“That’s not necessary.I suspect what I have to say will come as no great surprise to either of you, but first”—She frowned at her brother—“We had a bargain, you and I.I give you the Season here, and in turn, I was to be free to wed where I please.But that wasn’t it at all, was it?I was free to wed, but only with your approval.I would like to know, what was your plan for the end of the Season if I didn’t meet another gentleman?”
“Fiona...”
“No, Evie,” Fiona said.“We had a bargain and if I am to hold up my end, Francis had bloody well be prepared to hold up his.I did not come here...I did not endure what I have these past weeks only to have my compensation for it all.What would you have done if the end of the Season came about and I still preferred Ramsay?”
“Hauled you back home kicking and screaming, I suspect,” he answered dryly.
“I’m not a child to be coddled,” Fiona told him.“You’ve all been quite vocal against Lord Ramsay without—I believed—just cause.Why didn’t you simply tell me the truth?Why did you feel so compelled to enact this farce?Wasn’t there anyone who thought I was adult enough to handle it?”
“What truth is that?”
Fiona threw up her hands.“Even now?Aylesbury tells me that Lord Ramsay is nothing but a fortune hunter.That his uncle is looking to bypass him as his heir by remarrying.Is that true?Did you know?”
Glenrothes sighed and pushed himself to his feet, holding out a hand to her before dropping it to his side.“In truth, I didn’t trust your temper, Blossom.I feared in a spurt of anger you might run off with him and be wed before common sense prevailed.”
“Instead, I was nearly to the point of eloping with him just to assuage my anger with all of you,” Fiona said, shaking her head.“You put me in a position I didn’t want to be in, something I would have avoided at almost any cost.Only my pride forced me to come along.All of this could have been avoided.All of it.”
“We didn’t want to see you hurt, Fiona,” Eve said gently.
“Hurt?”Fiona turned to her sister-in-law.“What hurts me is that my entire family would go behind my back to pull this ruse without ever thinking to trust me to do the right thing.You knew I didn’t love him.”
“Don’t blame Eve, Blossom,” Glenrothes said, protecting his wife as usual.“Perhaps it wouldn’t have broken your heart, but it would have been a blow to your pride, which we all know is as brutal as a January blizzard.It’s true we didn’t want to see you hurt in any way.None of us did.Not by one fortune hunter or the next who might follow him.I thought if I could force you into a situation where you would meet some more eligible men, your infatuation with Ramsay would fade away before it fully bloomed.”
“I’m not hurt by Ramsay’s intentions, but I am infuriated by yours, Francis,” she said sadly.All she had seen in Ramsay was the pleasant heir to an earldom.A man she liked well enough and seemed to share enough common interests with.A man who played her very well and promised her the escape she needed.“Is that why you hit him when he went to see you at your club?”
“Aye, especially after the bastard said he’d marry you with or without my permission.”
That would explain Ramsay’s persistent pleas to elope.“Why would he do that?”Fiona asked.“My dowry was at your discretion.He needed your approval to have my fortune, even if it came after the fact.I assume you made it clear that he wouldn’t have it?”
“I did, but somehow he knew about the rest of it,” Glenrothes said, running a hand through his hair.“I still don’t understand it.”
“The rest of it,” Fiona asked in confusion.“What rest of it?”
“You are Granny’s heir.Her sole beneficiary, and you will also have the fortune Father set aside for you.It will all be yours to do with as you will when you turn twenty-one.”
“Twenty-one!”
“Father did not believe his daughter should have to wait any longer than his sons for what would someday be hers,” he added.“Somehow, Ramsay knew that.If he got you to the altar, it would all be his.”
It took a moment for Fiona to absorb it all.How utterly humiliating to be taken in so easily by a man with such ignoble motivations!Talk about a blow to her pride.“Yes, I can see that very clearly now.Thank you.I suppose I must be thankful then that I learned the truth before yielding to his requests.”
“Yes, thank God,” Eve agreed.“I’m sorry, Fiona.I did want you to know.Vin, too.”
“Out-numbered, were you?”she jested.“I know well how that feels.Well, that is that, I suppose, unless there are anyone else’s intentions you’d like to revile now before I take a liking to them?”
“Are you still open to finding another match here this Season then?”Eve asked, smiling with pleasure.“With the fortune that will soon be yours, you do not have to marry.”
Even if he weren’t the best solution to her problem, Ramsay had been the easiest and most expeditious.She doubted another would come along that quickly.“If I don’t wed straight away, perhaps I could stay in London with Granny.”
Fiona cringed even as she said it.Not only the contrary sentiment to her choice already made but also the alternative.Stay in London indeed!That would place her within constant reach of the sharp end of her grandmother’s fan and throw herself into constant contact with Harry to boot.There was no saying which would be more painful.
Thinking back over the previous days, the confessions that tore at her heart and the passion that had overtaken her good sense, she knew the answer.She didn’t fully trust him yet, but she could not bear seeing him again and again, knowing she might have him.
Fearing she never truly would.
The thought was beyond bearing.
Yet so tempting.
