself. I went to him … ha! Oh, Ilona, I ran to him. I threw myself into his arms before he could say a word about it, yea or nay.”

“There you are, Harry!” she had exclaimed, lacing her arms around his neck
. “I’ve been looking for you!”

“
I assure you, I didn’t invite her to join me there,” Aylesbury assured Glenrothes. “ I certainly didn’t encourage her. Bold as brass, she came up and threw her arms around my neck without so much as a by-your-leave. She was … well, shall we say
there
before I had a chance to put together any sort of defense, saying something about me looking lonely or some such nonsense. I had enough presence of mind to try to pull her off of me but she was rather like a barnacle, and as I said …”

“You were
fairly deep in your cups,” the earl supplied drily

“Quite so,” Aylesbury nodded
crisply, rocking back on his heels. “She said something like,‘There you are, Harry’ and naturally I told her she should not address me so familiarly. ‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘Abby does. Moira does.’ To which I promptly reminded her that while that might be so, Lady Glenrothes certainly did not address me so. Do you know what she said to that?”

Glenrothes shook his head.

Aylesbury swirled his whiskey around the rim of the glass, fondly recalling her words. “I remember it quite clearly, despite my inebriated state. She said – ever so saucily, mind you – ‘Ah but then you never courted Eve, did you?’”

“I should hope not
.” There was just a hint of humor reflected in Glenrothes’ eye, though.

“Impudent piece of baggage
.” He was chuckling into his glass as he tipped it up.

“She is that,” Glenrothes agreed
, taking another long drink as well. “Then what? Surely that cannot be all?”

“
Then I kissed him,” Fiona confessed. “I had tried to before, of course …”

“Fiona!”

“Humph, like you never kissed Colin before you wed!”

“Not until we were engaged!”
Ilona replied primly, though her lips were twitching.

“In any case, I kissed him and the next thing I knew he was kissing me back
. Not just a mere peck, either.” Fiona lifted her fingers to her lips, lost in the memory. Harry had kissed her then, her first real kiss. Deeply. Sensually. His fingers threading through her hair, forcing her head back so that he could devour her more completely. He
had
wanted her, even then, she realized. The way he had pressed her up against that tree … 

“Fiona?”

“The way his kissed me, as shocking as it was, was the most thrilling moment of my life,” Fiona told her with some understatement. In fact she had been desperate with yearning, taken about by the force of her ardor. Had Harry felt the same? “It was rather earth-shattering really. I felt it to the tips of my toes. And the way he held me! His arms nearly crushed me against him. I was …”

“…
Simply appalled with myself,” Aylesbury confessed.

“But not so appalled that you stopped,” Glenrothes ground out tightly,
his fingers whitening around his glass.

“But I did,” Aylesbury insisted
. “Perhaps not as promptly as I should have.” Not promptly at all. He had been so hungry for her, ravenous after weeks and months of cumulative desire. Months of telling her: No. Of telling himself no. He had kissed her in a manner quite at odds with her lack of experience, but she had met him kiss for kiss, urging him on until he had been ready to take her up against a tree with all the urgency that had been accruing in him. The realization of what he had been about and with whom had hit him like a cold bucket of water. Aylesbury cleared his throat. “Admittedly, I should have never let it go so far. Finally I pushed her away and told her rather rudely to return to the house.” Like a good little girl, he had said and perhaps even patted her on the head, as well. It was a lowering memory, how he had hurt Fiona to save himself.

“She told me then that she was in love with me
.” His throat tightened unexpectedly and Aylesbury lifted his glass again to soothe the burning at the back of his throat with something more fiery. She had laid her heart before him, gifted him with something so precious and he had tossed it back at her like so much garbage.

“
What did he say?”

Fiona closed her eyes, recalling her desperate confession, rashly declared after he had already pushed her away from him
. Scolded her like a child. Her chest tightened, reliving the heartbreak of that moment. So terrible but nothing compared with what was to come.

“
Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“No, not straight away.” Fiona’s voice tightened with the painful memory. “He just stared at me with such an appalled expression on his face…”

“I was dumbfounded by her confession, of course,” Aylesbury admitted, the words nothing compared to the emotion of that night
. “Disbelieving. You have to understand that I had convinced myself that she was too young to have anything greater than an infatuation for me, that she was merely flirting with me all along. Practicing, as it were. Honing her skills. So I said …”

“
She told you that she loved you and you said what?”

The threat was back in Glenrothes voice but Aylesbury couldn’t find it in himself to be wary any longer
. “Much that is regrettable,” was all he offered, sparing them both the embarrassment of recounting what had followed. Sparing Fiona from having even one brother possess the intimate details of how gravely he had humiliated her. What had come next, what he had said to her! He hated himself for those words. Words born from the desperation to make her flee before he did something he would really regret. Instead he regretted it all. Even more now, knowing how deeply her emotions had truly run.