She didn’t want to be alone with it any longer.Donovan, Lord Ramsay might not make her blood sing, her heart skip, or her senses soar, but he...he...
Her thoughts stumbled to a halt as no acceptable ‘buts’ rushed to her mental rescue.It did not matter.Ramsay had asked, and she was ready to marry and have a family even without that elusive something that seemed so readily obtainable to her brothers.
She didn’t need someone like Harrison Brudenall.Indeed, after what happened between them, she hadn’t intended to acknowledge him if and when they ever met again.
As far as that went, Fiona thought she had done well in maintaining her dignity when coming face to face with him again.She hadn’t fallen at his feet or stared at him with moony-eyed adoration.No vapors or embarrassing, inelegant declarations.If maintaining her composure had prompted a measure of rudeness...It was a price she was willing to pay.
A ping sounded at her window and then another, drawing her attention away from her diary.Frowning, she watched as a pebble arched through the half-open casement and bounced to a halt at the foot of the bed.Bewildered, she went to the window, peering through the glass to look out on the open park bordered on the north and south sides by the townhomes of Eaton Square before she threw the sash up the rest of the way and ducked her head out for a better look only to be bulleted in the forehead by another geologic projectile.
“Ouch!”she griped, rubbing her forehead.“What the bloody–?”
“Fiona!”a cheerful voice sounded.She searched and discovered a tall, slender male form outlined in the darkness.“There you are!”
“Lord Ramsay!”she exclaimed, truly surprised to see her would-be fiancé hovering behind the hedges in front of her brother’s London townhouse after she had departed from him weeks before in Edinburgh.“What are you doing here?”
At my window?In the middle of the night?
“I’ve come to see you, my darling,” he called.“Might I come up?”
Fiona hesitated indecisively, trailing the lace curtains between her fingers.Come up?She dashed a sidelong glance around her room.Gowns and undergarments were strewn about willy-nilly, the counterpane on her bed turned back and rumpled...the hairbrush on her vanity.Come up?To herroom?The idea sounded disconcertedly intimate.
“Nooo...”she answered slowly, then decided impulsively, “but I will come down.”
* * *
Closing the front dooras quietly as she could, Fiona hugged her hastily donned redingote around her and dashed nimbly across the cobbled street into the grassy green of the Eaton Square Gardens.
“Lord Ramsay?”She whispered into the night as she looked about for his location.The park was flat and only sparsely dotted with trees, yet she couldn’t readily see him.
“Lord Ramsay?Where are you?”She cried out shortly when a large hand caught her upper arm and pulled her unceremoniously behind one of the larger oaks.
Rich male laughter rang out as a strong arm slipped about her waist.“I’ve got you!”Ramsay chuckled and bent his head to nuzzle Fiona’s neck.“Ah, darling, how I’ve missed you!Have you missed me as well?”
She stiffened.In surprise only, she told herself sternly before turning out of her beau’s embrace.“Of course, but what are you doing here, Lord Ramsay?”
“That supercilious butler of your brother’s would not allow me entry when I tried to call on you earlier,” he said.“The old codger kept insisting you weren’t at home.”
“We weren’t at home,” she told him, not that Hobbes would have admitted him in any case.
Hobbes, who had been Eve’s butler before she married Francis, often refused to admit anyone into their Edinburgh home whom he didn’t approve of.Unfortunately, very few people met his standards, leaving many high-ranking nobles cooling their heels at the door.Since Francis had expressed his dislike of Lord Ramsay, it wasn’t surprising that Hobbes would also put him off.And Hobbes was far less accommodating than her brother.
Still, that hadn’t been what she meant, so she rephrased her question.“No, not the park.What are you doing here?In London?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to London?”he countered with a petulant pout marring his otherwise handsome features.“I had to find it out from one of your housemaids instead of from your lips.”
“I sent you a note,” she protested, only to realize at that moment that if her brothers wanted to separate her from an unwanted suitor, something as simple as a letter would not stop him from making it so.
Rather than give Lord Ramsay a grisly list of the details, Fiona only said then what she had relayed in her apparently confiscated letter.“Francis is insisting that I take in the Season before I settle down to assure himself that I’m not being rash in accepting your proposal.”
“Rash?”he repeated.“Why would he think it rash to accept an honorable offer?It is because he doesn’t like me, isn’t it?”
Her head began to nod of its own accord before Fiona stifled the urge and replied mildly.“He doesn’t know you, my lord.Perhaps it is a good thing that you’re here.If you stay as well, you can get to know him, and indeed all my brothers.Then perhaps they will see reason.”
“You’re the only reasonable one out of the lot,” Ramsay replied, making a claim that no other ever had made regarding her standing in the MacKintosh family.A claim that only substantiated her brother’s assertion that her decision to wed had been an injudicious one.Donovan Ramsay, apparently, honestly did not know her at all.
“Having the opportunity to become better acquainted with them before we wed should not be so frowned upon, my lord,” she told him.“It will also give us a chance to know each other better.Then by the time the Season is done, my brothers will see just how set I am on accepting your suit.Yes, this is just the thing, really.”
“Or perhaps a better demonstration of your resolve would be to simply run away with me now,” he countered.“How many opportunities like this might present themselves?Here we are alone, unchaperoned in the dead of night.No one is about to stop us.What say you, darling?Shall we?”
