Lady Fiasco, A Traditional Regency Romance (My Notorious Aunt) (6 page)

“Oh, I cannot think so. The poor fellow screamed horribly as they carried him away. I seriously doubt he was playing us false.”

“Yes, well, he would scream wouldn’t he,” she muttered.

Fiona sighed. “Sadly, he is not my only victim. Most of our villagers believe I carry a curse.”

“Do they, indeed?” Honore lifted her lorgnette and studied Fiona until she fidgeted with discomfort. “A curse, you say—how very diverting. We leave in the morning.” With that, Aunt Honore stood abruptly, slapped at a buzzing insect, and marched into the house.

* * *

True to her word, early the next morning they were ensconced in Lady Alameda’s carriage rolling toward Brighton. Fiona gazed out through the window as rain splattered against the glass. With a heavy heart, she watched the home she loved disappear behind her.

And him.

She was leaving
him
behind. Why didn’t she feel relieved? She would never have to see his scowling face ever again. All too vividly, she recalled the sensation of his mouth covering hers and his arms around her. She would never feel that way again, either. Tears slid out of her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.

Honore sniffed at the air, as if she smelled something foul. “Come now, Fiona, you cannot miss your home already? We are but a few miles away and here you are weeping. I should think you’d be glad to be shot of that uncomfortable heap of stones, and that insufferable cow your father married.”

Fiona wiped away her tears and tried to smile.

“Well, speak up girl. Are you homesick?”

“No, my lady.”

“Humph. Are you often this morose?”

Fiona smiled at her aunt’s pouting expression. “I apologize, Aunt. I’m behaving like a fool.”

In a flash, Honore’s face changed from that of a pouting child into a shrewd ferret. The ferret calculated her prey through thinly slit eyes. “A fool eh? Then, it’s a man causing those tears. Ah, that would explain your puffy eyes yesterday.”

Fiona’s mouth opened and then clamped shut.

“Ha! See there, your face convicts you. You are in love.”

“No.”

Honore tapped the side of her cheek with one gloved finger. “What’s more, this man has broken your heart. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been so willing to come to Brighton with me.”

“No!” Fiona nearly choked. She swallowed hard and shook her head vehemently. “Certainly not. In love? No. Impossible. Not with someone so cruel and heartless and—” She lowered her head under her aunt’s scrutiny.

“Come, my girl. We’ll have no secrets standing between us. I’ll not have you playing the martyr, whilst I attempt to show you the delights of London. That would make fools of both of us. You will tell me all, so that we can decide together how best to proceed.”

“It’s nothing. I have simply been—” Fiona clenched her teeth and balled her hands into tight fists. “—stupid.”

“You will discover, my dear, as I have, that there is no one as brainless as a woman in love. I must admit, there has never been a bigger fool than I was when I fell in love with Francisco de Alameda.”

With a flourish, Honore recounted to Fiona the story of the handsome Portuguese count stealing her heart away at a masked ball in London. A blush spread on Honore’s cheeks and her eyes softened. “The young devil thought he would trifle with my affections and then go merrily on his way. Ha!” She smacked her hand against the velvet seat cushion and announced triumphantly. “I wouldn’t have it! I stowed away, aboard his ship bound for the African coast. He was angry, of course. But by the time we reached Cape Delgado he could not bear to be parted from me.”

 Honore closed her eyes for a moment. “I can still remember his strong arms around me. Ah, yes, my dear,” she whispered. “Love makes fools of us all.”

Her aunt’s affection for her late husband touched Fiona’s heart. In turn, Fiona told Honore of Lord Wesmont’s visit to the lake. She remained modestly obscure about the length and depth of his kisses.

Honore chuckled. “I cut my eye teeth some years ago, child. A simple scrutiny of your face speaks volumes where your words do not. He became passionate with you, did he not?”
 

Fiona nodded and exhaled slowly, some of her hidden anguish and humiliation flowed out as she did.

“And then?”

“Then his passion turned to anger.” Fiona recounted Tyrell’s scornful words as he galloped away. When she finished telling it, some of the shame left her. It no longer clawed at her like a hateful secret trapped in the dark pit of her stomach.

 
Honore cast a knowing eye over her niece. “I daresay, Lord Wesmont acted very badly.”

“Oh, but Aunt, don’t you see?” Fiona held out her hands, entreating her aunt to forgive him. “It was entirely my fault. I behaved improperly. I goaded him. I slapped him. When he kissed me, I ought to have resisted. But I didn’t. On the contrary, I wanted him to keep kissing me. Indeed, I hoped he would never stop, even though I knew it was wrong to indulge in such—such wanton behavior.”

Fiona’s cheeks flamed red and she feared a fresh bout of tears might overtake her. “I utterly failed to discipline my emotions, and now, not only must I bear this dreadful curse, but I have compromised myself as well.”

Honore’s lips clamped together into two stiff lines. Her eyelids lowered over dark boiling eyes. Then her face erupted and flamed majestically. “Oh for pity sake!” Her aunt’s voice boomed around the carriage as if thunder had just exploded right inside the coach. Fiona pressed her back against the cushions and held her breath.

“I refuse to hear any more about this wretched curse! Only ignorant Hottentots believe in
curses
. Do not speak of it again.”

Fiona squeaked out an answer. “Yes, my lady, I mean... no, my lady.”

“You will not utter another word about this curse nonsense! Have I made myself clear?”

Fiona nodded.

An invisible wind blew Honore’s features back into those of a concerned aunt. In silent astonishment, Fiona watched her aunt’s mercurial countenance transform.

 “Now,” Honore’s voice softened back to normal. “You’ve misunderstood the situation, my dear. I didn’t say there was anything wrong with Wesmont kissing you. Indeed, under the circumstances, I should have thought him half dead had he not done so.”

 Honore reached over and patted Fiona’s hand. “You certainly aren’t compromised, my dear. Believe me, there is far more to it than that.” She laughed gaily.

“But, he—”

“Good gracious child, if I’d married every man who’d kissed me, heavens, I’d have nearly two hundred husbands. What ridiculous rot.”

Fiona looked up at her aunt in confusion, then down at her folded hands. “As I understand it, my lady, society allows widows far more latitude in that respect, do they not?”

“Undoubtedly, and what a great wagonload of hypocrites they are. A flock of bleating sheep in wolves’ underclothes–that’s society for you.”

“Do you mean wolves in sheep’s clothing?”

“Yes, wolves. Ever eager to tear apart the first lamb what missteps. Ignore the lot of them.” Honore waved her hand dismissing the invisible offenders. “That’s what I do.”

Fiona shook her head. “Then, I confess, I am at a loss. You said Lord Wesmont acted badly. How? In what respect did he disappoint you?”

“The cowardly way he made his escape.” Countess Alameda stared out of the carriage at the dismal landscape. She leaned closer to the window and blew a cloud of vapor over the glass.

A moment passed before she spoke again, almost to herself. “His wretched morals got the better of him. He couldn’t bear the guilt, so he blamed you for the liberties he took and then ran away.” Honore touched the steamy glass with her finger and scrawled a jagged line cutting across the condensation. “
Stoopid
man, he should have known you wouldn’t have forced him into marriage.”

Honore threw back her head and laughed. Then she leaned over and startled Fiona by grasping her hand. “No doubt, by now he has come to his senses and realizes that he acted like the veriest cur, running away as he did, barking insults. It was completely without honor. Oh, my dear—the poor man. His precious
honor
, Fiona, just think of it.”

Honore pulled Fiona’s hand to her satin covered bosom and, striking a pose like a saint in prayer, she prophesied. “Take heart, Fiona, my child. Without a doubt
he
is even more miserable than you are.”

Chapter 5
Chasing Regrets

T
he Earl of Wesmont sat brooding in his library, every bit as miserable as Lady Alameda had predicted. Raindrops streaked down the long windows. He stared blindly outside, not seeing the trees of his park, nor the birds playing in the wet grass. Instead, he saw Fiona’s wet hair splayed out on the sand and her dark exotic eyes looking up at him. She haunted him. Her laughing specter teased him as she floated in yesterday’s shimmering sunlight and water. He could not escape the image of her face flushed from his kisses as she lay unresisting in his arms. Equally haunting was the image of her stricken face after he had rebuffed her.

Tyrell rubbed his fingers against his temples and forehead and looked away from the window. He remembered Fiona’s face when she was a young girl twirling in her party frock, looking up at him with those bewitching eyes of hers. It had been a Yule party. He’d come home on holiday from Eaton. At twelve years old, he was too old for the children but still too young to be truly interested in his parents’ conversation.

The children gathered at the far end of the ballroom to play together and practice dancing. Tyrell remembered wandering between the two groups and finally sitting down near the children. Fiona stood tall for her age, a handsome child, not fussy and frilly like the other girls, but natural and athletic. She had caught him watching her, and giggled. Without missing a step, she had skipped merrily along, changing hands and dancing vivaciously to a country dance. He had laughed back at her.

When that dance finished he’d bowed with great ceremony before the little imp, and asked her for the next set. She, with equal flourish, executed a deep curtsy and rose with a teasingly solemn expression on her face. He partnered her for a minuet and while stepping around her during the dignified turns, he teased her about the time she had forced her pony to jump the creek in his father’s pasture and landed both horse and rider in the drink. She ignored his jibe and retorted, with considerable heat, that her horse was not a
pony
. Her mare was smallish perhaps, but most assuredly not a pony. She’d been an adorable minx even then.

That seemed like a lifetime ago. Now, Fiona was a woman. The only human being who seemed capable of making him laugh or smile. For a few moments, in her company, he had actually forgotten about the hellish battlefields of Spain. When he was with her, life did not seem like one endless nightmare. And he had thanked her by humiliating her.

The Earl of Wesmont slammed his fist down on his desk. “Damn me for a coward!”

He yanked the bell cord, and paced impatiently. Finally, he flung open the door of his study and yelled at the servants. “Get me that blasted valet my mother hired! Tell him to bring me something to keep this infernal rain from soaking me to the bone. I’m riding out. Now!”

* * *

The world smelled of fresh mud as he headed Perseus toward the upper meadow lake. A broad brim hat and an oilcloth kept out most of the moisture, but Tyrell felt confined and hot in it. With any luck at all, Fiona would be in her boathouse reading a book, or painting a picture of her precious lake enshrouded in clouds. He had to find her alone to apologize. It wouldn’t do at all to sit down to tea in Lady Hawthorn’s drawing room and say, “Thousand pardons, Miss Hawthorn, for attempting to seduce you the other day.”

He grimaced to himself. He had to find her alone. Fiona might not force him into marriage, but
Lady Hawthorn certainly wouldn’t hesitate to make him see his duty. Marriage was out of the question. He’d suffocate altogether if anyone added one more ounce of responsibility onto his shoulders. He couldn’t do it, no matter how badly his mother wanted him to produce an heir. No matter how far he’d crossed the line with Fiona, marriage was unthinkable. He had no heart left to give.

He found the boathouse deserted. There was no sign that she’d been there that day, no bread, nor cheese on the table, no clothes hanging in the corner, just the blue swimming dress, and the dreary smell of dampness. Only rain had entered the old boathouse that day. Tyrell shut the door and climbed back onto Perseus. The big white horse bowed his head in the drizzle, and sniffed at the steamy air. They trudged dismally home together.

Tyrell did not give up. He circuited the upper meadow lake later that day, and twice again the next day. Finding the lake perpetually bereft of Fiona’s presence he decided he must make a call to Lady Hawthorn’s stuffy drawing room. After his abominable behavior, Fiona may have decided it was dangerous to visit her beloved lake alone. Or perhaps she had drowned herself in a fit of shame. Hang it all! Where was that dratted girl?

He perched on the edge of Lady Hawthorn’s hot yellow sofa, suffocating in a conflagration of garish paisley draperies, and several Chinese vases filled with gigantic, pink, ant-infested Peonies. On the sofa next to him, Emeline coyly batted her eyelashes. It was a grotesque circus calculated to smother a man past all reason.

“Where is Miss Hawthorn?” he asked, unable to circumvent any longer. When Lady Hawthorn answered him, he stared at her in disbelief.

Fiona was gone. Gone to Brighton with her aunt, Lady Alameda.

For the love of all the saints!
Even he’d heard of the notorious Countess Alameda. What was Lady Hawthorn thinking, allowing Fiona to go away with a woman like that? And for a stay of an indefinite length.

Gone!

Tyrell thought that his cravat might strangle him. He ran his finger around his collar. Tiny beads of perspiration trickled down his chest, mixing with the starch from his shirt, producing a hot, itchy, irritating concoction.