A Question for Harry by Angeline Fortin Read Free Book Online Page A

“Francis is insisting that I take in the Season before I settle down so as to assure himself that I am not being rash in accepting your proposal.”
    “Rash?” Ramsay repeated. “Why would he think it rash to accept an honorable offer? It is because he doesn’t like me, isn’t it?”
    Her head actually began to nod of its own accord before Fiona stifled the urge and instead replied mildly. “He doesn’t know you, my lord. Perhaps it is a good thing that you’re here. If you stay as well, you can get to know him, and indeed all my brothers. Then perhaps they will see reason.”
    “You’re the only reasonable one out of the lot,” Ramsay replied, making a claim that no other ever had made regarding her standing in the MacKintosh family. A claim that only substantiated her brother’s assertion that her decision to wed had been an injudicious one. Donovan Ramsay, apparently, truly did not know her at all.
    “Having the opportunity to become better acquainted with them before we wed should not be so frowned upon, my lord,” she told him. “It will give us a chance to know each other better as well. Then by the time the Season is done, my brothers will see just how set I am on accepting your suit. Aye, this is just the thing really.”
    “Or perhaps a better demonstration of your resolve would be to simply run away with me now,” he countered. “How many opportunities like this might present themselves? Here we are alone, unchaperoned in the dead of night. No one is about to stop us. What say you, darling? Shall we?”
    “Run away?” Fiona echoed, stunned . “You mean elope ?” She could not help that the word emerged with conspicuous distaste. She might be reckless, liberal, and fairly indecorous at times, but she wasn’t one to disgrace her family by eloping and birthing scandalous blather about what impetus she might have to embark on such an appalling flight. The MacKintoshs had been generating fodder for the gossip mills for years, and while they might tend to wed with unseemly haste in general, it was a ritual completed with the knowledge and support of the family at large and always validated by true, if somewhat irrepressible, love.
    Ramsay , however, did not seem to notice her aversion to the idea, but instead forged ahead enthusiastically, “Yes, darling! Let us run away and be wed straight away. Once it is done, your family will come around. They will see us together and so in love that they will see that they were wrong to try to separate us.”
    “They are not trying to separate us,” Fiona lied blithely . No, they were insisting on it . “As I said, they are merely requesting upon a period of reflection. When they see that we are indeed steadfast in our determination to wed, they will come around.”
    “What if they don’t?”
    “But they will,” she said with unwavering conviction. “They always have. I cannot see a single reason that they would truly deny me in the end. I just need to play along with this. When they see that there is not another whom I wish to wed, they will accept you.”
    But f or the first time, doubt reared its ugly head and a frown creased her brow. Despite the unprecedented denial of her wishes, it had taken only a matter of hours afterward for her temper to cool and to see Francis’ “compromise” for what it really was. A test. A test of her resolve. She might be compelled to play along, but in the end, she would still have what she wanted.
    A life of her own . A husband. Ramsay.
    Fiona flicked a glance up and down Lord Ramsay’s lanky height. He was everything she had been looking for in a husband, but was he unique? Wouldn’t another do just as well? Lord Temple, perhaps?
    Shaking her head, she pushed the traitorous thought away . No, she had chosen Ramsay for precisely the person he was and everything he would be in a husband.
    To think otherwise would be to admit she had been impulsive.
    Fiona sighed.
    “Is there another?”
    “Hmm? What?” Fiona