Chapter 2
Francis has promised to take me to London!
Well, he hasn’t actually promised but I do think that perhaps he might be on the verge of agreeing if Granny might be convinced to take me on for the Season.
While I understand that a single gentleman—even if he is an earl—cannot be expected to properly launch a debutante properly into Society, I might have liked to have had someone more.
..well, young and energetic to sponsor me.
Still, beggars cannot be choosers.
I’ve never understood why that is.
~From the diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh—March 1892
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The home of Lord and Lady Onslow
Mayfair, London, England
Early May 1895
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The London Season was everything Fiona had always imagined it might be, and so much less.
“Fiona, please do not slouch!” Lady Hyde, her maternal grandmother, poked Fiona in the back with the end of her fan, the sharp blow mercifully dulled by the stiff steel of her corset.
Aye, this was exactly how she imagined it. It was like being seventeen again when she had dreamed of a Season.
Vin had been correct. There had been a time when she wanted nothing more than to have a London Season. To attend balls, garden parties, and the theater. To dance and flirt and find the man of her dreams.
She had managed that without a Season at all.
Since then, the potential to see him and meet him again kept her from pressing for a true London Season these past two years.
And here she was anyway.
“Yes, Granny,” she sighed and straightened her shoulders dutifully, knowing that any other response would only make matters worse.
But even the worst of her imaginings hadn’t included being prodded with the business end of a surprisingly sharp fan, and Fiona was in possession of a luridly vivid imagination.
Vivid enough to cast ghostly sightings of a particular gentleman in every crowd.
To hear haunting echoes of a deep, rich voice and warm laughter.
To conjure enough dreadful anticipation to catch at the very fibers of her nerves until they were frayed to the last thread.
Only the dogged unwillingness to back down from a challenge kept her nerves intact. Of course, it was the same cursed stubbornness that had landed her in London to begin with. She was her own worst enemy in so many ways.
She had been on pins and needles all week. Waiting. Dreading.
Thankfully, the very worst of what she expected from the Season hadn’t yet come to be.
They’d been in town a week so far without the reason for her reticence making an unwelcome appearance.
Fiona was beginning to feel the first stirrings of optimism that she might not face that awkward encounter at all.
It was optimism enough now, halfway through her first ball, for Fiona’s natural good humor to begin reasserting itself.
Another jab. “Posture!”
It was a good thing, too. Two nights past, the tension of waiting for a glimpse of him would have had Fiona snatching that fan from her grandmother’s hand and snapping the delicate mother-of-pearl blades in half.
Thankfully, tonight, she could comply, if not cheerfully, at least without a sharp retort.
Unfortunately, throwing back her shoulders also caused a forward thrust of her breasts. They swelled against the low neckline of her ball gown, prompting another frown to crease the older woman’s brow.
“Demure, Fiona,” her grandmother dictated, gracefully lifting her head and shoulders by example. “You must be more reserved if you want any potential suitors to approach.”
“I’m finding that being surrounded by nine overly protective brothers seems to frighten off any potential suitors far more efficiently than my demeanor,” Fiona responded pertly.
Sadly, the only reward for her rediscovered sense of humor was yet another arrogantly raised brow, but it wasn’t enough to deter Fiona’s tongue.
“’Twould be like passing beneath the stare of the Sphinx to approach. ”
“They do serve to filter out the rabble, however,” Lady Hyde countered as she fanned herself haughtily. “We cannot simply have you thrown to the wolves like a robber baron’s only daughter. No offense intended, of course, Evelyn,” she added to Glenrothes’ wife, who stood at her other side.
“None taken, my lady.”
Fiona shared a grin with her sister-in-law, who was technically not the only daughter of an American robber baron. She had a sister.
“Wolves, Granny?” Fiona addressed her grandmother with a low chuckle. “Nay, they are not wolves but sharks. See how they circle me, like a tasty bit of bait in these frigid waters? Every one of them ready to devour me.”
Fiona smiled flirtatiously at a passing gentleman, even going so far as to hold her fan in front of her face with her left hand to indicate in the age-old language of the fan that she desired his attention.
Though the man nearly tripped over his feet as he turned to watch her, he didn’t approach, proving her point.
“My brothers have become the shoals that protect me and keep me safe, and you as well, Granny, as colorful as an anemone that enfolds me. Little do my brothers know that their behavior is counterproductive to their edict that I let myself be courted—and so is yours, Granny. One cannot court where one cannot first meet.”
Lady Hyde’s lips pursed. “Evelyn,” she said tightly aside once more.
“Your influence upon my dear Fiona has made tremendous strides these past several years. She can be everything that is proper and demure, a true lady...when she wishes to be. However, with such unseemly outbursts continuing, I fear that her more rebellious nature is not to be contained.”
Eve smiled serenely and offered ruefully, “I did try to beat it out of her again and again, my lady, but to no avail. At least she no longer indiscreetly hangs out over the balcony at the theater to call greetings to her friends and wave at random gentlemen.”
Lady Hyde snorted indelicately as Fiona beamed fondly at Eve.
There was a reason Eve was one of her favorite sisters-in-law.
“Thank goodness for small favors,” the elderly lady said, taking Eve’s hand in hers and patting it lightly.
“Indeed, my granddaughter’s more flamboyant displays are now thankfully largely confined to the privacy of her own home.
Quite unlike your behavior, dear girl, when you had your first Season here. ”
Eve squeezed the dear old lady’s hand between hers and winked at Fiona. “I blame my American upbringing, of course. Why, with your tutelage at a younger age, perhaps it might not have taken me quite so long to become a proper lady.”
“Perhaps not. Perhaps not,” Lady Hyde patted Eve’s hand again as if her words were not blatantly tongue-in-cheek. “Though you are now, of course.”
Eve winced but added smoothly, “As Fiona will surely be one day as well.”
Lady Hyde only raised a brow but did not verbally concur.
Not that Fiona expected her to, of course.
She’d long been a trial to her grandmother, especially in the unhindered years between her mother’s death and Richard’s marriage to Abby.
Perhaps Lady Hyde might have taken her more firmly in hand when Fiona’s mother died if she hadn’t been mourning the death of her only daughter, her only child, and things might have been different for Fiona now.
She might be more ladylike, more subdued, but she was not and was, admittedly, thankful for it.
In truth, she was rather glad to have been raised as she was.
It had made her who she was...exasperation to her grandmother and all.
Dear old thing...
“Posture, Fiona!” Lady Hyde prodded Fiona with the point of her fan once again, effectively poking away any tender sentiment that might have hovered in Fiona’s mind.
She scowled at her grandmother, lips parted for a retort when Eve shifted uncomfortably by her side.
“Lady Hyde, I feel a tad fatigued after all this standing. Would you mind terribly if Fiona helped me to those chairs on the far side of the room?”
“Not at all, Evelyn,” Lady Hyde allowed grandly. “I have said it before, and I shall say it again: it was quite wrong of my grandson to bring you out so soon. Away with you!”
“She’s said it about a thousand times,” Fiona whispered fiercely as Eve took her by the arm and led her away.
“She’s driving me batty and wields that fan like a bloody sword.
I’m as bruised as a prizefighter, and we’ve not even seen supper yet!
” Noticing that Eve was leading her toward the refreshment table and not the chairs set aside for wallflowers and matrons, Fiona frowned. “Didn’t you need to sit down, Evie?”
Eve’s musical chuckle mingled softly into the melodic strains of the Strauss waltz being played by the orchestra, and she whispered confidentially, “La, Fiona, after three babies in three years, I’m fairly certain I could take a break from dancing to birth a child and return for the next set without delay. ”
It was Fiona’s turn to laugh at Eve’s uncharacteristically bawdy comment. “I knew that must have been a piece of flummery but I didn’t dare call you out since you were so kindly liberating me from Granny’s reach. I don’t know how I’m to endure much more of this.”
Eve only smiled. “Your grandmother merely relishes having her only granddaughter presented for the Season. You should take so much pleasure.”
“How can I? We’ve been here a week already, and I haven’t been able to meet a single gentleman who did not cower away under her hawkish glare or my brothers’ overbearing presence.
I haven’t even been asked for a dance.” Eve opened her mouth to respond, but Fiona rushed to add a proviso to her statement, “Someone other than one of my brothers. Did they all have to come along? I’m surrounded by them.
Why, even Jack Merrill is here, and he’s not even related! ”
“Oh, pish posh,” Eve dismissed with a wave of her hand.
“If you’re not enjoying the Season, it is because of your own determination not to.
If I had been the one to tell you that we were coming for the Season, you would have been overjoyed, and I said as much to Francis.
You’re simply upset that your brothers have finally denied you something when they’ve done nothing but spoil you your entire life.
But, dearest, in spiting them, you only spite yourself. ”
She had been spoiled. There was no point denying it.
But when one’s every wish was granted, a certain expectation for more of the same became understandable over time.
That her wishes hadn’t been granted in this instance still befuddled Fiona.
Even so, it wasn’t spite that kept her from enjoying herself.
If she were honest with herself, Fiona knew that it was the fading but still tangible possibility of spotting one particular head amongst the crowd that kept her on pins and needles, leaving her feeling far too testy to enjoy much at all.
Ever perceptive, Eve’s eyes narrowed. “You know, I’m beginning to think that’s not it at all. You haven’t been yourself for weeks. What is it that has you so tied in knots?”
“The fact that Francis brought me here against my wishes isn’t enough?”
“If it were only that, I could understand your anger,” Eve said. “But this isn’t anger I’m seeing. What is it?”
Since fear was the last emotion Fiona would ever admit to even in the confessional, she only shrugged. “Bafflement, pure and simple, that I must endure this. Lord Ramsay is a lord, not a stable lad or shopkeeper.”
“Nor is he at all what we imagined for you.” Eve managed a serene smile, though clearly, she did not credit Fiona’s defense.
“But there are a hundred gentlemen here in this room who might be. If not, a hundred more still to be met. Perhaps if you worked as hard at enjoying yourself as you do holding this grudge, you might not have a frown on your face that can be dreadfully off-putting to any other gentlemen who might dare to ask for a dance.”
“Humph! It isn’t any frown of mine that is discouraging any potential suitors. It is the frowns and glowers of nine...no, ten, oversized Scotsmen that are scaring them off. Thank goodness James had the courtesy to remain in New York.”
“I’m certain if we had given him greater warning...”
It wasn’t easy to nurse her temper when Eve was equally determined to soothe it away. Reluctantly giving in to a smile, Fiona took a deep breath, exhaling the last of her ire.
“Better. Now smile, or you shall frighten the gentlemen off yourself. Though how they can stay away, I cannot imagine. You look beautiful.” Eve whispered and kissed her cheek.
Fiona fiddled with a length of ribbon hanging from her waist with a surprisingly modest blush.
She had wanted to look her best tonight, and she felt beautiful thanks to Eve’s insistence the previous spring (while Eve had been between pregnancies) that they spend a glorious month in Paris having their wardrobes made.
Tonight, she wore a gown from a new designer in Paris, the House of Paquin.
The silk gown was of a lavender, so pale it was almost white.
The bodice and front panel of the simple, A-line skirt were covered in delicate floral and scrolling tambour embroidery of darker purples, white and brown.
Along the edge of the low-cut bodice was a border of brown velvet ribbon, trimmed with a narrow, pleated edge of white lace that cast a soft shadow across the tops of her breasts and ran up to the very edge of her shoulder before soft Chantilly cascaded in layers down her upper arms.
“I would say you look breathtaking.”
Fiona stilled her to the core.
Isn’t that how it always went? The moment your defenses were down...