The Lady Most Willing

“We say bloudy ’ell in Scotland,” Fiona told him, pulling her fur a little higher around her shoulders. “When in Scotland, do as the Scots.” And, because she really didn’t want to see those blue eyes ever again, she closed her own.

Chapter 16

Byron could not believe what he was seeing. After Fiona’s hell-born sister had blurted out where she had gone, he had risked his life making his way to the stable, stumbling around the side of the castle in the storm, sick with fear that he was about to walk over Fiona’s fallen body . . . only to find her tucked down in a stall nestled against a fat old pony, the two of them peacefully asleep.

He pulled off his gloves with a muttered curse. Thank God the stable was so small, and preserved heat so well. His fingers burned with the cold, and his toes felt as if they might fall off. He took another irritable look at the sleeping girl at his feet.

Her hair had fallen out of its bun. Tousled strands of it curled around her face and unfurled over the pony’s rough winter coat.

He squatted down and put a hand on her cheek. The skin burned hot under his fingers, and her eyes flew open on a little shriek. “Take your hand off me!”

“You’re warm. And,” he said, catching sight of a bottle of wine, “you’re drunk.”

“I am not drunk,” she told him, tilting her little nose in the air. “Though I may as well point out, since you do not know me, it could be that I am an invet— an inveterate inebriate.” She said the last two words carefully.

He bent down and pulled off his boots, which were covered with snow. That strange joy that Fiona Chisholm seemed to inspire in him was spreading through him again like liquid gold. Like the kind of dizzy, silly joy he distantly remembered experiencing as a child.

“What are you doing here?” Her eyes were suspicious.

“I came to rescue you.”

“What?”

“I thought I would find you dead in the snow,” he said conversationally, knocking snow from his hat before hanging it on a hook. “I think it was a near go myself, in truth. I kept losing the castle as I was trying to get around to the stable. I was completely blinded by the snow. Needless to say, we don’t have storms like this in London.”

She sat up, a molting fur cape slipping from her shoulder. “Didn’t you follow the rope from the kitchen door?”

“The kitchen?” He shook his head. “I knew nothing about that, so I went out the front door. Your sister said you went to the stable; I looked out the window and thought it was a damned foolish and dangerous thing to do. So I followed the castle around to the stable, but I kept losing touch of the walls. Blasted amount of snow out there.”

“You could have died!” Her voice cut straight through the muffled sound of the wind howling outside.

“Would you have cared?”

She lay back down. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”

But Byron heard her voice wobble. “I couldn’t stay away,” he said, staring down at her. “I know your reputation is . . . whatever it is—”

“Stupid Englishman,” she said, opening her eyes again. “I know you heard what Marilla said. Every word of it is true.”

He took off his greatcoat and shook the snow off in the corridor before he came back into the stall. “Your fiance, Dugald, had the brains of a gnat, if he thought ivy would bear the weight of a grown man. You’re better off without him.”

“I won’t be your mistress just because everyone thinks that of me!” she said, her voice very sharp, wrapping her arms tight around herself. “Believe me, I’ve had plenty of offers, especially in the first year after Dugald’s death.”

Byron froze as a hot wave of anger rushed to his head. “They talked of climbing up to your window, I suppose?”

“I’ve heard all the sallies you can think of involving ivy,” she said, obviously trying for a careless tone but not succeeding. But her voice strengthened. “I’m a ruined woman. But that doesn’t mean that you can simply take advantage of me.”

Byron managed to shove all his rage back into a little box, with the silent promise that he would wring the names of every one of those damned Scotsmen out of her.

He came down on his heels in order to be at Fiona’s level. The old pony raised her head sleepily, and he scratched her between the ears. “I told myself to go to my room, and then I tried to find you anyway. I wandered around and talked to Lady Cecily for a time.”

“She’s very nice. You should marry her.” She said it flatly.

“I don’t want to,” Byron said, as flatly as she.

“You can’t have everything you want in life,” she said, looking at him with an expression