Aylesbury blinked, coming out of his sightless reverie as Fiona pulled alongside of him on a large black Frisian Aylesbury recognized all too well.“I didn’t know the countess had brought Angel to London with her.”
“I’ve sort of adopted Angel these past couple of years,” Fiona said, patting the horse’s neck.Her slim hands were encased in simple black leather gloves quite unlike what he had grown used to seeing on her.Thankful for the distraction, Aylesbury admired the snug fit of her black riding habit.The double-breasted jacket fitted about her tiny waist before flaring out over her hips with just a splash of her red brocade waistcoat peeking from the bottom and at the simple tie banding her white high-necked blouse.She wore black leather boots and a simple satin-banded top hat akin to his own.
Neat and severe as usual, but a breeze lifted the hem of her skirt.The sight of riotous red satin floral embroidery blooming up her black stockings filled him with pleasure.“You look lovely, Fiona.”
Fiona blinked at the softly spoken compliment and shifted uncomfortably in her saddle before responding with a simple thank you.“Are you all right, Harry?”she asked again with open concern.“I saw you speaking with Miss Langston.”
He hadn’t seen her in several days, believing she would be harboring even more ill will toward him than ever.Caring he had not expected, but it was there, readily apparent in her bottle-green eyes.“Do you think I’m a fool?”
“Often.”
Aylesbury smiled at that.She pulled no punches.
“Did you find out anything at all?”When Aylesbury shook his head, her lovely eyes dimmed, and she reached across the space between them, squeezing his hand, perhaps the first open sign of caring she had offered since coming to London.Certainly, it was the first touch she had initiated.Sorrow, for him.“I’m sorry, Harry.”
“I didn’t expect anything.”Turning his hand over, Aylesbury allowed his fingers to curl around hers, then entwine through them.He looked down at their tightly laced fingers.Their gloved hands melded together, one.Fiona’s eyes followed his, and with a blush, she pulled her hand away.Much to his surprise, she didn’t leave him abruptly but instead lingered.
“What became of Piper?After your father banished her mother, that is?”
Though it was clearly not the topic he had been expecting, Aylesbury answered, “Father kept Piper with us.She was ours, and we both loved her so much.She brought a light into our lives that had been absent since Mother’s death.When Father died, he made me her guardian, not her mother, Gretchen.But I was a young man, a bachelor with no other close female relatives and no notion of how to raise an eleven-year-old on my own.To my eternal regret, I brought her mother to town and bought them a house not far from mine so that I could visit Piper.And I did, daily.And wrote just the same when we were apart.I know Piper would have rather been with me, and I felt the same way, but I didn’t feel I had another option.I certainly wasn’t going to have Gretchen back in my home though she waved the banner of her title around town enough.It will be my extreme pleasure to take it away from her, perhaps someday quite soon?”
A not-so-subtle hint, but Fiona didn’t take the bait.
Instead, she thought about Piper Brudenall, who had lost a father and never truly had a mother.Fiona, too, had lost her parents very young.Her mother had died just days after giving birth to her.Though her father had gratefully refrained from remarrying as rashly as Harry’s, Alexander MacKintosh had done little else in life before following his beloved wife into an early grave before Fiona’s third birthday.Thankfully, Francis, even though he had been just eighteen when he had become guardian to them all, never considered sending her off to live with Granny, their only female relative.
Being raised by ten older brothers had been wonderful, but as a result, she’d had few feminine influences in her life.Other than her nannies and the rare governess, there had been no women about—other than Francis’ damned wife, who everyone agreed did not count—until Richard had married Abby when she was twelve.Even then, the pair had been wrapped up in each other and their new baby.
But if there was one thing Fiona did learn about during her unusual childhood, it was men.She knew them at their worst.How they were when they were among themselves and how they were when women were about to prompt their finer manners.And as one by one her brothers found love and wed, she knew how men acted when they loved a woman.
When Harry came along years before, he hadn’t displayed those actions toward her.She could admit that honestly now.But he hadn’t done so with Moira either as he courted her.
No, his heart had not been engaged.At seventeen initially and then eighteen, when it had all come to a head, Fiona had been determined that it would be.With her.She’d failed miserably.
That didn’t mean his heart couldn’t be hers now.If she dared believe him.
“What are you thinking?”
Fiona shook her head.“Nothing.Just about your sister.”
With a sigh, Aylesbury shifted in his saddle.“Ah, Fiona.You hide your feelings from me...from your family.You think they are too much to bear, but you don’t realize what it might be like to lose your loved ones, to long for them.You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.”
Yes, she did.In more ways than he might think and more than she would admit to.“Is that when you realized it?”
Aylesbury met her eyes so intently that for a moment, Fiona wasn’t sure if he were any more certain than she whether they were speaking of siblings or themselves.The past or the present.“How much she meant to you?”she clarified.
“I will tell her one day,” he said.“When I find her again, I mean.”
Fiona watched with a frown.“I’m sorry, Harry.I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t.”
“I know you see women on the street and think it might be Piper, but you do know that she wouldn’t just be walking around London like that, don’t you?”Fiona bit her lip, knowing her question was more than a little cruel.Life had taught her that the truth often hurt, though.
“I know deep down that is true.Still, I see her everywhere, everywhere I turn, like a ghost lingering at the corner of my eye.I cannot help but try to find her.You see, it’s hope that drives me, Fiona.Hope for better days.Hope that I might right the wrongs I so thoughtlessly made in the past.”
He looked at her then, his eyes probing hers once again, and Fiona had to wonder again who and what he was referring to.
“You can’t spend the rest of your life chasing ghosts, Harry.”
