“No, you shouldn’t have.” They reached the library door and she looked up at him. “But you were only doing what you thought was best for me.”
He cringed. “It sounds so bad when you say it.”
“It was an absurd idea.”
He grinned in a sheepish manner. “And yet, not my first absurd idea and probably not my last.”
She reached up and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “I do forgive you, though. You were trying to be a good”—she smiled—“brother.”
“Remember that, Fiona.” The look in his eye was abruptly serious. “I just want your happiness. And I will do whatever necessary, no matter how absurd, to assure that.”
“There is nothing left to do.” She drew a deep breath and nodded. Oliver opened the door and gestured for her to go in. “There is something I must check on. I shall be no more than a minute.”
She stepped into the library and Oliver closed the door behind her. At once she noted the large table she and Jonathon had used for the work onA Fair Surrender had been removed. An awful sense of finality rushed through her. As if the removal of the table truly signified the end of their work and everything else. Daniel leaned against the desk and straightened at her approach. She looked around. “Where is the solicitor?”
“I needed to speak with you alone.” Daniel looked distinctly uncomfortable. “About the wedding.”
She held her breath. “Have you had a change of heart?”
“Heart is precisely where the problem lies.” Sympathy shone in his dark eyes. “Yours is not in this.”
“It doesn’t have to be. This is not a love match. This is an arrangement of business.” Even to her own ears her words sounded hollow.
“No, Fiona,” he said gently. “It’s marriage. It’s not to be taken lightly.”
“I am not taking it at all lightly.” The emotion she’d kept well in check up to now threatened to overwhelm her. She struggled to stay calm. “You agreed to this marriage.”
“I did, and I am still willing to go through with it if you can tell me this is what you really want.”
“It doesn’t matter what I want.” Desperation sounded in her voice. “This is what I have to do.”
Daniel’s gaze locked with hers. “Do you want to marry me?”
“Yes. Of course I do. Absolutely.”
“Then say it.”
“Very well. I want to marry…” She paused, then drew a calming breath. “I want to marry…” Her voice faltered. She couldn’t make herself say the words. “You’re right,” she said quietly. “I know this is what I have to do, and you’re such a nice man and charming and amusing and all any woman would really ever want, and God knows I could have done much worse, but…” She shook her head and tried not to weep. “No. I don’t want to marry you.”
“Then marry me.” Jonathon’s calm voice sounded behind her.
She froze.
Daniel shrugged. “Among the good qualities of mine that you failed to mention is that I have a romantic nature and a firm belief that a woman should always marry the man she loves.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips. “Don’t think of him as a cad with a misplaced sense of obligation, Fiona.” His eyes twinkled. “Think of him as your cad.”
Daniel glanced behind her, nodded at Jonathon, then flashed her a grin and briskly strode out of the room.
For a long moment no one said a word.
“Fiona?” Jonathon’s voice was tentative. She’d never heard him unsure before. She summoned her courage and turned. Her heart thudded in her chest at the sight of him. She fought to keep her voice calm. “What are you doing here?”
“Before you say anything, hear me out,” he said quickly. “I know you’re probably still angry with me and I can certainly understand that. And in spite of my best intentions—”
She narrowed her eyes.
“—everything I’ve done since we first met has been a complete mistake in judgment. I can only attribute it to the fact that I have loved you from the moment you first appeared in the library, even if I didn’t realize it.”
Her breath caught.
“I know one cannot rectify a lie by making it the truth, but I have arranged to go forward with the plan, as it was explained to you, forA Fair Surrender .”
“And if there’s a scandal? If the true authors are discovered?”
He shrugged. “We shall weather it.”
“We?”
“We.” He stepped toward her. “I cannot promise that in the future I will not continue to do things that I think are in your best interest, but I will promise to be honest with you always from this moment forward.
“And in the interest of honesty, you should know that I agreed to provide Sinclair with the money he needs so that it was no longer necessary to marry you today. However,” he added, “from a business standpoint, it is an excellent proposition, an exciting investment and I am confident we shall all make money together.”
At once Oliver’s newfound friendship with Daniel made perfect sense.
“I see,” she said slowly. “So Daniel never intended to marry me today?”
Jonathon nodded.
“And once again you have spent a great deal of money to deceive me?” Although it didn’t seem as important as it once had.
He thought for a moment, then grimaced. “Yes.”
“For my own good?” And weren’t there worse things?
“No, damnation, Fiona, for mine.” He grabbed her shoulders and stared into her eyes. “I cannot live without you. These last few days have been an eternity and I have spent them in hell.”
“Then why haven’t you done anything about it!” Pain rang in her voice and she didn’t care. “You stalked out of my life without a second thought!”
“I didn’t know what to do! What to say! I had no idea how to make things right between us. I have been in a fog from the moment I left you. I’ve never been in love before.” His gaze locked with hers.
“I’ve been told that I needed a grand gesture, something absurdly romantic and completely outrageous to sweep you off your feet. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there is nothing grander than offering you my heart. Although, in truth it’s already yours.”
Her own heart lodged in her throat. “Jonathon—”
“Marry me, Fiona. Now. This minute. It’s all arranged. The licenses, everything.” His gaze searched hers. “It wasn’t a complete deception, there was a wedding planned. Yours and mine. Will you marry me?”
She stared at him for a long time and finally drew a deep breath. “No.”
His face fell. “But I love you and I know you love me and—”
“And if I am to marry the man I love”—she squared her shoulders—“I want a proper wedding. In a church. With your family and friends as witnesses and my sisters as attendants. I want Aunt Edwina planning it exactly as she thinks it should be. And I should like Daniel to be there as well—”
Jonathon stared in disbelief.
“—and I want Countess Orsetti and her son invited because I think it would be great fun just to see their faces and I want that nice Sir Ephraim in attendance and Judith and—”
A slow smile curved the corners of his lips.
“—and I want a terribly extravagant dress in the latest fashion and maybe doves and lots and lots of flowers—”
“Roses?”
“Twelve dozen at least. And most of all”—her voice cracked—“I want you.”
And then she was in his arms. His lips pressed to hers and she clung to him. Something crumbled within her and she sobbed against him and he held her tight.
“I feared I’d lost you,” he murmured against her hair.
She sniffed. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“So…” He drew back and looked at her. “To make certain I understand, you are agreeing to become Lady Helmsley instead of Mrs. Whatshisname?”
“I am,” she said firmly, and hiccupped.
“But not today?”
“Not today.”
“Good.” He breathed a sigh of relief.
She raised a brow.
“Don’t look at me like that. I am fully prepared to marry you today, but I too have a family that will not be happy if they are not made a part of this. Besides”—his blue eyes gazed into hers with love and a promise of forever—“I want to do this properly as well.”
“You know, we shall have to tell Aunt Edwina and everyone here that the wedding they expect will not take place.”
“Oliver is telling them now.”
“You were that confident?”
“Not at all.” He grinned. “Maybe a bit. Or perhaps I just hoped. Now…” He studied her curiously. “I have a question for you.”
“Just one?”
“You were willing to enter into a temporary marriage, a business arrangement, with Sinclair.” His gaze narrowed. “Why did you never suggest such an arrangement with me? I might well have been interested in such a proposition.”
“You didn’t want to marry at all, remember? Besides, with you, I didn’t want it to be temporary.”
“Why?” The soft timbre of his voice belied the intensity in his eyes.
“Because with you there was every possibility I would lose my heart. And when the marriage was at an end I would not be able to bear it.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you.” She smiled up at him. “I believe I have from the first night I saw you all those years ago.”
“When you spied on me in the library?”
“You do realize your Christmas Eve trysts with ladies in the library during the Christmas Ball are at an end, don’t you?”
“Absolutely not.” He pulled her closer, a wicked light shining in his eyes. “I shall simply limit myself to one lady.”
She laughed with a joy she could not contain.
“After all, you did say you had always wanted to be the lady in the library on Christmas Eve.” He nuzzled the side of her neck and she shivered with delight and anticipation.
“And better yet, the lady in your arms the day after,” she murmured, and her lips met his. And knew she would indeed be the lady in his arms on Christmas Eve and the day after and every day to come.
Epilogue
Four weeks later…
“Nice wedding,” Warton said, sipping his usual drink in his usual chair in their favorite club. “If you like that sort of thing.”
“I don’t.” Cavendish shuddered. “Entirely too sentimental for my taste. Although Miss Fairchild, or rather Lady Helmsley now, was beautiful as always.”
Oliver smiled. “Indeed she was.”
“And she could have been mine,” Sinclair said with a dramatic sigh. The American had yet to return to his own country, partially because of Fiona and Jonathon’s desire to have him present at their wedding, but primarily because his initial arrangement with Jonathon had developed into an investment partnership including them all.
Cavendish snorted. “In name only.”
“Onlyin the beginning.” Sinclair grinned.
“Still”—Oliver swirled the brandy in his glass—“it seems to me it isn’t the sentiment of a wedding that’s distasteful as much as it is the permanence.”
“I should think permanence is part of the appeal,” Sinclair said thoughtfully. Warton raised a brow. “Permanence appeals to you?”
Sinclair grimaced. “Not yet.”
Oliver eyed him curiously. “You’re under no pressure to marry, then?”
“None whatsoever. Unless, of course, you consider that little matter of my father having arranged a marriage for me without my consent.” He took a sip of his brandy and shook his head. “Unlike you gentlemen, I have no title to pass on, no castle in the country to inherit and therefore, you would think, no pressing need for an heir. But my father believes he is building an empire and an empire needs a prince. I, on the other hand, am trying to build one of my own.”
“How very American of you,” Warton murmured, but there was a reluctant glint of admiration in his eye.
“I do think, however, that marriage, even for me, is inevitable.” Sinclair shrugged. “And preferable to living your life alone.”
“That’s a nasty wordinevitable ,” Warton said wryly. “As ispermanent .”
Cavendish leaned toward Sinclair and grinned. “I do actually have a castle in the country, you know.”
Sinclair laughed.
“Still, Helmsley did look extraordinarily happy,” Warton said, more to himself than to the others. A low murmur of assent circled the group and faded to a considering silence. Each man sipped his brandy, thought his own thoughts.
It occurred to Oliver that these days were drawing to a close. Jonathon was the first to go. They would always be friends, of course, and he and Jonathon were now related as well, but no matter how close Jonathon remained with Oliver and the others, Fiona was now his closest friend. As it should be. They all had to wed eventually, and one day, probably soon, marriage and the responsibilities of family and position would separate them. Slowly and imperceptibly, perhaps, like the change of the seasons, but to be expected nonetheless.
“Rather a pity things have to change,” Cavendish said, and Oliver wondered if they were all thinking the same thing.
“I wonder who it will be,” Warton murmured.
“Who will be what?” Oliver asked.
Warton started as if surprised he had spoken aloud. “The last one of us to marry.”