“We can’t,” she said, the words emerging in a little sob. “I haven’t told you . . .”

“You will be a wonderful countess.” His hands stroked slowly down her back, leaving her feeling as if her skin woke only after he touched it.

“No, no, I will not,” she gasped, unable to believe that they were having this discussion. “We don’t know each other.”

“I didn’t know Opal, either, as is manifestly clear,” he offered, his eyes hot with desire. His hands—

“You shouldn’t touch me there,” Fiona managed.

His hands tightened on her bottom, and then slid upward to her hips. “I love your curves,” he said thickly. “I promise to spend at least forty years getting to know you.”

“I know why you are saying this,” she said, trying to ignore his touch, though she couldn’t make herself move away from him.

“Because you are delectable?”

“Because you have decided that Lady Opal only staged her affection for the dancing master. You could tolerate her betrayal when you thought she was in love with another man, but now you feel bruised.”

“You taste like apples,” he said, ignoring her comment and taking her mouth again.

She allowed the pure pleasure of his kiss to sweep her under. It was bliss, this kissing, the way their tongues played together, the way he held her, as if she were shy and precious and beautiful, when she was none of those things.

This time it was he who pulled back. “I know enough about you, Fiona.”

“You know nothing,” she said shakily.

“You are very intelligent and you love to read.” He dropped a kiss on her left eyebrow. “You are extremely kind, even to your sister, who would strain anyone’s generosity. You love deeply and you’re very loyal. You don’t suffer fools gladly, but you are instinctively polite.”

He kissed her right eyebrow, and his hands tightened on her hips. “You have beautiful curves,” he said, his voice darkening a trifle. “Your hair has red tones that look like the most precious jewel in the world. I want to drape you in rubies. I want to see you lying on my bed, wearing nothing but a ruby necklace.”

Fiona felt as if she were caught in some sort of dream. Byron’s eyes were fervent. He meant every word. And he had no idea, none at all, of what had happened to her.

She squared her shoulders, summoning the courage to crack open the little enchantment that had bewitched them both, when the library door suddenly opened.

They swung about to find Mr. Garvie standing on the threshold. “Supper is in an hour,” he told them in his usual surly tone. “So if you two mean to dress, you’d better get at it.”

“If you’ll excuse me,” Fiona said, and like the coward she was, she fled. She could feel tears coming as she ran up the stairs. It was so—so unfair. Byron was undoubtedly suffering from some sort of temporary madness. But he looked at her in such a way . . . and said those things . . . things she never thought she’d hear from anyone.

It was cruel that she couldn’t marry him. She caught herself thinking a hateful thought about Dugald before she pulled herself together.

Her chest felt hollow, as if there was a physical reason for the ache there. It was absurd. She didn’t even know Byron. He may have decided that he knew her, but all she knew was that he was an absurdly beautiful man, an English earl who’d been thrown over by his fiancée, and for some fairly inexplicable reason had decided on her as a replacement, even though she’d told him at least three times that her reputation was ruined.

“I’d like a bath, if you please,” she told a stray retainer she encountered in the hallway.

He put up a protest, but she fixed him with a tiger’s eye and he backed down. “You’ll miss supper,” he said in a parting shot.

Hopefully, he would be right.







Chapter 14

Taran was not employing the great hall for dining; a storm this fierce sneaked in through windows and took over the larger rooms. The wind howled as it rounded the corners, scouring under the doors, keeping the air frigid and moving.

Instead, supper was to be served in the antechamber where they’d taken all their meals. It was small and cheery; a boy had been assigned to keep a fire burning there all day. Its small mullioned windows were so crusted with snow and ice that the wind couldn’t even make them rattle.

Byron changed into an evening coat and returned downstairs far faster than his usual wont. He walked over to one window and stared at the snowdrift blocking any view of the storm. He had been making an annual winter trek to Finovair for a decade or more, and he could not remember seeing the snow piled quite so high in the courtyard before.

Fiona was so different from Opal. She didn’t look away from him; she laughed straight to his face. She never seemed to be at a loss for words. She just said what she was thinking. He had a tremendous feeling of rightness, even thinking of the way her eyes shone with mischief.

She wouldn’t lie to him. She would mock him, and argue with him, and probably infuriate him, but she would never lie to him.

And she had told him about Marilla’s theft of her mother’s portrait. Perhaps if Opal and he had talked, really talked, she would have told him that she didn’t care to marry him. She wouldn’t have had to stage that scene with the balding dancing master.

If, instead, it had been Fiona who had decided she didn’t care to marry him, she would tell him face-to-face. Let’s say they were betrothed—a funny shot of heat came under his breastbone at the notion. He would like to put a ring on her finger. A ring that would tell other men that everything about her—from her sweet little nose, to those curved hips, to the perplexed look in her gorgeous eyes—it was all his.

Just hypothetically, if he were betrothed to Fiona, and she decided to throw him over, she wouldn’t do it through a dramatic scene. She would probably glare at him, and then she would tell him that he was a stupid, jealous . . .

Jealous?

He had never been jealous. Marriage wasn’t about jealousy. It was about respect and promises. But then he thought for a moment and realized that a seething cauldron lit in his chest at the very idea of a dancing master approaching Fiona.

This train of thought was insanity.

He leaned his forehead against the icy window, just to see whether he was dreaming. The glass was just as cold to his forehead as to his fingertips. A feeling of profound calm cut through with elation swept through him. He would do it: he would marry Fiona Chisholm, and have a bespectacled, honest, beautiful countess. She would probably be a good mother, but honestly, he didn’t give a damn.

If she was a bad mother, they could get a nanny. Well, of course they would have a nanny. He wanted her for himself. So he could . . .

So he wouldn’t be alone. So he would have a friend, and a lover, and a wife, all in one. The elation spread. How could he be so lucky?

He was never lucky.

The door opened and he turned, heart thumping. Not Fiona. It was Marilla, her breasts barely kept in check by an edging of lace, her eyes lighting up at the sight of him.

“You disappeared this afternoon!” she chided, disapproval softened by forgiving laughter.

“I spent the afternoon in the library,” he said, watching her closely.

She was approaching him, her hips swaying, but she froze for a second. Then her smile grew wider. “But wasn’t my sister, Fiona, hiding there? She’s so reluctant to be in company, you know. I promised her I would have someone send her tea so that she need not be embarrassed by her lack of social skills.”

He held out a chair for her and then said, “I didn’t notice any shyness.” Happiness thrummed low in his chest simply because he was talking about Fiona.

This was ridiculous. Preposterous. Like the sort of lovesickness that is visited on mere boys. He thought he wanted a woman to fall in love with him, but instead he was the one infected. Just like a giddy boy, he discovered he was grinning at Marilla.

“Fiona has no friends,” Marilla said, waving at the seat beside her. “Since we do sit on consequence, Byron, I certainly hope that you will remain at my side.” Her smile was lavish, but then, all of Marilla’s smiles were lavish.

He sat, thinking about what she just said. It didn’t make sense to him. Fiona was funny and wry and altogether delightful. Of course she had friends. But then, perhaps she didn’t have friends . . . perhaps she was as profoundly alone as he was.

“Where is your sister?” he asked, keeping his tone casual.

“Fiona has little regard for the servants. She asked for a bath not long ago, even though it’s not easy for those old men to carry hot water up the stairs.” Marilla slid her hand over his, and frowned with a kind of dewy earnestness. “She has no idea how to run a large household. My father made certain that I was trained in a chatelaine’s arts. One of the most important rules is that the lady of the household must respect those in her service. Yet Fiona asks for separate meals, as she did this luncheon, and baths!” She rolled her eyes. “She bathes every day, and never mind how much work it is to haul pails of hot water up and down the stairs.”

Byron thought with some satisfaction of the newfangled pipes he’d added to his house two years ago. And then he thought of Fiona sitting in his bath, steam rising around her, all that glorious hair curling into smaller ringlets, her creamy skin flushing . . . He hastily put his napkin in his lap.

The door opened and Bret and his betrothed entered, laughing. He had his hand on Catriona’s back, and the way he looked down at her was so resonant with desire that . . . well, the couple was just as improperly intimate as they had been the night before, but now Byron saw it with a different eye, looking not at Catriona’s face, but at Bret’s.

He wanted to put his hand on the small of Fiona’s back. He’d never thought about the gesture, but now he perceived the possessiveness in that light touch. He wanted to hand Fiona into a chair and then sit beside her, a bit too close, and hold hands under the table, the way Bret and Catriona now were. He wanted to escort her to supper with lips that had been kissed the color of dark cherries, as Bret had.

Hell, he wanted to join her in the bath and . . .

After making her his bride, of course.

Marilla’s voice cut into his thoughts again. She had curled her fingers around his forearm, and was leaning forward, saying something to Catriona. “Oh, we feel the same,” she cooed. “Byron and I were just talking about the arduous duties of running a large household. This strange little interlude at Finovair has done so much to bring us all close! I’m thrilled to know that I was there when the Duke and Duchess of Bretton fell in love. I cannot wait to tell my friends.”

Byron drew his arm away, while Bret threw him a look that said, clear as day, that Marilla wasn’t going within two miles of the duchy of Bretton. Byron grinned back and then watched the puzzlement grow in Bret’s eyes.

His old friend hadn’t figured it out yet. Hell, he had hardly figured it out. All he knew was that his entire being was tense, waiting for Fiona to get out of that bath and join them at the supper table.