Chapter 14
Oscar Wilde once wrote, “I can resist everything except temptation.”I did not understand what that meant at the time, but think I have it now.
~From the journal of the Marquis of Aylesbury—Mar 1893
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Awet splash ploppedheavily against her cheek, and Fiona wiped it away, refusing to give into tears.But another followed the first, then another on her nose.Puzzled, Fiona lifted her head only to realize that the sunshine had disappeared not only figuratively but literally.Grey clouds filled the sky with drops falling far faster than tears.
“Damn, indeed,” she muttered to herself as she noticed pedestrians scattering from the suddenly saturated streets.Where was Glynna?And their carriage?Fiona looked around, trying to spot either or both before the rain decided to make a more significant impression.
She had gone one street and then another.The rain was ruining her parasol, and her ivory leather half-boots weren’t fairing much better.She was a sodden mess and near tears when a hansom cab pulled to a halt beside her.
“Offer ye a ride, mum?”the Cockney driver asked, tugging his cap low over his brow as he secured the reins and leapt down from his perch to open the cab door.
He was a rather disreputable-looking fellow, Fiona thought.Dodgy, young Laurie would have called him.Even for a cabby.Especially one with a cabriolet as fine looking as the one the cabby drove.“No, thank you,” she said primly, continuing on.“My carriage is just ahead.”
“Ain’t nobody waiting ’ere any more with the rain, mum.Look for yerself.Come now.I’ll gi’ ye a ride wherever ye want to go.”He held out a gloved hand and flexed his fingers in a gesture that beseeched her to come along.Not spying her carriage anywhere down the street, Fiona looked from the hand to the dark interior of the hansom—the warm, invitinglydryinterior—before her gaze moved back to the hand and up to the man’s face, which was flat, brutish and not at all as inviting as the inside of his conveyance.
“My carriage would not have left without one of the footmen giving notice,” she said aloud, only realizing it as she spoke.
“I can gi’ ye a ride, in any case,” he insisted stubbornly.“Now step up, yer gettin’ wet, ye are.”
With a sigh of surrender, she took a step forward.She did so want to be out of the rain.
“Fiona!”
Hearing her name, she looked back to find Aylesbury in an elegant Victoria carriage that pulled up behind the hansom, not an enclosed conveyance like the hansom but partially open.“Allow me to give you a ride home.”
Ha, Fiona thought inwardly.As if she’d get in a carriage with him after he abandoned her on the street for another woman!She wasn’t going anywhere with him.
“I’ve got ’er, govnur.Needn’t bother yerself,” the cabby said.
“I will compensate you for the lost fare, chap.Never fear,” Aylesbury assured him, reaching inside his breast pocket for his purse.
The cabby stepped in front of Fiona, blocking Aylesbury from view.“I’ll be taking my fare, gov.”
She felt his beefy hand around her arm a moment later, pulling her insistently toward the hackney.She turned startled, panicked eyes toward Aylesbury, who was already jumping down from his carriage, as was his liveried driver.Yes, she would rather go with Aylesbury instead.What was it they said?Better the devil you know?
She tried to shake off the cabby’s grasp, but he held on quite rudely.“Release me!”she commanded, raising the wilted remains of her parasol to beat him off.
“I say there,” Aylesbury said, narrowing his gaze on the cabby.“Remove your hands from her at once!”
“Come along, mum,” the driver tugged once more on her arm, but when the marquis and his driver got within a dozen steps of them, muttered, “Ta hell wi’ it,” before releasing her and leaping into the hansom and whipping the horse into action.
“Are you alright?”he asked, running his hands down her arms as if to assure himself of the answer before she had a chance to speak.
“I am.”She laughed unsteadily.“He was rather insistent, wasn’t he?Poor man must be in desperate need of funds.”
“It did appear so.”He looked down at her with a frown.“You’re nearly soaked through, and your poor parasol!No longer a favorite, I believe.Come, get in my carriage.”
As shaken as she was, she would have gone with him willingly enough after that spot of humor if he hadn’t added that last bit.The lordly command overrode her softer side in need of comfort he could provide and harkened the return of her still simmering irritation for his repeated desertion.If he hadn’t left her in the first place, none of this would have happened.
“I couldn’t possibly, Lord Aylesbury,” she declared sweetly.“How rude it would be of me to have you abandon another lady in favor of my company.”
