Perfecting Fiona (11 page)

Swans sing before they die – ’twere no bad thing
Should certain persons die before they sing
.

Lord Peter Havard dispatched his servant with his card the following day. He had no intention of ever speaking to Fiona again. Hadn’t he told her so when she had been so insolent to him in the Park? He should have cut her dead in Aubrey’s hall. That physical excitement he had felt at her slightest touch was simply caused by anger and dislike.

He was sure Aubrey would call in person. He walked to his club to banish that picture of Lord Aubrey being entertained by Fiona.

The picture would not go away and was so annoying that it was with relief he saw his old friend, the Honourable Geoffrey Coudrey, known to one and all as Cully.

‘I thought you were rusticating in the country,’ said Lord Peter, looking at his large, bearlike friend with affection. Cully was very hairy. He was the despair of his valet, who barbered him as often as his master would let him. Cully’s thick thatch of nut-brown hair grew low on his forehead, and his chin always seemed to be dark blue. Lord Peter had seen him stripped for boxing and knew that Cully’s chest was like a carriage rug.

‘No, I’m weary of the country. Town’s the place for me,’ said Cully. ‘Didn’t work. Being the squire, I mean.’

Cully had, the previous year, bought a fine property and land down in Kent. He had been disappointed in love and had convinced himself that society was all a sham and that he was more suited to a bucolic life.

‘So what happens to the place now?’ asked Lord Peter, sitting down opposite him.

‘Oh, I’ll sell it, of course. Land’s in good heart and the old house is quaint and pretty if you can bear the Tudors, which I can’t. Give me something modern every time.’

Lord Peter, unlike his eldest brother the marquess, did not own any property of his own. He had made his money by shrewdly speculating in various business ventures. As the younger son of a duke he was free of responsibilities. He had a comfortable house in Town and during the winter he stayed in the country, either at his parents’ home, or at the homes of his many friends. He had served in the army right up until Waterloo, a battle which had sickened him, as it had his commander, the Duke of Wellington. Like many of his class, he had still managed to attend the Season during various leaves, when he usually quickly found a suitable matron to dally with until it was time to go back to battle again.

‘I’ll buy it from you,’ said Lord Peter and then wondered how those words had managed to pop out of his mouth.

In fact, he looked every bit as surprised as Cully, who said, ‘Why? Someone turned
you
down?’

Lord Peter wanted to say he had been joking, he had not meant it, but the novel idea of having a home and land had quickened his pulses.

‘No, I mean it,’ he said. ‘I’ve really done nothing much since I left the army but ruin my health. You know what it’s like, Cully. Overheated drawing rooms and boring misses on the one hand, and prize-fights on the other and silly races and trying to break one’s neck.’

‘Lovely,’ said Cully, half closing his eyes. ‘Missed it all. Who’s the lady?’

‘There isn’t one.’

‘Don’t believe it. When a goer like you suddenly wants to put down roots, there’s always a lady.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Lord Peter, but he wondered whether Aubrey had marriage in mind.

Fiona was feeling very cross indeed with her chaperones. She could not understand why one of them was not present. Lord Aubrey was prosing on, and there were various other gentlemen in the drawing room who had come to call. Fiona was bored with them all and felt that either Amy or Effy should have been there to speed them on their way.

But Amy had been asked to go riding with Mr Haddon and was fearful of Effy coming too and so had said she would be back soon, only off for a quick trot. Effy had not wanted to confess to her meeting with Mr Callaghan or even to say she had an appointment, lest the curious Amy demand to know where she was going. And so Fiona had been left alone.

But calls were only supposed to last a quarter of an hour, and one by one the gentlemen took their leave. Lord Aubrey seemed determined to stick it out. Fiona flashed an agonized look at Baxter, who went over and tapped the clock and said loudly, ‘I hope this isn’t broken, miss. It seems as if my lord has been here almost half an hour, but since that cannot be the case, the clock must be running wrong.’

This was too broad a hint for Lord Aubrey to ignore. He got reluctantly to his feet and begged Fiona to go driving with him the following afternoon. Fiona replied, truthfully, that she did not know what social arrangements her chaperones had made for her. Lord Aubrey bowed and said with meaning that he would be calling on the Misses Tribbles soon to ask them an important question. Fiona’s heart sank, but then she remembered that she could tell the Tribbles the truth. It had never been possible to tell her aunt she just did not want to marry anyone, least of all any of the suitors who had come calling. It had been necessary to let them get as far as proposing and then frighten them off. If she had told her aunt that she had no intention of accepting any of the proposals she had seen looming on the horizon, then there had always been the danger that the Burgesses might have stepped in and arranged a marriage with the man’s parents before Fiona had a chance to scare him off.

Her last caller gone, Fiona dismissed Baxter and went and looked moodily at her own reflection in the glass. Wide blue eyes stared back at her. Yvette had made her a pretty gown in blue tabinet and had dressed her hair in a becoming style. Now there was no one to see it, thought Fiona sadly, but she would not admit to herself that the ‘no one’ was Lord Peter.

It would soon be five o’ clock. Everyone who was anyone would be in the Park. No one made calls at five.

Fiona picked up a tambour-frame and sat down by the window and stuck the needle viciously into the cloth. Embroidery was not one of Fiona’s accomplishments, a fact she had kept hidden from the sisters. The other day, Effy had asked her where her needlework was and Fiona had lied and said she had left her silks and frame in Tunbridge Wells. Effy had promptly bought her the necessary materials. Fiona was just wondering whether it would really be too low a trick to bribe Yvette to do some of it for her when Harris announced, ‘Lord Peter Havard.’ The butler looked surprised to see that only Fiona was in the room, but he left the door open and hoped that would be enough to satisfy the conventions. A young unmarried lady must never, ever be alone in a room with a gentleman with the door shut.

Lord Peter advanced on Fiona. He did not know why he had come. Perhaps to reassure himself that she was as plain and uninteresting as he was determined she should be. But her eyes were blue, he realized with surprise, and her hair was really pretty.

‘I am sorry to come so late,’ he said, ‘I have been buying a property.’

‘Where?’ asked Fiona.

‘In Kent. I have a mind to be a man of property.’

‘That I cannot imagine,’ said Fiona, sitting down and picking up the tambour-frame again.

‘Why, pray?’ asked Lord Peter, sitting in a chair beside her.

‘I always imagine you wasting your time in ephem-eral pursuits.’

‘What a very low opinion you have of me, to be sure.’

His hair was very black and glossy, his face lightly tanned, his blue eyes deep and searching. He exuded an air of power and virility. Fiona’s hand holding the needle trembled and she pricked her finger.

‘I do not think you can sew, Miss Macleod,’ he said. ‘Most odd. All young ladies can sew.’

‘Not this one. I thought you were never going to speak to me again,’ said Fiona.

‘I was very angry with you, and with reason.’ Her mouth was soft and pink and sweet. He stared at it, fascinated.

Fiona wished he would look away. She felt hot and prickly and she had a nasty pain in the pit of her belly. She looked up with relief as Harris entered bearing cakes and wine.

‘Thank you,’ said Lord Peter. ‘We will serve ourselves.’

Harris bowed and retreated. There was a sudden embarrassed silence. Lord Peter rose to his feet and poured two glasses of wine. Fiona breathed deeply and tried not to look at his legs.

Baxter came down the stairs and saw the drawing room standing open. From the silence within, she supposed the room empty. The day was chilly and that open door was letting all the warmth from the drawing-room fire escape. She closed the door.

‘You had better open it again,’ said Fiona, taking a glass of wine from Lord Peter.

‘I don’t bother about such silly conventions,’ he said, sitting down again. ‘You are quite safe with me.’

How many women? thought Fiona, looking at his mouth. Forty? Fifty?

‘Now what are you thinking?’ he asked, amused.

‘I was wondering how many women you have had,’ said Fiona.

‘Miss Macleod!’

‘Well, I did wonder,’ said Fiona huffily.

He turned in his chair and leaned towards her. ‘Does it matter to you, Miss Macleod?’

His eyes were warm and his voice caressing.

‘You are flirting with me,’ accused Fiona. She set down her glass on a side table beside the discarded tambour-frame and glared at him.

‘When you are angry, Miss Macleod,’ he said wonderingly, ‘your eyes turn silver. What colour would they turn, I wonder, were I to . . .’

‘No!’ said Fiona.

He set down his glass as well and leaned forward and took her chin in his hand. His knees were pressed against the side of her legs and she could feel her legs beginning to shake.

He stood up and put both arms on the arms of her chair and stooped over her. She stared up at his approaching mouth. His leaned closer and closer and his mouth found hers.

He was dimly reminded of the Peace Celebrations in Hyde Park – cannons firing, fireworks going off, noise and tumult and gladness. The war is over and I am come home. The only parts of their bodies that touched were their lips. His mouth sank deeper against hers and the room began to spin faster and faster until he was whirling off into a strange blackness, held to the earth by the feel of the warm young lips pressed so hard against his own.

He finally came to his senses and freed her mouth. She was shivering and he felt cold himself. ‘I am sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’ He sat down again but took her hand in his and ran his thumb gently over the palm. ‘So what do we do about you and your odd views on marriage, Miss Macleod?’

‘They are the same as your own, sir,’ whispered Fiona.

‘And you are still of the same mind?’

Fiona stared at him with a drowned look. He frightened her. Her body frightened her. Should he turn cruel, he could hurt her more than any of Mrs Burgess’s lashings.

‘I will never marry,’ she said.

‘You little doxy,’ he said in a sudden fury. ‘I’ve a good mind to give you the shaking of your life.’

He heard a step on the landing outside. He walked over to the fireplace and stood with his back to it. Fiona snatched up the tambour-frame. Amy strode in and looked at the pair curiously.

‘Shouldn’t be in here with the door closed. You know that, Lord Peter, even if she don’t.’

‘It is of no matter,’ said Lord Peter. ‘I have overstayed my welcome.’

He bowed and left.

Fiona forced herself to go on embroidering.

‘Where is Effy?’ demanded Amy.

‘I do not know,’ said Fiona. ‘Out, I believe.’

‘Odd,’ said Amy. ‘I never would have gone and left you without a chaperone if I had known she meant to be absent.’

‘Baxter was with me for most of the afternoon. Lord Peter called unexpectedly.’

‘Well, I promised you we wouldn’t interfere,’ said Amy, ‘but if he’s what you want, you’re going to have a hard time getting him. Nothing but a flirt. Don’t take him seriously. Good Heavens, child! What crooked stitches! Is that the best you can do?’

‘I’m afraid it is,’ said Fiona in a resigned voice.

‘Never tell me that a Tartar such as Mrs Burgess let you get away with stitches like that.’

‘I never got very far, you see. She would give me a piece of plain hemming and then tut-tut when I couldn’t get the stitches to lie neatly and would rip them out and set me to it again.’

Amy shook her head in amazement. ‘And here we were thinking you didn’t need any schooling. You had better start right away. Put that down. Yvette shall start you on a sampler.’

‘I
hate
sewing,’ said Fiona.

‘What’s that to do with it?’ exclaimed Amy. ‘So do I. But the art of being a lady is having to do a whole lot of things you hate doing. All holes in your accomplishments must be plugged. I have a secret to tell you. I have been taking singing lessons. Now Effy does not know, nor Mr Haddon. We are going to the Perrys’ musicale tonight and I told Mrs Perry of my new accomplishment and she said it would be a splendid idea if – when the diva has finished – I entertain the company with a short ballad.’

‘It sounds a very sedate sort of evening,’ said Fiona, thinking that Lord Peter would surely not attend and therefore she ought to feel comfortable. She remembered Lord Aubrey. ‘Oh, Miss Amy, Lord Aubrey will no doubt ask permission to pay his addresses. I do not want him.’

Effy came in at that moment. She looked as if she had been lit up from within. Her eyes sparkled roguishly under quite the most dashing little hat Fiona had ever seen.

‘Where have you been?’ demanded Amy, and then added, ‘Never mind. Leave us, Fiona.’

When Fiona left the room, Amy poured out the tale of Lord Peter’s having been present, of how Fiona didn’t want Aubrey, and of how she couldn’t sew a stitch. Effy listened to the tirade with a dreamy half-smile on her face which made Amy break off and accuse Effy of having been at the gin again.

‘No, no,’ said Effy with a secret smile. She made an obvious effort to bring her mind to present problems. ‘I think, Amy, that we had best appear not to be against Lord Peter, but we must contrive to keep them apart. It is a great pity about Aubrey. We shall not refuse him outright but tell him to wait a month or so, until the girl is more settled in London.’