CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER THREE
L EX SAW HER wrap her arms around her middle, shoulders curving protectively.
Even then it was impossible to believe. The very idea was pure fantasy. It had to be, because if what she’d said were true... That didn’t bear thinking about.
Portia turned away. ‘Whatever you were told wasn’t right, Lex. I wanted to come to you that night but I couldn’t.’
He put down his glass carefully. It was easier to concentrate on that than the riot of emotions her declaration unleashed.
‘You’re seriously saying your father locked you away in a dungeon?’ The man was bombastic and prejudiced but he was too fond of his own reputation to do anything so outrageous. ‘Apart from anything else, Cropley Hall is a house, not a castle with a handy dungeon.’
Portia let out a shuddering sigh, dropping her arms and pushing her shoulders back. Then she walked to the end of the chesterfield and scooped up her coat.
‘Forget it. It doesn’t matter now. It was a mistake to come here.’
Already she was walking away from him. Only this time, instead of saying goodbye by text she simply turned her back, dismissing him.
Lex wasn’t aware of moving, but the next instant his hand was on her upper arm as he turned her to face him.
What he saw hit him like a physical blow.
He’d only seen Portia cry once, the day her mother died. Even then she’d pulled free of his arms, not wanting to wallow in tears, and concentrated on grooming the horses and mucking out stables until hours later, exhausted, she let him lead her away.
Now he looked down into eyes glazed with unshed tears. Eyes shadowed by hurt. She blinked and looked away, shaking her hand free.
Leaving him with a sharp ache slicing from his chest to his gut.
Then he remembered. Whatever her faults, Portia wasn’t a liar. That last text from her had been brutal. It had devastated him, spurring him to leave not only Cropley but Britain too. But it had at least been honest. She’d left him in no doubt about their relationship ending.
Lex looked at her averted face, the tight downward crimp of her mouth, and felt a tiny sliver of doubt puncture over a decade of resentment.
‘Talk to me, Portia.’
‘There’s no point. It was so long ago. A whole lifetime ago.’ Those lush lips crumpled for a second and then she turned back to him.
Her pale face was composed now. Her eyes were still bright but no longer brimming. Her gaze met his but it was unreadable, as if she’d blanked out all emotion.
That made him more than ever determined to get to the bottom of this. He’d always been able to read her but now she shut him out as if he were a total stranger.
Let her. You are strangers. You lost your chance for a future years ago. You’re different people now.
And yet...
‘It’s getting late.’ Her voice was flat. ‘I’ve got a long commute so it’s best if I—’
‘Tell me, Portia. I promise to listen.’
He was no longer a reckless teenager, driven by hormones and emotion, thrilled that the girl he’d loved returned his feelings.
Maybe, despite the sizzle of physical attraction that had brought him back to London, it wasn’t sex that would finally break their thread of connection. Maybe hearing her excuses would do it instead.
Either way, Lex knew that one way or another, their lives were headed in separate directions.
She gave him an assessing look then picked up the coat that had fallen to the floor and moved away. But instead of going to the door, she perched on the broad arm of the chair near the window, arms folded under the coat. As if ready to leave at any moment.
Lex strolled across to stand on the opposite side of the window. He propped a shoulder to the wall, hands in his pockets.
‘Tell me.’
‘My dad found out about us that morning. Raine saw us coming out of one of the outbuildings and heard enough to know I planned to elope with you that night.’
Something caught Lex under the ribs. They’d been found out?
Lex remembered Raine. The woman who’d started coming to Cropley Hall mere months after the death of Portia’s mother. Old man Oakhurst was besotted with her and there had been rumours of an impending wedding.
There was no love lost between Portia and her father’s lover.
‘He went ballistic. I’ve never seen him like that.’
He’d have been apoplectic at the idea of his daughter eloping with the youth he’d always despised, despite Lex’s hard work and ability with the horses.
‘His roars would have brought the house down.’
Yet none of the staff had mentioned it while he and his great-uncle worked that afternoon at the stables. Lex had even seen Portia’s father late that day. The man had been brusque but no more than usual.
‘That’s just it. He didn’t shout. He went quiet and cold. It was eerie, seeing him so furious he shook with it, but bottling it up inside. It wasn’t like him at all.’
Lex tried to imagine it and couldn’t. The man was a loudmouthed bully. His rages were renowned.
‘He grabbed me by the arm and marched me into the library, then told me he had plans for me that didn’t include me throwing away my future on you.’
That Lex could imagine. The man was a snob and would want his daughter to marry an aristocrat, or at least a wealthy man.
‘He refused to listen. Every time I tried to speak he kept going as if he didn’t hear me, until finally...’
Portia hesitated, one hand lifting to her cheek, and despite his doubts, Lex felt his blood run cold.
‘Finally, what?’
‘He slapped me.’ Her face turned to his and Lex read a shadow of his own shock there. ‘So hard he knocked me right off my feet.’
‘What?’ Lex straightened, hands fisting by his sides. ‘He hit you?’
The man was known for his abominable temper. Even the horses grew nervous when he came near. But according to Portia he’d never physically lashed out.
‘I couldn’t believe it either. Maybe that’s why I was woozy afterwards. I couldn’t seem to get my balance back. He frogmarched me out of the room and down the stairs. By the time I realised where I was, the door was locked and he’d taken my phone.’ She paused. ‘There is a dungeon, you know. Just the remnants of one at the far end of what’s now the wine cellar. Cropley was built on the ruins of an old castle.’
As if that were the most important thing out of everything she’d said!
‘He hit you! And locked you up?’
Nausea swamped Lex. He’d put her at risk and hadn’t been there when she needed him. He wanted to reach for her but the look on her face stopped him.
‘How badly were you hurt?’
‘Just bruising and shock.’
‘There’s no just about it. Nothing excuses that.’
She nodded, her expression sombre. ‘I knew he’d be furious if he found out about us, which is why I wanted to sneak away. But I never expected he’d react the way he did.’
Portia drew a deep breath. ‘It turned out he had money worries I didn’t know anything about. Apparently we’d been living beyond our means for years.’
‘Don’t you mean he had been?’
It was true Portia had had the advantage of living in a stately home with private stables. Despite that she’d been unspoiled and down-to-earth, mainly he suspected because of her mother’s influence. Her father, on the other hand, lived lavishly, entertaining and holidaying frequently and at great expense. His costly tastes were only surpassed by his avid interest in horse racing. Had his downfall been gambling or bad investments?
Portia shrugged. ‘I suspect that was one of the reasons he pursued Raine, for her money. He’d hatched a scheme for me to marry someone rich too, to keep him afloat.’
‘So having you run off with a penniless yokel didn’t fit his plans.’ Lex gritted his teeth, horrified that he’d known nothing about this. Guilt crawled through his belly. He’d left believing Portia had dumped him at the last minute, leading him on while laughing behind his back. ‘What happened? I got a text.’
‘It wasn’t from me. I never got my phone back. I spent that night and all the next day locked away downstairs. Then he told me you’d packed up and left.’
Lex still reeled at the revelation she really had been a prisoner. It didn’t seem possible. It shouldn’t have been!
It was no help to recall this had all happened years ago. To him it was fresh news. How could she sound matter-of-fact about it?
All this time he’d thought...
‘That text was so convincing. It sounded like you. Until it got to the bit about not tying yourself to a hopeless case and about the joke having gone on long enough.’
It was easier to stare at the pitiless rain visible in the glow of the lights than look at Portia.
‘You said I’d been good for a summer romance—a bit of rough on the side—but wasn’t suitable long-term.’
He remembered every word. They were engraved in flaming letters in his brain. He’d even imagined Portia saying them in that crisp accent of hers.
Now his tortured mind conjured the memory of how her clear voice became endearingly hoarse in passion. His nape prickled, the fine hairs there standing up as sexual hunger stirred.
Some things had changed, but not everything.
There was still something about Portia that drew him at an elemental level.
‘ I never said any of those things! It was my father, or him with Raine’s help. She had a knack for cutting people down to size.’
‘I’m sorry, Portia. Sorry that you had to face that. If I’d known—’
‘You weren’t to know. There’s no point now talking about if only .’
Lex supposed it was easy for her to be sanguine after all this time. But it would take him time to process this. Adrenaline beat through his blood, and the need to take action. To make things right.
He turned to see her watching him closely. What did she see? Anger? Resolve? Or was she seeing that summer long ago when love had seemed as natural as breathing, when nothing else had mattered.
She was right. Everything had changed. They had. Their hopes and plans. Even their personalities. He was no longer an impulsive youth who believed in soulmates and happy-ever-afters.
He saw shadows of pain in Portia’s eyes and knew she too had left behind that innocent belief in the power of romance.
‘I take it your father’s plan didn’t work out.’ It can’t have since he was auctioning off paintings.
Why don’t you ask straight out whether she married the man her father had chosen?
Because he didn’t want to hear about Portia being with someone else.
He’d told himself that because she still used her maiden name and didn’t wear a ring, she was single. Available. Besides, if she’d married the man her father had wanted, she wouldn’t be working in an office job. She’d be living a more glamorous life.
‘You thought I’d meekly marry to please him? After what he’d done to us ?’ She tilted her chin up in a way that was pure Portia, eyes flashing. ‘I thought you knew me better than that.’
Lex felt a strange frisson of emotion at the way she said us . An echo of the past when there’d been nothing more important than him and Portia together.
‘I expressed that badly. I meant—’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She made a slicing gesture. ‘I don’t want to talk about my father or the past anymore. You know the main points. That’s all that matters.’
She rose and stood before him. ‘I came because I promised myself if I had the chance I’d let you know I didn’t stand you up. There’s no going back, of course. We’re not the people we once were. But you deserved the truth and I wanted to clear my name. You must have hated me.’
Lex paused before replying. There was no point in telling her she was right. He had despised her, for using then discarding him.
All this time he’d been wrong about her.
He grappled to absorb that.
Finally he said, ‘Thank you for telling me. It’s good finally to know the truth.’
Though it appalled him. He wanted to confront her father. It might have happened years ago but the man couldn’t be allowed to get away with his actions.
‘Why didn’t you contact me sooner?’ he asked belatedly. If he’d known...
‘He took my phone, remember?’ He heard something steely in her voice. ‘And when I finally got somewhere I could call, you didn’t pick up. I tried multiple times.’
In the state he’d been in, if he’d received calls from a number he didn’t know he’d have ignored them. Then he’d left the country almost immediately and had been determined to leave his old life behind. ‘I ditched my British SIM when I went to Greece.’
So she’d have had no way of contacting him. Lex felt like he’d taken a step on a staircase only to discover thin air beneath his foot. It was an unpleasant sensation that made his stomach knot.
‘So, now you know. I’ll be on my way.’
She turned but Lex stepped in front of her. She couldn’t just walk out after dropping that bombshell. He wasn’t ready for her to leave.
‘It’s pouring out there. Why not stay and share some wine with me? I’ll order a meal then take you home.’
Her eyes locked on his and heat flared under his skin.
The same heat that had fired his blood these past three weeks, fracturing his concentration and breaking his sleep.
The same heat he’d experienced as a teenager, lusting after the lovely girl who’d been the centre of his hopes and dreams.
Their joint future might be dead and buried but the physical dynamic, that searing attraction, was stronger than ever. Just standing this close to her made his pulse race and his hormones try to wrangle control of his brain.
‘Thanks, Lex.’ Her smile was wistful. ‘But it’s probably better not to.’
‘Why not? You hate me because of the rift between you and your father?’
Portia’s eyes rounded, her mouth gaping. ‘I don’t hate you. I never hated you.’
Lex didn’t know why her words affected him so deeply but they did. He felt something turn over in his chest, a hard, tight knot that was part pleasure, part pain.
She may not blame him but he blamed himself.
All this time he’d pictured her laughing at him, thinking herself better than him. Blaming her for his heartbreak. Instead she’d suffered because he hadn’t been careful enough, hadn’t managed to spirit her safely away from her dreadful father. He’d swallowed her father’s lies and walked away without a backward glance.
‘I’m sorry, Portia. I should have stayed and looked for you. I should have known you’d never send a message like that.’
He’d loved her. He should have trusted her. Guilt was a sharp blade, slashing through his ribs.
Now he understood that beneath his bravado there must have been an undercurrent of self-doubt, fed by years of contempt and suspicion from the local squire and many of the villagers. Had their doubts insidiously undermined his own conviction?
When he’d got that poisonous text it had seemed like confirmation that Portia’s love for him had never been real. That the very idea of it was too good to be true.
‘It’s over, Lex.’ Her mouth turned into a flatline ‘It’s in the past.’
He hated the way she kept saying that. She was right, they were no longer in love. But there was something still between them, apart from the weight of guilt in his belly. Something he couldn’t ignore. It had dragged him back to the UK in the depths of a dreary winter. More, it had disrupted his work schedule, something unheard of.
‘But is it really in the past?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean? We don’t have a relationship anymore. We don’t even know each other now.’
Lex nodded. ‘I agree. We have our own lives, our separate futures. We’re not destined for a romantic happy ending, even if we believed in it anymore.’ He paused, waiting to be sure she wouldn’t contradict him. She didn’t. ‘But you feel this too.’ He knew she did.
She didn’t answer straight away. Was that trepidation in her expression? ‘Feel what?’
Her chin was high, her face giving nothing away, but he didn’t miss the slight tremble in her voice or the way her breathing shallowed.
‘This connection.’
He lifted his hand and let his fingertip skim her cheekbone, down to the corner of her mouth where her lips parted on a gasp that made the smouldering heat in his groin ignite.
Her pupils dilated, turning those velvety eyes into dark pools of longing.
‘It’s real, isn’t it, Portia? Still there after all this time.’
He needed her to admit it. Despite her lust-darkened gaze, he needed absolute confirmation he wasn’t alone in this.
Lex’s pulse jumped as warm fingers closed around his wrist. He stiffened, guessing she was about to drag his hand away and deny the powerful tug between them.
She held his hand steady, then unexpectedly turned her face to kiss the centre of his palm.
Lightning struck, bolts of it sheering through his body, turning muscle and sinew to white-hot metal, making his blood thunder.
He moved instinctively, looping an arm around her waist and pulling her hard against him.
Instantly sensations bombarded him. He felt her against him from chest to thigh. He hadn’t held her for years yet his body remembered and revelled in her proximity.
Arousal stirred and he knew she must feel it.
He tried and failed to remember any other woman who’d affected him so instantaneously.
She curled her free hand around the back of his neck. Her other hand still held his, bringing it close again for another kiss. Anticipation was an effervescent tide in his blood, a streak of tingling awareness shooting straight to his groin.
But instead of pressing her lips to his palm, Portia nipped the flesh at the base of his thumb, sending his whole body into overdrive.
Dark eyes surveyed him from under long lashes. ‘If you’re talking about sex, the answer is yes. The attraction’s still there.’