“Run away?”Fiona echoed, stunned.“You meanelope?”
She could not help that the word emerged with conspicuous distaste.She might be reckless, liberal, and fairly indecorous at times, but she wasn’t one to disgrace her family by eloping and birthing scandalous blather about what impetus she might have to embark on such an appalling flight.The MacKintoshs had been generating fodder for the gossip mills for years.While they might tend to wed with unseemly haste in general, it was a ritual completed with the knowledge and support of the family at large and always validated by true, if somewhat irrepressible, love.
Ramsay, however, did not seem to notice her aversion to the idea but enthusiastically forged ahead: “Yes, darling!Let us run away and be wed straight away.Once it is done, your family will come around.They will see us together and so in love that they will see that they were wrong to try to separate us.”
“They are not trying to separate us,” Fiona lied blithely.No, they wereinsistingon it.“As I said, they are merely requesting a period of reflection.When they see that we are indeed steadfast in our determination to wed, they will come around.”
“What if they don’t?”
“But they will,” she said with unwavering conviction.“They always have.I cannot see a single reason they would truly deny me in the end.I just need to play along with this.When they see that there is not another whom I wish to wed, they will accept you.”
But for the first time, doubt reared its ugly head, and a frown creased her brow.Despite the unprecedented denial of her wishes, it had taken only a matter of hours afterwards for her temper to cool and to see Francis’ “compromise” for what it really was.A test.A test of her resolve.She might be compelled to play along, but she would still have what she wanted in the end.
A life of her own.A husband.Ramsay.
Fiona flicked a glance up and down Lord Ramsay’s lanky height.He was everything she had been looking for in a husband, but was he unique?Wouldn’t another do just as well?Lord Temple, perhaps?
Shaking her head, she pushed the traitorous thought away.No, she had chosen Ramsay for precisely the person he was and everything he would be in a husband.
To think otherwise would be to admit she had been impulsive.
She sighed.
“Is there another?”
“Hmm?What?”Fiona asked in confusion.
“You said that your family would see that there isn’t another you wish to wed,” Ramsay said.“Are you encouraging other gentlemen?Allowing them to court you?”
There was something chilling in his tone, something that hinted at possessiveness that set her teeth on edge.“It is not yet your business what I encourage or allow, Donovan Ramsay,” Fiona scolded, beginning as she meant to go on.“But I will say this: I am allowing my brother his wishes in this matter to prove to him that I know my mind.You are my choice.If you wish to remain so, I suggest that you, too, allow him this time to be as assured as I.”
“Then you will not elope with me?”
“No, Lord Ramsay, I am not prepared to so blatantly disregard my family, nor will I run away like some shameless hussy,” she told him firmly.“What I am prepared to do is wait them out.”
He tensed as if preparing for battle before visibly relaxing.“Then I suppose I have no choice but to wait with you.”
“You may call on me tomorrow, and we will talk more.”
“And have your supercilious butler deny me entrance as he did tonight?”Ramsay scoffed.“It is an embarrassment to be left standing on the stoop.Meet me in the park instead.”
“Very well,” she conceded.It was just as well.Even if she were actually at home, she didn’t know if Hobbes would admit him, even begrudgingly.She would have to speak with him.“I will.”
“Then I will see you in the morning.”He leaned in, not for the kiss he had tried to claim before but simply brushing his lips against her cheek, his mustache tickling her tender skin.“Dream of me?”
Fiona swallowed.“Of course.”
