Chapter Fourteen
Chapter
FOURTEEN
While Portia’s body still hummed with need almost an hour later, her head was spinning like a top. She still couldn’t quite believe what had just happened, or how significant and perfect it had felt. Or where it would have gone if they had not been interrupted again.
But she did, however, know that kissing the duke had been a massive mistake.
For so many reasons she didn’t quite know what to do about it all—other than never see him ever again.
A prospect that filled her with such sadness it caused a physical ache in her chest in the vicinity of her heart that she didn’t know what to do about either.
The ache had begun the moment he had confessed that she called to his soul.
Likely because he called to hers too. So much, she couldn’t stand it.
How on earth could she have been so stupid to develop feelings for a duke?
And not just a duke, but a magistrate to boot? One who had clearly also, unbelievably, developed some feelings for her too.
Or at least for the woman he thought that she was.
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!
For the umpteenth time, she picked up her pen to try to make sense of all her conflicting feelings on paper, but instead paced to her bedchamber window because, for the first time in her life, she was unable to write a single word.
Then she stared out, wishing she could just blame the moonlight for what had happened.
At some point in the last week the duke had crawled under her skin and mined all her defenses and …
That heady moonlight suddenly cast a human-shaped shadow on the lawn. One that was moving at speed toward the end of the garden.
It was Lady Abigail, and by the dark cloak that she wore and the furtive glances behind her back toward the house, it was obvious that the duke’s sister was up to no good.
Portia didn’t pause to think; for Leo’s sake, she just went after her.
The rest of the house was as silent as the grave, which was odd when nothing usually got past the dogs.
It was only when she reached the kitchen and saw both hounds munching on a juicy bone that she realized why they were so quiet.
They were so engrossed, they barely looked her way as she hurried out of the back door.
There was no sign of the duke’s sister at the end of the garden, but the gate that had been very much locked when Portia had arrived back from the newspaper was now wide open.
There was no sign of her in the quiet mews either, so Portia turned right, assuming that Lady Abigail would head toward town, but some sixth sense made her glance left.
That was when she saw two shadowy figures in the darkness hurrying hand in hand toward the desolate parkland.
The closer Portia got, the more apparent it was that Lady Abigail was having a tryst with a man, because once the pair of them started embracing, they didn’t seem to want to stop.
She empathized. If the duke’s mother hadn’t interrupted their passionate embrace earlier, she would have offered him everything because she had been so caught up in it all—so caught up in him. She had wanted him that much.
Still did, truth be told.
“Lady Abigail…” Just as Portia and the duke had done, the pair jumped guiltily apart at the sound of her voice and blinked at her in the darkness. The only problem was that the man looked worryingly familiar.
“Percy?” She stalked closer to double-check. “Percy! What the…?”
“Portia!” He looked as surprised to see her as she was him. “What are you doing here?”
That was when Lady Abigail’s hands went to her hips. “I cannot wait to hear how you two know each other.” For some inexplicable reason the girl was jealous as well as resentful. “Or when you gave her leave to use your Christian name, Percy.”
“Because Portia … I mean Miss Kendall … is my superior at the newspaper.” Unaware that he had just announced Portia’s deepest, darkest secret to the sister of both her employer and a local magistrate who could shut Equitas down, Percy stuttered some more.
“I am her assistant.” Then, in case Portia had not been able to work out the scale of the monumental catastrophe she had just uncovered, he decided to introduce them.
“Miss Portia Kendall, this is Lady Abigail Sloane—” His chest puffed with pride. “My fiancée.”
Dizziness swamped her. “Oh good grief—this cannot be happening.” Just when Portia thought that her situation couldn’t become more complicated, life went and poured paraffin over it and then set it ablaze.
“You work at the newspaper?” As she, at least, realized the gravity of the situation, Lady Abigail’s question came out in a squeak.
“She does more than work at it, Abigail, she is the second-in-command. And she’s a brilliant writer.
You must have read her work as she has had many articles published in Equitas over the years.
And she now writes the weekly opinion piece too.
Although if you haven’t read her work, I’ll guarantee that you have heard it because she used to write many of the League of Reform’s speeches too and…
” Percy stopped gushing to stare at them. “What am I missing?”
“Miss Kendall is my chaperone, Percy.” There was vitriol in the younger woman’s tone now. “She is paid handsomely by my brother to ensure that I have nothing whatsoever to do with you.”
“Oh,” he managed to stutter in between gaping at Portia like a fish. “Oh.”
“And be in no doubt that she is about to inform on us to Leo just as soon as she can!”
That was indeed what Portia was paid to do.
And doubtless what she should do under all normal circumstances—except these circumstances weren’t normal.
Now that the cat was out of the bag regarding her involvement with Equitas, and now that she had developed some unexpected feelings for the duke—the magistrate—her situation was precarious indeed.
“Portia is not our enemy.” That came from Percy. “You can trust her to keep our secret, Abigail.” Then he turned to Portia. “That’s right, isn’t it?”
“I … er…” She had never felt so torn in her life. Between the duke who had apparently stolen her heart when she hadn’t been looking and the cause that had always been her first love. Now, whichever she chose would mean betraying the other.
She stared at the two star-crossed lovers again.
Their hands entwined. Their eyes hopeful.
Whoever had first said that ignorance was bliss knew what they were talking about.
If she could turn back time, she would ignore the shadow in the garden and blithely carry on none the wiser because her other dilemma between her heart and her head was big enough already.
But in the end, prudence dictated that she had only one choice.
“I am paid to be Lady Abigail’s chaperone between the hours of eight and six.
What happens outside of those hours is not my concern.
” Feeling utterly wretched, she spun on her heel and repeated the cowardly phrase that seemed to be her new mantra rather than face up to the consequences.
“Let us pretend that this hasn’t happened and never speak of any of it again. ”
Portia barely slept and spent most of the night trying to work through all her multiplying problems on paper. By the time she ventured downstairs early the next morning, she felt wrung out like an old dishrag but at least had a solution. One that she knew was ultimately for the best.
For the duke. For the cause. And for Equitas.
That it made her utterly miserable was by the by. She had made this bed, and she would lie in it. Then perhaps, in a month or two, with her life significantly less complicated and if she buried herself in her important work at the newspaper, he would feel less important to her.
His study door was ajar as she approached it, which was normally a sign that this unconventional, informal duke was happy for anyone to come in and bother him. But still she knocked. She needed to make this formal. It really was the only way she could get through it.
“Come in.” He sounded distracted and not quite himself, and she knew that was all her fault too.
“Your grace.” She breezed in and bobbed a curtsy. Determined to pretend that nothing monumental had shifted between them last night and to absolutely not speak of it, in the hope that he wouldn’t either. A hope that was quickly dashed when she witnessed the longing in his deep blue eyes.
“Portia…” He stood. Went to rush to her and then thought better of it.
Uncomfortable, he shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot while his gaze searched for any clues that she was as unsettled by everything as he plainly was.
“Can we talk? Only, I appreciate that you are a little bit overwhelmed by all the duke nonsense, and I wanted to reassure you that I don’t care that—”
She cut him off. She had to. All the longing and concern in his eyes was quickly smashing through her resolve. “I came to give you this, your grace.” She held out the letter that she had wept over while writing not an hour ago.
He stared at it in trepidation, clearly sensing he wasn’t going to like what it said. “What is this?”
“It is my resignation. If it is all right with you, I should like to leave straightaway.”
He swallowed and raked a frustrated hand through his hair. “Of course it’s not bloody well all right with me!” Then he began to pace, his movements stiff and jerky as he did his best to keep all his emotions contained. “I don’t want you to go! Especially after last night.”
“But I must.” It was the only way to unweave some of the tangled web that she had created. “And most especially after last night.”
“Why? Because you want to get away from me or because you want to run away from us?”
“Both,” she admitted honestly, and to underscore it, she placed her letter of resignation on his desk. “There can never be an us. Even if we tried, I can assure you that it wouldn’t end well. Oil and water were never meant to mix, your grace.”
“It’s Leo, goddammit!” His angry eyes turned molten as he stalked toward her. “Is that really so hard to say when you’ve had your hands all over my body?”
“Your grace, I—”
“You kissed the man, not the duke, Portia.” His hands reached for her upper arms and she felt his touch everywhere. “Say my name. Make this personal—because it is personal and you know it! Stop trying to put distance between us that doesn’t need to be there.”
She eased herself from his grasp. “I have to, your grace.”
“You don’t have to, Portia—you want to! I just don’t bloody understand why?” His arms folded. “So tell me why you cannot be with a duke? What is so vastly different in the composition of my human body and yours that we cannot possibly mix?”
With her customary impeccable timing, that was when his mother arrived.
But this time, Portia was grateful for it.
“Leo!” She burst through the door without knocking, blinked at them both and then smiled.
“I am so sorry to interrupt—but there is a horrid little red-faced man here who is causing quite the commotion on the doorstep. He absolutely insists on having an immediate audience with you.”
The duke’s furious gaze refused to leave Portia’s. “Not now, Mother.”
His mother was not the least bit fazed by his icy tone. “I’ve told him that you are convalescing, but he won’t have it. A Mr. Nilly or Nally something. Anyway, he wants a warrant apparently, although why I have no clue. He is ranting so much it’s difficult to make head nor tail of what he wants.”
That was when the constable stalked in and slammed the latest copy of Equitas on the desk.
“Now they are accusing us of perverting the cause of justice!” Clearly it was Portia’s latest opinion piece that had incensed him so.
The one she had written on the back of the authorities moving Reynolds’s trial from Bristol to Winchester to ensure a conviction, seeing as that had seemed quite a timely and topical subject.
Nolley jabbed his finger at the headline.
“State-Sanctioned Meddling Most Foul: How the law legally perverts the course of justice.” She regretted that provocative headline too now that she was stood barely two feet from a man who wanted her hung, drawn, and quartered just for writing it.
“If that is not seditious and blasphemous libel then I do not know what is! So I want that warrant today, your grace!” He slapped the article hard enough that Barkington began to growl at him. “And I am not leaving until I get it!”
The duke’s temper snapped. “I am clearly in the middle of another important meeting, Constable Nolley.” He pointed to the door. “So you will wait outside until it is concluded!”
Nolley banged the desk with his fist, causing Snifferson, who was hiding underneath it, to whimper. “With respect, your grace, nothing could be as important as this!” He glared at Portia. “Your fancy woman can wait!”
“Why don’t Miss Kendall and I leave you to it, dear?” The duchess grabbed Portia’s elbow and tugged her toward the door.
“I want this Pendle fellow’s head on a pike.
” The constable was repeatedly slapping the table now as if he imagined it was her head, so Portia was only too happy to be dragged to wherever the duchess wanted to drag her to.
“And I want every bit of wherever they print that treasonous, slanderous rag razed to the ground!”
The duchess closed the door and pulled a face. “Well, that was unpleasant.” Portia nodded. Too shaken by all this morning’s unpleasantness to know what else to say.
The door reopened and the duke was framed in it.
His handsome face now a barely contained mask of fury.
“Miss Kendall.” He had never sounded so clipped and cold.
“As you are so determined to escape me at your earliest possible convenience, know that it is not convenient for me for you to do so. If you consult your contract, you will see that you are required to give me a month’s notice.
Be assured that this duke expects you to be here for all of it! ”
Then the walls shook from the force with which he slammed the door.