Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter
THIRTY-THREE
“Remind me again why we are here?” Leo caressed her fingers where they rested in the crook of his arm as they walked through Hyde Park, no doubt fully aware of the effect it was having on Portia’s increasingly wayward body.
“Because if you had pleaded a headache like I suggested half an hour ago, we could have spent the entire afternoon making love in a blissfully empty house instead. We travel back to Bath tomorrow, so it will be at least a week before I can have my wicked way with you in the afternoon again.”
“Because it is apparently a family tradition that you and your sisters take a boat out on the Serpentine whenever you are all in London. And, more importantly, your mother also decreed that the entire Sloane family should promenade this afternoon to prove to the rest of the ton that we do not give a jot what any of them think of us.”
A decree that had come about because yet another gossip column had spread some unfounded speculation about the Delinquent Duchess of Debden.
This one suggesting that she and Leo hadn’t caused the king grave offense by absconding early from his court reception five days ago, like all the other scandal rags had intimated.
But had instead been forcibly removed by the palace guards because Portia had insulted the king when she had been presented to him by stating that she could not wait until he was deposed in a revolution.
“And we cannot waste every afternoon in bed just because you have suddenly become insatiable.” Although she did rather enjoy that he couldn’t seem to get enough of her—almost as much as she enjoyed what they did in bed at all hours of the day.
“I seem to recall that yesterday afternoon, it was you who insisted that I have my wicked way with you, so I am not the only insatiable one.” He pretended to be put out by that.
“Technically your wifely duty is to honor me with your body. You are my chattel, after all, and took a vow to obey me, so you will only have yourself to blame if I lapse into extramarital original sin because you have denied me my conjugal rights in a timely enough manner.”
Portia rolled her eyes at his teasing tone because one thing that she had learned about her duke this week was that he loved to flirt, and he especially loved to flirt in an outrageously naughty and provocative manner designed to get a rise out of her.
“You exercised your conjugal rights with me not half an hour ago, so that will just have to tide you over until I deign to suffer your touch again.” They both knew that no sufferance was involved.
All he had had to do was kiss her neck while she attempted to don the hat that went with her new duchess-ified walking dress, and the next moment she had been riding him like a stallion, as the telltale creases in her skirts were testament.
“Or go find another woman who will service you in my stead. That shouldn’t be too much trouble for a man who is as well schooled in hairpin removal as you are.
What sort of an idle duke doesn’t have a mistress or three on the side? ”
“I fear you’ve ruined me for all other women, wife, so only you will do.”
That was another thing that he had taken to doing.
Constantly reminding her that they were wed.
It was most disconcerting when there was still every chance that they might not be soon.
Neither of them had mentioned the annulment on this unexpected honeymoon they were enjoying away from their stark reality.
Nor had they mentioned feelings or anything to do with the future.
Preferring instead to languish in the gloriously carnal limbo that this week in Mayfair had afforded them.
Leo had, however, made sure every single time that their bodies joined to ensure that there was minimal chance of him making her pregnant, so she supposed that spoke volumes.
They were basically having a transient, passionate affair rather than a marriage, and she told herself that was ultimately for the best. She would enjoy it while it lasted and refuse to allow any of her growing regret or indecision about their current situation spoil what time they had left.
“Debden!” An older man waved Leo down. “I thought you were supposed to be on your way back to Bath?” He looked familiar and Portia struggled to place him. “Or have your plans changed since we spoke at the palace?”
That was where she had seen him! He was one of the many brocaded and pomaded peers who had waylaid Leo at the king’s reception.
“We leave first thing tomorrow.”
“You cannot postpone it until the day after? Only we need your support.”
“We both know that there is more chance of hell freezing over than that bill you want to propose even being considered in the current climate, whether I speak up for it or not.” Leo smiled politely. “But it was good to see you, Gray.” With that, they continued walking.
“Gray, as in Earl Gray?”
“The very one.”
“The Earl Gray who is a vocal supporter of all manner of parliamentary reforms.”
Leo sighed. “Yes.”
“What bill is he proposing?”
“One that is so large, unwieldy, and unfocused that I am not altogether sure what its purpose is beyond putting the cat among the pigeons.”
“It’s a reform bill, isn’t it?”
“Right now, it is more a ragtag collection of grievances covering everything from rotten boroughs to workers’ rights, a change in the poor law to an extension of the franchise with some repeals to the Bloody Code thrown in.
In other words, it’s a typical, disorganized, and poorly thought-out Whig muddle, and it just doesn’t have the support within the party, let alone Parliament, beyond Lord Gray’s closest circle to be any more than that. ”
“It sounds to me like it could be something one day.”
“And when it is, I will throw my support and my valuable time right behind it. Until then, these speculative debates are as useful as shouting into the wind.”
“So what you are really saying is that you cannot be bothered to waste your breath on what is morally right unless you are in a majority?” And suddenly Portia was incensed at his attitude.
“When surely, it would be more useful to add your voice to the cause and convince more parliamentarians of the right of what Lord Gray is proposing, so that eventually there are so many voices shouting into the wind that not even Parliament can drown them out?” She resisted the overwhelming urge to shake him by his distracting shoulders.
“You are a powerful and privileged peer after all and one of the rare three percent who have any say when the rest of us in the voiceless ninety-seven percent have no say whatsoever. Shame on you, Leo!”
He was silent for the longest time. “Is this another example of my wife trying to make me a better man?”
“I know that you are a good man, Leo. The foundations are all there. All I am doing is giving you a gentle nudge to remind you of it.”
“There was nothing gentle about that lecture, madam.” Then he huffed in resignation. “But I shall concede that you made a valid point.”
“And?”
“And if it makes you happy, I will attend the damned debate.”
“It does make me happy.” She snuggled his arm to prove it. “What difference does another night in Mayfair make in the grand scheme of things?”
“Easy for you to say when you do not have to suffer the chaotic, idiotic, patience-testing circus that is the House of Lords tomorrow afternoon.”
“If I could be there to lend my voice to the wind alongside you I would. But I shall be there in spirit, husband. Cheering you and this noble lost cause on from the comfort of my pointless embroidery chair like a dutiful but oppressed and voiceless chattel should.”
He chuckled as they followed the path. “I’m really not sure that a duchess can complain about being a chattel, Portia.
Especially when you now sit at the very top of that voiceless ninety-seven percent.
A duchess can have great influence if she wields her power well enough, and not only by nagging her poor husband. ”
“Doing what? Knitting socks, making up baskets for the poor?” Portia scoffed, unsure where this was going but happy to play along. “Looking pretty while I hang on my superior husband’s arm while never opening my big mouth?”
“Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough, campaigned tirelessly for Whig causes and was Queen Anne’s main counsel.
Georgiana, the scandalous Duchess of Devonshire, was also a political activist and philosophical influencer who lived and breathed the reforming ideals of John Locke and Rousseau.
To such an extent that the public loved her so the government had to listen to her on occasion.
So many duchesses and marchionesses and countesses are patrons of all manner of laudable things from hospitals to schools, and I guarantee that there will be an aristocratic woman spearheading the current fight against child labor, improving factory and mining conditions, and all manner of sweeping reforms that are urgently needed.
Women who use their privilege as a platform and the finances at their disposal as a weapon and, while I agree that it might be slow, as change so often is, in the end they really make a difference. ”
All valid arguments—but why was he suddenly making them? “And your labored point is?”
“That you can do more good for the causes you hold dear as the Duchess of Debden than you ever could as Portia Kendall, so maybe you should consider staying a duchess? Till death do us part?”
Of all the things she had expected Leo to say today, “till death do us part” wasn’t one of them. “What?” Was he seriously suggesting what she thought he was suggesting? “How is me using and abusing your title the least bit fair on you?”
“Leo!” A giggling Emilia had already reached the pontoon several yards ahead to secure them a boat. “Stop dawdling! It’s your turn to row!”
“Isn’t it always?” he yelled back as he extricated himself from Portia’s arm. Then, without another word, he left her to jog toward the girls.
“Leo!” Portia dashed after him, still reeling. “Leopold Sloane!” He turned, still moving—albeit backward—and smiled. Making no effort whatsoever to stop like she wanted. “Are you honestly suggesting that we stay married?”
His dimples flashed. “Of course I am, my darling.”
“But Leo—” She would not be bamboozled by mischievous dimples and seductive my darlings. “Be serious.”
“I have never been more serious.” And all of a sudden, his smile conveyed that.
“If it helps, for context, you should probably also know that I am head over heels in love with you and have been since the beginning. Probably, truth be told, since you first took my breath away at your interview.” Then, despite having just knocked her sideways, he turned back to the boats again and quickened his pace.
As if rowing aimlessly across the Serpentine was somehow more pressing than them having any further conversation about the staggering and monumental confession he had just made.
Portia stopped dead, her sensible head reeling and her stupid heart singing.
He loved her.
Leo loved her!
What the hell was she supposed to do about that?