Fiona sat up, spittinga piece of grass out of her mouth with an outraged screech.How dare he!How dare he leave her at the side of the road like so much trash!Climbing to her feet, she caught her shoe on the inside of her skirt and fell forward, raking her palms along the sharp stalks of the grass.“Damn you, Harry,” she muttered, slapping her hands together.“I might have loved you forever, but I don’t like you a whit right now.”
Hooves clattered on the road heralding the approach of Ramsay’s carriage.Fighting the urge to flag him down and deal with him herself, Fiona crouched in the grass until it had passed.
Watching the carriage racing away, the anger leeched away, leaving Fiona cold with the thought of Harry facing Ramsay and his cohort alone.The confrontation of her imagination was harder to bear than watching the fight in person as she had done when he’d fought for her in London.Somehow being there had given her confidence.Now, alone, she was left with nothing but ominous visualizations.She couldn’t lose him over something so senseless.
She couldn’t bear to lose him at all.
A terror like she had never known before nearly rooted Fiona to the ground, but some part of her still had the wherewithal to follow his instructions if she didn’t act.
Lifting her skirts, Fiona climbed out of the ditch and set off at a run toward the golf club.Connor and Ian had better be done with their second round.She’d be damned if she was going to tarry about the short course looking for them.They’d be lucky if she didn’t take their carriage and go after Harry alone.
Chapter 44
How is it that some men are able to retain their titles when they are nothing more than raving Bedlamites?It boggles the mind.
~From the diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh—Jun 1895
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Aylesbury kept a steadypace but did not try to lose or outrun Ramsay.No, he wanted Ramsay to keep him in his sights.He didn’t want Ramsay to lose interest but to follow.
He wanted the chance to put an end to all this at last.
But how?As he tooled along, Aylesbury considered his options carefully, analyzing the possibilities.If she had been there, Fiona would have surely laughed and made some jest about using his brain instead of his brawn.
Aylesbury laughed.He intended to use both.The greater part of his plan involved the most pleasurable physical dissemination of Ramsay’s person.The proprietary barbarian darkening his soul demanded retribution.At the same time, his intellect necessitated that he make sure this would be the last time he or Fiona would ever have to even think the name Ramsay again.Yes, he would get the best of both options.
But where?His ancestral estate, Dinton Grange, was a large one with dozens of buildings.He would need to be someplace far enough away from his people that they didn’t get hurt in the crossfire or taken as a shield or hostage by Ramsay or his henchman but still close enough that the authorities from Oxford would be able to find them.Not the stables, then.Nor the manor itself.Both were too well inhabited.The dower house would have been a good choice.It was empty but too far from the drive to be noticed in passing.
The gates of Dinton Grange approached, and with them, the answer.Since it was his policy to leave the gates to the park open at all times for visitors, the gatehouse was empty and right there on the road.He could pull the phaeton to a halt right there.
Even Ramsay, the dull sod, would not be able to miss it.
And he was too driven by rage to resist the invitation.
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