Giles blinked. “What?”
“He said you’re devoted to your work. He has also graciously forgiven me for seeing you without a formal introduction,” Fiona told him. When Giles gave her a blank stare in return, she asked the next question on her mind. “Had it been a while since you and your mother danced?”
“Y-yeah. We haven’t danced at a ball like this in two years. She was angry with me.”
Two years… From the way the earl spoke, Fiona had imagined that Giles did not socialize with his mother often, but she had no idea it had been that long. Fiona rarely went to parties, but even she danced with her father several times a year.
Seeing the startled look on her face, Giles awkwardly elaborated. “I don’t attend many parties with my parents, and I always leave early. Well, to be fair, I had been avoiding them at home as well.”
Fiona assumed that Miranda’s marriage had shifted all the scrutiny about marriage to Giles and that he had kept his distance as a result. She imagined that it was probably easy to avoid people you lived with if your home was a big mansion and you were all on different schedules.
Fiona understood all too well what it felt like to have family members pressure one to marry, whether one wanted to or not. She was in no place to blame Giles for his behavior. But still…that look in the earl’s eyes earlier had reminded Fiona of her mother in days gone by.
“When I saw your father,” Fiona said, “he reminded me of my mother.”
“He did?” Giles asked.
“Yes. I was small when she died, though, so my only memories of her are hazy impressions.”
Any time her mother felt well, she had been with Fiona. Even when she could no longer lift Fiona into her arms, she held Fiona’s hand, caressed her hair, and sang to her. Fiona remembered her mother’s cold hands when they cupped her cheeks—but more than that, she remembered the warmth of her mother’s heart.
“My mother was very kind,” Fiona continued in a murmur. “She praised me for my horrible attempts at nursing her.” She remembered her own tiny hand holding out a spoon, and her mother smiling gently, eating, and telling her it was delicious. But Fiona knew now that her mother had no appetite back then. “The only thing is…I can’t remember her voice. I remember her songs and the things she said to me, but not her voice. Isn’t that strange?”
She trailed off under Giles’s gaze, lost in thought. These distant memories, tucked away in a warm, safe place in her mind, were Fiona’s most precious treasure. At times, they rose to the surface like bubbles in water, sometimes gentle, sometimes very painful.
After a brief silence, Giles asked cautiously, “Your mother… You remember the things she said to you?”
Fiona smiled and nodded. “She said a lot of things, of course, but every day, she told me that she loved our family, and that she prayed for our happiness.”
“Did she…”
It was common, of course, for children to outlive their parents. Death was always just around the corner. At a very young age, Fiona had learned the crushing pain, the heartbreak, of losing a loved one. It had taught her to cherish the people she loved in the present so that she would have no regrets when they were gone.
“Only my family remembers my mother,” Fiona said. “But I’m glad you know about her now too, Lord Gil.”
“Fiona…”
“I almost forget sometimes that that flamboyant uncle of mine is her little brother.” She giggled, her joke shattering the somber mood.
“I’m…not sure how to feel about that,” Giles admitted. He smirked, picturing Reginald, that trailblazer, in his mind.
“If his example tells us anything, my mother would probably have been quite the tomboy if she were still around.”
“Like you?”
“I’d be proud of the title of tomboy if I got to share it with my mother. Shall I live up to it and jump in the lake right now?”
“Please don’t.”
“But I can swim!”
“That’s not the issue here. We should head back.”
They shared a laugh, and Fiona took Giles’s extended hand. A man in a suit entered the terrace then, and he approached them as they walked in his direction.
When the man recognized Giles, he looked relieved. Apparently, he was a servant who had been searching for Giles. “Excuse me, Lord Lowell, but His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has asked to see you.”
“He has?”
“Yes. So sorry to intrude, but please come with me.”
Fiona and Giles exchanged surprised glances. The night’s festivities were hosted by the queen, but typically, this ball did not demand the formal soirée protocol of paying respects to the royal family. Attendees were supposed to be able to socialize freely throughout the party. Unlike at ordinary gatherings, the king and other royals were out in the great hall with the rest of them, indulging in dancing and light conversation. In a way, rank was put aside for the night so that everyone could enjoy themselves. This was why they were surprised to hear that the crown prince was asking to speak to Giles, his old childhood friend, even though that request might not normally seem out of place.
“Must I go now?” Giles asked.
“Yes. And I’m terribly sorry, but he specified that he wished to speak with Lord Lowell alone.”
The servant emphasized that last word, and Giles frowned a little. The great hall should have been sufficient for a conversation; a private room shouldn’t have been necessary. What did the crown prince want to say to him that he did not wish others to overhear?
“Go ahead, Lord Gil. I can return to the party on my own,” Fiona assured him, removing her arm from his.
Giles looked at her, then at the servant who had come for him. “Where is he?”
“I’ll escort you, my lord.”
For security reasons, the rooms in which the royal family stayed rotated every year. Giles’s face clouded over even further at the insinuation that he would not be permitted to learn where the crown prince was, but there was simply no way he could refuse the summons. “All right, then summon another servant to take Miss Clayburn to my family or the Heywards.”
“Very well, my lord. If you wouldn’t mind waiting here a moment, I shall return presently.”
The servant turned and hurried back inside, and as he went, Giles turned to Fiona and apologized. “He’s one of the crown prince’s closest servants.” Giles had recognized the servant’s face, which meant that the summons was legitimate.
“Don’t worry, Lord Gil. I’ll be fine.”
“But I want you to stay with my sister or godmother. Or Rick, if neither of them can be found.”
“You don’t suppose Lord Russel was also summoned?”
Giles paused thoughtfully. “Fair point.” Richard was old friends with the crown prince too. The prince was so high above Fiona that he felt like a god to her, but, well, that was what it meant to be a higher noble. Once again, Fiona was acutely, painfully aware of the stark difference in status between herself and Giles. “If he’s busy, then you can stay with my parents. Just make sure you’re with someone you know until I get back.”
Giles was certain that the moment Fiona was alone, a crowd of ladies would flock to her. The amount of slander aimed at her had decreased significantly, but she had the highly coveted position of Giles’s lover; some of the noblewomen were likely to still have it out for her. Fiona understood their anger and felt it might be best to let them taunt and vilify her so that they could get it out of their systems, but Giles put his foot down. He was vigilant about Fiona’s safety, and the way Fiona had been targeted on her way to and from the art gallery left him worried that somebody would become violent with her.
He was forgetting, of course, that everyone who entered the White Palace that night first had to pass a strict security check. It would also be difficult to attack her with so many other people in attendance, and even more difficult to kidnap her without anyone seeing. Fiona didn’t understand why Giles was so paranoid.
While Fiona and Giles were talking, the servant brought back a dutiful-looking male servant around Fiona’s age, whom he introduced as a trainee in the crown prince’s inner circle.
“I am Jeremy of the Bergman barony,” the young man said with a cordial bow. “I’ve come to escort you to the Flower Room, where the Marchioness of Colet is waiting.”
This reassured Giles somewhat. With a final reminder to Fiona to exercise caution, he left, following the servant who had come to find him. He still looked a bit preoccupied, though, and he turned around briefly to look at her as he left. Fiona gave him a casual wave goodbye.
“Well, Miss, let’s get going,” Jeremy said. “The Flower Room is on the other side of the great hall. It won’t take us long to get there.”
Fiona thanked him with a cheerful smile and let him take the lead. They crossed through the great hall, exchanging pleasant greetings with the familiar faces they passed, but just when they were about to reach the Flower Room…
“Fiona Clayburn,” said a woman in a deep red dress who was standing in wait. “You and I need to have a little chat.”
It was Caroline, the Earl of Burleigh’s daughter.