Chapter Thirteen #2
“Challenge me, Your Grace, if you dare,” she whispered. “But you don’t have the balls.”
His gaze faltered, then he looked away and laughed.
“Waste of bloody time coming here tonight, Francis,” he said, clapping his friend on the back. “You don’t have the balls to face this fellow in a duel.”
He glanced back toward Portia, and she grinned.
Yes, brother. Sometimes the battle is won before a shot is fired.
But while confidence might be the combatant’s ultimate weapon, complacency was his, or her, greatest danger. And the danger of her identity being revealed still lingered in the air.
She issued a bow toward Sir Heath. “A pleasure,” she said.
“Easiest fifty pounds you’ve ever earned,” came the reply.
“Stop grumbling, Moss,” Lord Francis said. “If you’d not been caught shagging my wife, there’d have been no need for this.”
“Every man and his dog knows Sir Heath is shagging your wife,” Dunton said. “Ha! Most likely every man and his dog is shagging her.”
“Perhaps,” Lord Francis said, “but it’s not the done thing to make such a public show of it.” He gestured toward Portia. “Be off with you, young fellow, before I change my mind,” he said. “Be thankful I decided to save your skin. I’d have shot you dead, you know.”
Resisting the temptation to point out his lack of prowess, Portia merely placed her hand over her heart and bowed. Then, taking Nerissa’s arm, she retreated to the park entrance. When the men were out of sight, they broke into a run.
By the time they reached the townhouse, night had fallen. Under cover of shadows, they slipped through the back entrance, their footsteps clattering on the stairs.
As Portia caught sight of the door to her bedchamber—and safety—she let out a sigh of relief.
Then a deep voice called out from behind.
“Who goes there?”
Her skin tightened in fear, but Nerissa placed a gentle hand on her arm.
“Hush, your ladyship,” she whispered. Then she called out, “Mr. Reeve? It’s just me, Nerissa.”
The butler let out a huff. “Don’t try to fool me, girl.
I heard more than one set of footsteps. If you’ve been lying to me, I’ll have you horsewhipped—if you’re entertaining a man, I’ll have you horsewhipped then thrown out on the street.
His Grace won’t suffer sluts in his house. ” Heavy footsteps approached.
“It’s all right, Reeve,” Portia called out. “Nerissa was accompanying me on a visit.”
“At this hour?” came the reply. “Most inappropriate.”
“You forget your place,” Portia said. “I’m not answerable to you.”
“Does the master know you’ve wandering the streets at this hour?”
“Hardly wandering the streets, Reeve, and I’ll thank you not to take that tone with your mistress. Please have some hot chocolate brought to my chamber. I shall speak to my brother about you when he returns.”
For a moment, silence filled the air, then the butler let out a huff and retreated, grumbling to himself, his heavy footsteps receding on the stairs.
“Pompous arse,” Portia said. “I cannot think why my brother employs him.”
“He served your family for many years,” Nerissa said. “Your father and grandfather.”
“And his grandfather as well, I’ll wager. Perhaps it’s time he was put to pasture. Doubtless he believes we’ve been visiting the docks, giving favors to sailors.”
They slipped into Portia’s bedchamber and Nerissa placed the fifty pounds on the dressing table, then helped her out of her clothes and into a fresh gown.
She folded up the Farthing’s garments and placed them at the bottom of a trunk before slipping the trunk under the bed.
Then she returned to the dressing table and picked up a hairbrush.
“Come sit here, and let me fix your hair.”
“There’s no time,” Portia said. “You’d best get yourself changed first. If anyone spots you, send them to me and I’ll deal with them.”
“Even Mr. Reeve?”
“Especially Reeve,” Portia said, steering Nerissa toward her dressing room. “Quick, now!”
The maid slipped into the dressing room, closing the door behind her.
Just in time. Heavy, determined footsteps approached and stopped outside the bedchamber door, then someone knocked smartly, three times.
Portia opened her mouth to call out, then spotted the pound notes on the dressing table. Just as she reached for them, the door opened.
“Reeve, have I not told you before it’s most improper to open the door without—”
“I’m sure you have, sister.”
She turned, her heart fluttering with apprehension. Her brother stood in the doorway, a cup in his hand, from which wisps of steam rose.
“For you, I believe,” he said, holding it up.
She rose, shifting position to conceal the notes, and reached behind her back to pick them up. He arched an eyebrow and lowered his gaze to her hand.
“What’s that you have there?”
“Nothing of any concern, Adam.”
He stepped inside the chamber. “I know that look,” he said.
“What look?”
“That determined look in your eyes. You’ve been up to mischief.”
“Everything I do counts as mischief in your eyes.”
He let out a sigh. “Where have you been?”
“Nowhere.”
“Reeve caught you on the back stairs with that maid of yours.”
“I-I wanted a cup of hot chocolate, so we were on our way to the kitchen.”
He tilted his head to one side. “Reeve caught you going up the stairs, not down. And he saw you both coming in via the back entrance.”
Oh, Lord…
“So,” he said, stepping closer, his huge, powerful frame seeming to fill the room, “I’ll ask again—where have you been?”
“Have you employed that cockroach of a butler to spy on me?” she said. But while the actions of the Farthing might intimidate her brother, the actions of a sister over whom he knew he held ultimate power did little to even dent his dominance.
“Do I have reason to?” he said. Then he glanced at the dressing table, and understanding flickered in his cold expression. “Ah, my sister has been creeping about outside like a thief, carrying a pile of money with her. A woman’s place—especially a woman of your rank—is in the home.”
“What, behind, or perhaps beneath, the man who owns me?”
“Don’t be crude,” he said. “It doesn’t take a fool to work out where you’ve been.”
“Giving favors to sailors at the docks?” she sneered, unable to disguise the tremor in her voice. “Is that what Reeve told you when he gave an account of my whereabouts? There’s good money in it. In fact—”
She broke off as he caught her arm and pulled her hard against him. He tightened his grip, and she groaned in pain.
“Don’t be a fool,” he snarled. “I know exactly what you’ve been doing. Did you really think you could fool me?”
Sweet heaven! He’d recognized her in the park.
“Let me go!” she cried.
“Not until I have satisfaction,” he said. “I see I’ve been too lenient with you, letting you run wild. I knew it would come to this—but you, with your whining and cajoling, sought to persuade me to give you every concession. Do you want to drag our good name into the gutter?”
She shook her head.
“Look at Sawbridge!” he said, his voice heightening in pitch. “He almost destroyed his good name by gallivanting about the park, half drunk—and he’s a man! It’s a hundred times worse if a woman is caught behaving in such a manner. Do you want to ruin yourself?”
“Brother, I—”
The adjoining door burst open and Nerissa rushed in.
“Your Grace, sir!” she cried. “Please don’t hurt Lady Portia!”
“Ah, the accomplice,” he said coldly. “I ought to have you dismissed.”
“Leave her alone!” Portia said. “Nerissa was only acting on my orders. You can’t dismiss her for being loyal.”
“Her loyalty should be toward me, as head of this family. Do you have any idea the danger you’re putting yourself in? Dear God Almighty, Portia, even if you care little for your own safety, are you so negligent of your maid’s?”
“Brother, I—”
“No!” he interrupted. “I’ll not hear another word from your lips. Speak again and I’ll have you thrashed and your maid dismissed, and I’ll ask Reeve to make sure that she never finds employment anywhere within fifty miles of London.”
Portia opened her mouth to respond, then glanced at her maid’s face, pale with terror, and closed it again.
“You’re not to visit that damned hospital again, do you hear me?” he said.
“The what?”
“The hospital. I take it that’s where you’ve been, wandering the streets at the dead of night.”
Hardly the dead of night, given that it was barely nine o’clock, but Portia bit her lip and refrained from answering him back.
“It’s in a dangerous part of town,” he continued. “Anything could happen to you, two women on their own.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Dear God, why must you be so belligerent!” he cried. “Of course you can’t! No woman can. London’s a den of thieves and brigands at the best of times.”
“Are you speaking of yourself, brother? Are men like you a danger to women?”
He narrowed his eyes, and she caught a flicker of guilt. “We’re not speaking of me, we’re speaking of you. I can take care of myself.”
“And I can’t?” she retorted. “Do you even know what I’m capable of, whether I can defend myself?”
“You shouldn’t have to!” he said. “Don’t you see?
My responsibility as head of this family is not simply to order you about and tell you what to do—it’s to…
I…” He paused, his voice breaking, then shook his head.
“Portia, do you know what was the one thing that our father made me promise on his deathbed?”
“To maintain the family honor, no doubt.”
He blinked, and a sheen of moisture gleamed in his eyes. “No, sister,” he said. “He made me promise, above all else, to keep you safe—and happy.”
“And do you think I’m happy, Adam?”
He flinched at her use of his name, then he sighed.
“But you’re safe,” he said, taking her hand. “At least, that’s what I would have you be.”
“I suppose you think I’m dishonoring the family name by enjoying a bit of freedom, that I’m failing you somehow.”