“Fine.”Fiona swallowed back her anxiety as his arm slipped comfortingly around her waist.She didn’t want to worry him if the danger had been but a figment of her imagination, nor did she want to mention her recent confrontations to anyone else.“I’m fine.I just got worried when I couldn’t see you anyone.”
“God, I’m sorry.It was thoughtless of me to let my frustrations leave you open to any danger.Real or otherwise.Are you sure you’re all right?”Aylesbury asked with a frown of concern, hugging her close to his side.“You look flushed.”
“I’m fine,” she repeated.“And I’m sorry, Harry.For what, or rather what I did not say earlier.”
The furrow marring his brow deepened.“I beg your pardon?Now I know something must be wrong.”
It might have been a joke meant to tease her into a smile, but she only shook her head.“No, not at all.I just need to...believe that I am safe with you.That’s all.”
“You don’t?”
Refusing to glance back and see if the old gypsy was still watching her, she forced a smile for his sake.“I do right now.”
Chapter 24
I have submitted a letter to the Ladies Journal editors cancelling my periodical subscription.If the fashion advice offered within those pages proves to be as fallacious as their advice to the tender hearts of Britain, I shall know that the whole of it contains nothing but drivel, just as Francis warned.
~From the diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh—Apr 1893
––––––––
Hyde Park
Three days later
––––––––
“Iam doing all of thisfor you, you know.I came to London...”
“I told you before, Lord Ramsay, that I intended to wait until the Season ends,” Fiona interrupted.Pedestrians strolling by eyed them quizzically.The sight of a single young woman dressed to ride but leading her mount instead as she conversed with a man on foot must not have been a common one.“I didn’t ask you to come to London if you recall.However, I did request you take this time to get to know my family.Instead of doing that, you’ve insisted on clandestine meetings...”
In turn, Ramsay interrupted her, stopping her with a hand on her arm.“All your talk of waiting out the Season.If you had simply eloped with me, none of that would have happened!Why won’t you reconsider?”
“Good Lord Almighty,” Fiona muttered under her breath.“Please do not ask me again!”
His icy blue eyes were heavy on hers, petulant, containing none of the adoration Fiona had come to expect.Just as none of their conversations compared any longer to the lighthearted banter they had once shared.Though they had always parted with Ramsay’s good-natured apology, she was beginning to see a side of him she could not like as his frustration grew.
