“I’m afraidI must insist.”
She gathered up her papers from the desk, tapping the edges hard against the table. “Very well then. Once you have those signatures, the patent will be approved, correct?”
“Once we have those signatures, your application will be assessed. Now if I can just get you to go back into the waiting room and fill out page six of this application because it seems to be missing.”
Fiona took a long, deep breath, using those few seconds to revise her words to ones more suitable to a professional environment. “I checked the application ten times before I sent it to you. Nothing is missing.”
Mr. Jones shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. I have your application, but I don’t have page six. We can do this another time if you have somewhere more important to be. Shopping, perhaps?”
Fiona ground her teeth. Truthfully, she was supposed to be going to court. But she could hardly admit that. “Certainly. I’ll copy that page out now and leave it with your man at the desk.”
They both stood and she offered him her hand to shake. He looked at it as though her gloves smelled like sulfur and clasped his hands behind his back.
“Good day, Miss McTavish. When you provide page six, please try and use the same handwriting to avoid any awkward questions arising during your application assessment.”
***
Edward stood, arms crossed, in the center of his lawyer’s office at noon. The clock had chimed with each tap of his fingers against his coat. Rollins, the Wildeforde family barrister, was looking at his pocket watch with a disapproving stare that deepened with each bong.
Fiona was running late.
Another reason she’d make a terrible duchess.
Another five minutes passed. Edward stared at the bookshelf studying the dry legal titles. It was the only way to stop himself from staring out the small window that overlooked the street.
He would not wait for her like a mooning boy.
After twenty minutes, just as Edward had decided to take his carriage to Asterly’s town house and physically drag Fiona here, there was a sharp rap at the door.
Rollins’s man opened the door and Fiona entered, tugging the edges of the ridiculous wig she’d worn the day before. Her cheeks were flushed, and she moved with a flightiness that suggested her mind was not where it needed to be.
“I’m sorry. We’re going to be late. I know. I had to go from Loffman Street to Ben’s house and then here. And there was an overturned cart that was causing all sorts of delays.” She looked at Rollins first, then turned to Edward, clearly apprehensive.
As she should be.“What are you wearing?” he ground out.
Fiona looked down. She held out the edges of her coat, revealing a pair of clean, buckskin breeches filled out with the absurd padding other men of thetonsported, a pressed linen shirt, and a waistcoat that was simple but elegantly made. They did a good job of hiding her figure. The costume displayed none of the curves he knew were beneath.
But surely no one was blind enough to mistake her for a man. Her eyelashes were too long, to start with, and her lips were too full. They were lush and pink and currently pursed in a way that made his hands itch to reach out to her.
“These are the nicest clothes I own,” she said, oblivious to his thoughts. “I realize they aren’t silks and jeweled buttons, but they cost eight pounds. Surely it’s suitable for court?” She turned to Rollins as though she expected him to support her. Fool woman.
Rollins swept his gaze from the tips of her boots to the cap she’d placed on top of her wig, before turning to Edward. “I was under the impression I was representing Miss Fiona, Your Grace.”
“You are,” Edward bit out. He took Fiona by the shoulder and towed her toward the window, feeling every bit as he did when talking to William. “You can’t go dressed like that,” he hissed.
“How else am I supposed to dress?”
Lord save him from quarrelsome women who were being deliberately obtuse. “Like a lady. In a dress. With your hair done and a bonnet and gloves.”
She held up her hands, a satisfied smirk on her face. “I have gloves.”
He exhaled, trying to find the calm that had abandoned him the moment her footman walked in the day before. “For heaven’s sake, Fi. You’ve been arrested for disturbing the peace. They’re not going to send a finely dressed lady to jail but they may well send a cocky lad too big for his britches.”
Her expression shifted to something that was almost apologetic. “That’s a risk I’m going to have to take. I cannae go to court as Fiona McTavish. No businessman will take me seriously if they read that I’m just out of Old Bailey.”
“Then one would think you should have thought about that before you joined the frenzied throng of protesters outside Westminster Palace.” Curse it, she was going to give him an apoplexy. Not even his brother was harebrained enough to turn up in front of a magistrate in disguise.
“It’s not an option.” Fiona shook her head. “Besides, no judge is going to put me in prison with the Duke of Wildeforde speaking for me.”
