A Question for Harry (8 page)

Abby knew it as well and rose, moving to the sideboard where she poured
a healthy snifter of brandy despite the early hour and returned, pressing it into his free hand. “You fairly reek of troubles, Harry.”

“Despair, even,”
Moira chimed in.

“I thought it more an aura of despondency,” Kitty remarked helpfully.

“The afterglow of a scandalous evening?” Eve added, effectively informing him that they had heard about his hotheaded behavior the previous night.

All five
women turned their eyes to him and it was all Aylesbury – a peer of the realm – could do not to squirm in his seat. He looked from one lady to the next and around at the multitude of children dotting the carpet. “Perhaps, I might speak to Moira more privately?” he asked hopefully but quickly deflated at their stalwart stares. He shrugged. “I thought not. Well, in truth it is no secret really …”

Chapter Seven

From the diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh – Jan 1893

We went to the theater tonight at the Royal Lyceum to see Oscar Wilde’s
A Woman of No Importance
. The play should have been fascinating but I was too taken aback by Harry’s sudden attention to have a care for it.

Moira had to go back downstairs for her fan and
made Harry

Harry escorted me up to our box, holding my hand where it tucked into the crook of his arm all the while
! Though I know he is a practiced flirt, I cannot help but think that he is sincere in his compliments. And he was ever so obvious in his reluctance to release my hand when we finally reached our seats.

“He did look rather displeased when we left the park.”

“Lord Ramsay
is lacking in patience but it is nothing to worry over,” Fiona told her as their slow-paced walk brought them once again to the granite stoop and wrought iron railings that marked the entrance to Glenrothes House.

At seven stories and with five window bays across the white stucco and red brick Georgian facade, the townhouse the Earl of Glenrothes had purchased just the past year stood as the grandest residence in the square, remodeled not very long ago to encompass two lots
.

Naturally Francis hadn’t purchased it for its utterly ostentatious presence with a façade adorned with eight mammoth pillars and a ridiculous amount of wrought iron ornamentation but rather because the sheer number of bedchambers provided by those seven floors far exceeded the number provided by Glenrothes’ previous London residence in Cavendish Square
. Simply put, it was house enough for the whole clan to inhabit without constantly rubbing elbows.

But small enough, as Ilona pointed ou
t, to inundate Fiona with constant reminders of what her life was lacking.

One might have thought the monstrous place large enough to provide
a moment – the smallest moment, mind you – of respite from everything that had prompted what had been labeled as her “unseemly haste.”

It did not
. Now she was only bound by it. Upstairs and down.

“Are you certain?” Ilona pressed.

“He wants an elopement,” she admitted as they stepped into the dimly lit foyer and as her eyes adjusted from the bright sunshine, missed seeing Ilona’s frown.

“I hope you did not agree to such a thing!”

“I would never,” Fiona assured her. “And I told him the same. I was nearly tempted to tell him of Francis’ compromise as well. Perhaps he would have suggested that we become engaged and simply wait out the year.”

Ilona had her doubts on the matter but kept the refrain to herself as Hobbes greeted them at the door and snapped his fingers at the footmen who rushed to his side to take their
accoutrements as Hobbes handed them over. “Did you have a pleasant walk, my lady? Madam?”

“It was most pleasant
, Hobbes, thank you for asking,” Ilona said. “Is everyone at home?”

“The ladies of the house are still in the family parlor
but I’m afraid the gentlemen remain scattered to the winds, madam,” he answered, handing off the last parasol.

“
There was an advertised auction this morning at Tattersalls,” Fiona told her. “I suppose they couldn’t resist.”

“There were to be races
as well, I believe,” Hobbes added.

“Ahh,” Fiona nodded
. “There you are then.”

“Would you send up some refreshment for Mrs. MacKintosh, Hobbes?” Fiona asked
, linking her arm with Ilona’s as they headed up the broad, carpeted staircase to the first floor.

Ilona’s steps lagged tiredly but Fiona crept slowly up the stairs with her
. As they climbed, signs of life stirred by way of the muffled laughter and squeals of small children and the low murmur of feminine voices coming from the family parlor.

“Certainly, we should be happy to help in any
way we can.” Fiona recognized Eve’s voice easily.

“Honestly,” Moira declared clearly in turn
. “I cannot believe that you did not come to us with this sooner! Your friends!”

Fiona paused at the top of the stairs and sh
ared a look with Ilona only to have a muffled male voice murmur unintelligibly in return, heightening her curiosity.

A curiosity Ilona clearly shared
. “I wonder who they are talking to?”

Since they had left the older women playing with their
children not long ago, Fiona could not think of any man outside family who might be welcomed into their midst. Unmistakably, it was not one of her brothers. Their voices were recognizable even at a hushed whisper, which they rarely were.

“I suppose we might ask Hobbes,” Fiona suggested, look
ing back down into the hall, wondering why their efficacious and usually well-informed butler hadn’t mentioned a visitor.

“Or we could just go in,” Ilona suggested, guilefully
. “It is the
family
parlor, after all.”

Turning to the right at the head of the stairs, Fiona opened the door but what
she found there robbed Fiona of any further thought at all, curious or otherwise.

For the last
thing – quite literally, the
very
last thing – she expected to see upon entering that room was one Lord Harrison Brudenall, Marquis of Aylesbury, sitting on their settee with an infant cradled tenderly in the crook of his arm and a toddler on his knee.

All higher brain function might have ceased
, but her heart was still demonstrably present, kicking up a rapid, arrhythmic cadence that Fiona was certain must be audible to the entire room.

Good Lord
, she thought, stifling the urge to press a hand to her quivering bosom.

And h
e just had to be holding a baby!

“Oh!” Ilona said with some surprise to the room at large and then murmured to Fiona. “That’s him. That’s who Lord Ramsay reminded me of.”

Fiona swallowed tightly.

Yes, that was him.

The room fell
silent as the marquis and all the other occupants of the room turned toward the interlopers … er, newcomers to their conversation. However, Fiona was truly aware of no gaze on her but Aylesbury’s. His brilliant blue eyes, far more serene now than they had been the previous night, met hers with unmistakable surprise. Obviously he had not been expecting to see her any more than she had expected to find him in her parlor.

That realization roused enough irritation to override Fiona’s momentary dysfunction
. Why should he look so startled by her appearance? She did live there, after all! The annoyance promptly turned to self-disparagement. Why should she be any more taken aback than he? She looked from the marquis to Moira, who was snuggly by his side, one hand resting familiarly on his arm.

Wasn’t he right where he had always longed to be?

Standing with uncharacteristic clumsiness, Aylesbury slid Moira’s toddler slowly down one leg until she landed gently on the floor and shifted the infant in his arms away from the warmth of his chest as if wondering what he should do with it.

“Oh, let me!” Ilona offered brightly
, sweeping into the room with renewed energy. With a practiced hand, she relieved Aylesbury of his burden.

Hands freed, Aylesbury ran his palms down the warm creases that now pleated the lower half of his morning coat only vaguely aware of their presence as his entire attention was now fully occupied by the woman
lingering at the door.

He had
been surprised enough to come across any MacKinosh at the ball the previous evening, but seeing Fiona, in particular, had utterly taken him aback. Her appearance so unexpected and altered since their last meeting, that given the strain of his temper, he had been unable to absorb the changes until long after he left.

It was only now that the impact of those changes truly hit him
.

If it was even
possible, Fiona MacKintosh was even more beautiful now than she had been when he’d last seen her two years past. Her loosely upswept dark hair supported a modishly mammoth piece of millinery covered with pleated blue silk encircled by a wide starched white lace brim that did little to shadow the perfection of her features; an undeniably feminine version her brothers with a perfect nose impishly upturned, a stubborn jaw, incredible cheekbones and smooth, creamy cheeks that dimpled when she smiled. Wide-set green eyes were framed by thick, dark lashes and arching brows that lifted just so. Fiona’s tantalizing mouth, once set in a perpetual smile, was now bent into a frown, fighting the natural curve of her full lips as his thorough gaze took her in and drifted downward.

She was dressed at the height of fashion, t
he tailored lines of her walking suit at their best advantage clinging to her tall athletic frame. Her robin’s egg blue skirt hugged the curve of her hips before flaring out to fall to the floor in soft folds. In contrast to the dull sheen of the linen skirt, the shine of her satin sash with the silver accents drew attention to the narrowness of her waist just as the deep lapels and nipped waist of her jacket and white pleated shirtfront exposed by the waist-deep V of her bodice beneath it pronounced the fullness of her bosom. And if nothing else could be said about the huge leg o’ mutton sleeves that were currently in fashion, a gentleman could easily appreciate the way the added breadth across a lady’s shoulders only served to exaggerate the pleasing hourglass of her figure.

Fiona’s was eminently laudable
.

Gone
were the frilly frocks and grass-stained skirts. A time when not a strand of her hair would be in place. Now nary a strand dared to escape.

Like her vibrancy, her vivacity
… still there but contained by a newfound sophistication.

Gone was t
he adolescent ingenuousness and naïveté that had made him feel as if he were a depraved old roué for acknowledging even the tiniest bit of attraction for such an innocent gamine.

Gone, too, was the
broad, welcoming grin and worshipful light in her green eyes that had always greeted him in the past.

Indeed this poised, stunning woman before him was piercing him with an icy glare that clearly
desired nothing more than his immediate embarkment on a swift journey straight to a fiery hell.

“Fiona,” Aylesbury said roughly, then cleared his throat and corrected himself
. “Lady Fiona.”

One brow lifted, arching with contempt.

She had always been difficult, the minx. He tried once more.  “How nice to see you again.”

Full, rosy
lips that had always before softened with affection at the sight of him, compressed into a tight line much as they had the previous night before Fiona turned on one heel and marched away – again – without sparing him a word.

“I’m so sorry, my lord,” Eve was already apologizing for her sister-in-law’s behavior before those
blue skirts had completely disappeared from sight. “It is not at all like Fiona to behave so. I don’t know what prompted such rudeness.”