A Question for Harry Read Online Free

engagement.”
    A wait of a year or a Season? Neither was a palatable option for her.
    “But the Season is almost over, ” she stammered, scrambling for an excuse. Not true at all. Indeed it had hardly begun, but the simple fact of the matter was that the Season in London was always almost over even as it began. But there had to be something, some excuse that would confine her time in London to a golf course and keep her from the ballrooms. “What of Eve? Surely she shouldn’t be traveling so soon after Alice’s birth?”
    Glenrothes just waited, ignoring her excuses.
    “From the end of the Season?” she clarified and her brother nodded in turn. “No, I’ll be twenty-one come September. Let me wed then and you have a deal.”
    He nodded again but added a caveat. “But a real effort, Blossom. You will partake of the Season fully and allow acceptable gentlemen to court you with an open mind.”
    “ Oh, I’ll be the belle of the ball, Francis,” Fiona’s voice was as cold as the dread that ran like ice through her veins. “I will simper, giggle, and mince with the best of them, but in the end things will still be as I planned and you will have done little more than waste my time and theirs.”
    “ You might be surprised,” he countered. “I think you’ll find that you have options where you might least expect them.”

    Fiona turned without another word and stalked off the green. The sharp spikes of her shoes sank into the low grass as she left them behind, but instead of heading for the clubhouse, she left the fairway entirely steering herself blindly toward the pair of carriages awaiting them beyond.
    Waving a waiting footman aside when he rushed forward to help her, Fiona carried her heavy rattan golf bag herself, if only to prove a point to the trio of men she knew were still watching her.
    H er brothers might think that they could get medieval with her but Fiona had never been one to take a challenge lying down and she had no intention of getting bullied into changing her plans. She would go to London and play their little game. In the end, she would still have her way.
    She always had.
    And it wasn’t something she wasn’t going to let London, and whomever she might inconveniently happen upon there, change that.
    Her steel spikes soon left the soft grass and ground roughly into the gravel with each step. And with each step so did her anger ebb away, leaving only consternation behind.
    How had Francis done that? Somehow he had used her own intractability against her, maneuvered her into an impossible situation. She couldn’t go to London! Couldn’t face …
    T he painful banging of her precious clubs as she flung them unceremoniously into the boot of the larger carriage was no more agonizing than the apprehension that twisted her heart. Behind the carriage and out of sight from them all, Fiona finally buried her face in her hands, pressing her fingers against her eyes to stem the tears that threatened to fall.
    Whomever she might inconveniently happen upon …
    Such impersonal words for something so potentially devastating.
    No, she couldn’t do it. No matter the sting to her pride, she should go back now and tell Francis that she accepted his original bargain. That she would wait and hope for Ramsay’s patience. Could waiting another year really be so bad? Surely anything would be better than going to London.
    Because w hatever her brothers hoped she would find in waiting for the right man to come along, she knew all ready that she would find him in London. In fact, there was only a minute, dismal chance that Fiona would not happen upon him.
    How could she not?
    He lived there.

Chapter Two

     
    From the diary of Lady Fiona MacKintosh – March 1892
     
    Francis has promised to take me to London!
    Well, he hasn’t actually promised but I do think that perhaps he might be o n the verge of agreeing if Granny might be convinced to take me on for the Season. While I understand that a single gentleman