Chapter 35
God forgive me for I know not what I am bloody well doing!
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“Harry, I...I...”
Fiona stumbled for a response, tensing in his embrace. There was so much she wanted to say to him.
“Shh,” he whispered, brushing his lips against the top of her head. “There is nothing to say. Just let me hold you. I might have lost truly you today if things had gone differently.”
“But it did not.”
“But it may have.” He lifted her head so that he might meet her eyes. “What would I do?” he asked, giving a voice to the very thoughts she had had of him. “Please do not put yourself in such danger again. I love you too much to lose you. By the way, I have something for you.”
Lifting her off his lap, Aylesbury looked around for and found his jacket, searching the breast pocket before turning back to her.
“This is not the setting I had imagined in which to present it. I had pictured a quiet corner at the Ritz, perhaps, but I will have to take the opportunity where I can.”
“What is it?” she asked, curious despite herself.
He settled her back into his lap and opened his hand to reveal a ring set with a yellow diamond as big as her thumbnail encircled by tiny pearls and silver filigree. Fiona’s eyes widened with surprise and leapt back to his.
He shrugged casually. “I cannot say all that I might have wished to, as I made you a promise not to ask again.”
“In all fairness, you never asked.” Fiona looked back at the gorgeous ring with a mischievous smile. “Since I haven’t been asked and therefore been denied the chance to say yes or no, I don’t really know what I would say in any case.”
He closed his hand over the ring, nonplused. “I did ask. Several times, in fact.”
“No,” she countered, shaking her head. “I heard a lordly statement or two. A near command but no questions requiring a yes or a no.”
“Is that what you’re waiting for? A grand proposal? Shall I drop to a knee right now?”
She laughed, catching him by the shoulders before he could drop her on the floor and fall dramatically at her feet. “Not if you want me to say yes.”
“Is there a situation where you would?”
“Perhaps.” Fiona chewed her lip uncertainly. “It might not be while we are sitting naked in your parlor or...Harry, what if I can’t ever say yes?”
Despite the lack of affirmation, he liked how she phrased it. It sounded far more positive than if she had asked, “What if I say no?”
“Then I guess we will just set a record for London’s longest engagement...and hope that my heir isn’t born someday on the wrong side of the blanket,” he added under his breath. “That would be difficult to explain to your brothers.” He held up the ring once more. “Will you wear it?”
“But I still have not agreed to marry you.”
“Did I ask?” he teased, taking up her right hand and slipping the ring on her finger. “Keep it safe here for me, won’t you? It holds no significance there other than a reminder of me, a reminder that I love you and want a future.”
With her.
Running her fingers through his black hair, Fiona bit back a smile.
“You’ll have to give up your other beaux, of course.”
She widened her eyes in mock surprise but answered truthfully, hoping her admission might silently convey what she couldn’t yet put into words.
“I have no beaux but you, Harry,” she said sincerely before the devil in her took hold.
“I like them very much, of course, but perhaps no more than you cared for Abby and Moira once upon a time. I love Temple as a brother and Lord Harrowby like a far distant cousin.”
He smacked her bottom with a grimace. “You are never allowed to speak to him again. I won’t have my wife lusting after another man.”
“You don’t own me, Harry Brudenall! I’m not your wife!
” Her eyes narrowed on him. “Did you just basically admit to lusting after Moira? Don’t look at me like that!
You’re the one who said the word, not me.
I never said I lusted after Harrowby even if he is as big and gorgeous as a Viking lord and has thighs as–”
With a groan, he pulled her into his arms again and silenced her with a kiss.
“Would you truly think to control me, Harry? To tell me what I can and cannot do?”
She pulled away, watching him from beneath her lashes to gauge his response.
It was one thing she had never thought to discuss with him.
If she were to marry him—in truth, she was doing more than merely considering it—would he give her the freedom to be who she was, or would he use his rights as her husband to rein her in?
Would he expect her to be a proper lady as so many aristocrats did?
“Of course not. I was teasing.”
“What if I wanted to play golf more often than not?”
“I would do my best to become a better opponent,” he told her, then glanced down at her with dawning comprehension in his eyes. “A far more serious question than it seems, yes? You are asking if I would begrudge you your amusements...if you were my wife. I wouldn’t do that.”
Still, Fiona pursed her lips skeptically. “What if I were to make a career of it, like Miss Pearson?”
“I would never bar you from achieving your ambitions,” he assured her.
“Your passion for life is one of the things I love most about you. If you aspire to play professionally, I will applaud your efforts at every green. If it is your greater ambition to travel the globe and play at a different course each week, I suppose I would have to buy a yacht as I abhor the services aboard the larger ships.”
Smiling up at him, she felt the one thing she knew she had been lacking amid the love for Harry blossoming in her heart. Hope. Trust. Perhaps she could have the one thing she had always longed for in life without losing herself along the way.
“If I wanted to rally with the suffragettes?”
“I would gladly paint your signs for you,” he said promptly.
Her dimples flashed, pleased with his answer. “If I wanted to smoke a cigarette?”
He offered a playful grimace. “I should compel you to try cigars instead.”
Laughter bubbled up in her, and she snuggled against his bared chest, adoring the feel of her flesh pressed against his. “What if I took to wearing trousers each day?”
Brows arching high over his widened eyes, he said in all seriousness. “Would you really? My God, what a delicious thought. I should be all too happy to see that.”
“You’re joshing with me.”
“Not at all.” He ran his hand over her hip and around to cup her bottom. “The very thought of seeing your bottom encased in tight trousers is even more tantalizing than the memory of you in your black corset...Of course, you are rather fine just like this.”
Fiona’s lips curved into a smile. “How fine?”
* * *
Sometime later, the parlor darkening with the coming dusk, she sighed sleepily in the circle of Harry’s arms. The sofa had been left behind some time ago, and the hard floor was proving painful despite the thick rug covering it.
“I guess I should go. Francis and Eve and...everyone will be wondering where I am. I can’t begin to imagine what your staff is thinking.”
“You might have thought about that before you locked the door.”
With a pained wince, she rolled out of his arms and climbed to her feet, searching for her clothes.
She gathered up her skirt and petticoat, casting about for her undergarment before finding it hung on the flared wing of a side chair.
Pushing himself up to the edge of the sofa, Aylesbury watched her for a few moments, reading her anxieties and doubts quickly enough.
Passions spent, Fiona was likely reanalyzing every moment of the afternoon.
“Let me take you home then.”
Her eyes darted from his face down to his bared assets, her cheeks flushing as she shook her head. “No, no. I can make my own way. It’s just two streets away, after all.”
He stood, naked and half-aroused, but she studiously kept her eyes averted, her blush deepening. “With what happened, I couldn’t possibly let you go alone.”
“One of the stable lads, then,” she countered. She could hardly bear to face her brothers after how she had spent her afternoon. It would be even harder with Harry by her side.
Reaching for his trousers, he jerked them on. “I will take you.”
“A footman.”
“Me.”
“No, Harry, I...”
Aylesbury caught her by the upper arms, stilling her with a little shake as he looked down at her sternly.
“I said I will not press you, and I meant it. Nevertheless, I will not be pushed about like some lackey, either. After what happened with Piper, I will always take better care with what I love. And I love you, you infernal woman. God help me,” he muttered under his breath as he turned away to retrieve his shirt and jacket from where they had been flung.
Fiona blinked hard, realizing that he had misunderstood her reluctance. Her lips quirked before she pressed them together to bite back a laugh. Hardly a peep escaped her, but it was enough to recall his attention.
He lifted a supercilious brow as he shrugged on his shirt. “You think this is amusing?”
Something as close to a girlish giggle as she’d ever expressed escaped. “A bit, perhaps.”
Harry rolled his eyes and knelt, searching beneath the sofa for his stockings. He confessed his love for the woman, and not only did she not reciprocate, she laughed at him!
As if she could read his thoughts, she said just then, “Perhaps next time a young, impressionable eighteen-year-old Scottish lass professes her love in a moonlit garden, you’ll remember this moment before you break her heart. Rejection is a bitter pill, is it not?”
Standing with a sock in each hand, he raised a questioning brow. “Is that what this is? Revenge? Repayment for an ill-considered response prompted, I will remind you, by what was to me an utterly shocking confession?”
“Perhaps just a wee bit.”
Still grinning, Fiona moved closer, running a hand under his still-open shirt and spreading her palm on his ribs and around his back as she pressed against him.
She nipped at the bottom of his chin, licking away the sting while her other hand smoothed over his neck and urged him to look down at her.
Her green eyes were dancing with amusement.
His were not.
“I’m glad you finally love me, Harry. For some reason, what you said there, that God help me, assured me that you truly do as no other words could.”
Still holding his gaze, she caught his lips playfully with hers before her lips parted, deepening the kiss.
Her tongue lightly traced his lower lip as her lashes fluttered and closed.
Against his chest, Aylesbury could feel the warm, purring hum that began deep within her, hear it as it was released against his lips.
The silken barrier that kept her bare breasts from meeting his chest as she brushed against him caressed and teased until his hands fisted around the stockings he still held, and his arms encircled her, crushing her against him and lifting her until even her toes didn’t touch the ground.
Parting her lips farther, he plundered her mouth more ardently, his tongue plunging deep before retreating, dueling with hers as she rose to match his passion.
Both hearts quickened and his blood heated until it roared in his ears.
Their hard breaths, the deep moan that came from him—her?
Them both?—the only sound in the room. Her body softened, surrendering against him, and he lifted his head, breaking the kiss.
Her lids were half closed, her green eyes burning with the fire so easily lit between them.
Her lips were swollen with his kiss, wet and full.
Parted as she panted lightly, trying to catch her breath.
How quickly passion could enflame them. Even after a long afternoon of making passionate love and exploring soul-shattering sex that they could want again so quickly!
With an agonized moan, he set her firmly away from him. “Now get dressed. We need to get you home and have a talk with your brother.”
Talk with Francis? Fiona wondered numbly, trying to pull her thoughts together.
Ever perceptive to her way of thinking, he clarified, “About the kidnapping attempts. You might not like it, but they have to be told.”
“Oh, yes. That.”
She bit her lip as she finished dressing and began looking for her hairpins. One by one, she found them, but by the time her hand was full, her mind was just as jumbled as the little stack of pins in her hand. Sitting on the floor, she stared at them as if they might somehow hold all the answers.
“How can I explain all this when I hardly understand it myself? I honestly thought it would stop after what happened yesterday. How can I be worth a man’s life to them? How can any of this be worth it? What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to end it.”