The Lady Most Willing

“I’m sorry,” Fiona said to Byron, her beautiful green eyes as grave as a monk’s. “I kept trying to tell you what happened.”

“He fell from your window?” Byron echoed, finally sitting down himself.

He could feel all the joy draining from his body. It felt as if he had turned back to a brass automaton, to the half-dead man he’d been when he arrived in Scotland. His father’s double. Obviously, women were as lustful as his father had warned, even sweet ones from Scotland who smelled like fresh bread and innocence.

There was dead silence around the table. Fiona nodded. “Yes. My fiance, Dugald, lost his life in a fall. All Scotland knows it. I am sure that our friends at the table will be gracious enough to forget the implications of what you said a moment ago.”

Bending her head, she spread her napkin in her lap.

“I never believed it,” Catriona said with a note of ferocity in her voice, “and neither did my mother. She should know, since she was godmother to Dugald himself. How could a man who was as fat as a distillery pig think to climb a strand of ivy?”

“The window was there, as was the ivy, and unfortunately, so was Dugald,” Fiona said. “Yes, I would like some roast, if you please. Catriona, what games did you play this afternoon?”

Catriona looked as if she wanted to continue her defense, but she succumbed to the pleading expression on Fiona’s face.

Byron endured three more courses without saying another word. Taran strolled back in at length, looking pleased with himself, but Marilla never reappeared. Byron was aware of the warmth of Fiona’s arm next to his, though they never touched, even accidentally. The conversation stumbled along until finally the subject of Robert Burns’s poetry was brought up, which provoked a spirited dispute.

“As full of air as a piper’s bag,” Taran shouted, in response to Catriona’s praise of the poet.

“I rather like the poem about how he’ll love his betrothed until the rocks melt into the sun,” Bretton murmured, looking (of course) at Catriona.

“Until the sands of life run dry,” she whispered back to him, but Byron heard her.

After that, he just sat still, thinking. Really thinking.

If his father weren’t already dead, the thought of a notorious woman becoming the Countess of Oakley would have killed him.

He didn’t know what his mother would think, because after she ran away with his uncle, he never heard from her again.

But the question, obviously, was what did he think?

Fiona was still pale, but she had joined the conversation about Burns. He watched her talk and even laugh when Taran said something particularly outrageous, without ever glancing at him.

He felt as if he’d been given a glimpse of heaven, only to have it torn from his hands. How could he dishonor his ancient name? Breach his father’s memory in such a fashion?

This had been a momentary madness, that’s all.

“You’re mad as May butter!” Taran shouted at Catriona, who was thoroughly enjoying sparring with him, to all appearances.

Not Catriona: him.

He was as mad as May butter.

Chapter 15

Fiona had been humiliated before. Having to sit through a homily on the evils of lust, read at Dugald’s funeral, came to mind. But in its own way, this was worse. She had been in shock during the funeral, and she had gone through it as if in a trance, still not understanding that no one believed her, and that no one ever would.

Now she was older, and thoroughly clearheaded. She would never be able to forget the moment when Byron’s eyes turned cold. His face had gone completely blank, and stayed that way. It was as if he put on a mask, and all there was to be seen was the arrogant, haughty Earl of Oakley, the man whom she saw from afar in English ballrooms.

When supper finally, mercifully, ended, Fiona excused herself and ran up the stairs. She opened the door to the bedchamber to find Marilla sitting on the bed. Acid rose in Fiona’s throat. She couldn’t—she really couldn’t—bear to speak to her sister at the moment.

Without a word, she headed directly for the ancient wardrobe and pulled out the fur-lined cloak she’d worn for the caber-throwing contest. It appeared to be as old as the wardrobe, and could have belonged to Queen Elizabeth herself, but it would keep her warm.

“I’m to apologize,” Marilla said, her voice scratchy from crying. “Taran insists.”

Fiona didn’t even glance over her shoulder. “I accept. I’m going to the carriage to find my reticule. I’m sure it must be there.”

“What are you talking about? You’re going out in the snow?”

“The carriage is in the stables.”