Chapter Twenty-One #2
Portia glanced at Nerissa. “You didn’t tell Euphramia what happened, did you?”
“I’ve just removed a bullet from your arm, Lady Portia,” Euphramia said. “And given that your injury was sustained before dawn, I can make an educated guess as to the circumstances leading to your sustaining that wound. But I care not what those circumstances were—my only concern is your recovery.”
Euphramia’s words were such that Portia could almost have imagined that Dr. McIver spoke them.
What a misfortune, the circumstance of her birth!
Had Euphramia been born a man—and born to Dr. and Mrs. McIver—she would have thrived as a surgeon, with her crisp efficiency and dexterity.
But no, her sex prevented her from getting the recognition her expertise merited, and her father, with his medieval attitude to medicine, would hamper her dreams at every turn.
Whereas I, born into privilege and wealth, ignored the advantages of my birth, sought the self-indulgent gratification of a spoiled child—and nearly brought about my own destruction.
And even if she had escaped physical destruction, she’d destroyed the one thing she craved more than her own freedom.
The unbridled love of a good man.
Portia blinked, and a tear splashed onto her cheek.
“Do you need something else for the pain?” Euphramia asked.
Portia shook her head. No amount of laudanum would lessen the pain in her heart.
“Let me escort you to your chamber,” Nerissa said. “Miss Lucas, I can take care of Lady Portia now. You need to return home before you’re missed.”
Euphramia nodded, then gave Portia’s hand an affectionate squeeze. “I’ll visit you on Thursday,” she said. “Papa is taking tea with Reverend Gache, so I can slip away unnoticed.”
“Let me show you out,” Nerissa said.
“There’s no need,” came the reply. “You take care of Lady Portia.”
“Very well. Use the stairs we came up,” Nerissa said. “If Mr. Reeve spots you, just say you were tending to Lady Portia’s monthly bleed. If he doesn’t faint, he’ll run away faster than a deerhound.”
Euphramia smiled. “Men! They consider themselves the superior sex, yet most of them faint at the mere thought of a woman’s courses. Papa is just the same. He—” She broke off, blushing, then took her leave and slipped out of the chamber, her footsteps fading into the distance.
Nerissa placed her arm around Portia’s shoulders and escorted her to the door. After checking that the passageway was quiet outside, she led Portia toward her chamber on the floor below. Once inside, she helped her out of the Farthing’s clothes and dropped them in a trunk.
“I’ll burn these after I’ve brought you breakfast, then the Farthing and Gerard will be no more.”
“I-I can’t have breakfast in bed,” Portia said. “What will I tell my brother?”
“That you’re having your courses,” Nerissa said.
“His Grace may not swoon like Mr. Reeve at the thought of the workings of the female body, but he’ll not inquire further if I tell him you’re in a delicate state of health this morning.
” She held up the bloodstained neckerchief.
“One glimpse of this will convince him to refrain from further discussion.”
“And afterward?” Portia said, gesturing to her bandaged arm.
“A long sleeve will conceal that until you’re fully healed,” came the reply. “We’re fortunate that long sleeves are fashionable this Season.”
“Very well,” Portia said, and Nerissa helped her into the bed and drew the sheet over her.
“There! All we need now is a warm fire—I hope you’ll have no objection if I send Poppy up to light it. She’s a sensible girl and won’t gossip.”
Portia reached toward Nerissa, who took her hand.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have you in my life.
You’re my friend, my confidante, and…” She shook her head as the world shifted out of focus.
“I-I’m sorry that your room’s so small and dull, tucked away upstairs. I-I didn’t—”
“It’s better than most maids’ rooms.”
“But it’s not as good as you deserve. When I have a home of my own, I’ll…”
Portia’s voice trailed off as the reality of her situation gripped her heart, and a tear slid down her cheek.
“The colonel doesn’t know it’s you,” Nerissa said. “He was only protecting his sister.”
“I know,” Portia replied, “and he’d already made his dislike of the Farthing plain when we discussed the matter. But to witness such hatred, directed toward me…”
“He hates what’s happened to his sister, that’s all. But he loves you—I know it, and so do you. If there’s one person in this world he’s capable of forgiving, it’s you. And there’s nothing to forgive. I’m sure he’ll come to understand that.”
But what if he doesn’t?
Nerissa bustled about the room, tidying away all evidence of the Farthing, then took her leave, promising to return with a tray as soon as she’d changed into her uniform.
Portia leaned back onto the pillows, wincing at the soreness in her arm, and let the languor induced by the laudanum wash over her, soothing her senses with a gentle detachment from the world around her.
At length, footsteps approached, and she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as the door opened to reveal a blurred shape.
“I hadn’t expected you to be so quick, Nerissa. Did you tell my brother—”
“Tell me what?” a deep voice said.
The world snapped into focus and Portia’s stomach tightened as Adam stepped into the chamber, closing the door behind him.
“Wh-where’s Nerissa?”
“Your maid’s tending to your breakfast. You’re taking it in bed, I see.” He approached the bed and drew up a chair. “May I?” he asked.
“Of course.”
He sat, then leaned toward her. “I hear you’re indisposed.”
She nodded. “My health is—”
“Delicate, yes. May I see it?”
She squeezed her thighs together, her cheeks warming with embarrassment.
“You can’t blame me for being curious.”
Heavens! What was he about? She gestured toward her body. “Brother, I hardly think it’s appropriate to—”
“Be fair, sister,” he said, his tone casual. “I’ve never seen one before, you see.”
“A…what?”
“A bullet wound.”
Her stomach fluttered, and she opened her mouth to deny it. He fixed his gaze on her, then shook his head.
“I have no wish to be angry with you, Portia, but I’d advise you not to disappoint me. I do not like to be disappointed.”
“Please…” she said, then swallowed.
“Please what?” His voice remained calm, his body still, but the slight tightening in his tone warned of a simmering rage beneath his calm exterior.
“Please don’t dismiss Nerissa. She was acting on my instructions. If that cockroach of a butler—”
“Reeve has nothing to do with this. I spoke to your maid myself.”
“H-how did you—”
“Do you think me incapable of looking out of a window? I saw two men entering the house just after dawn.” He folded his arms and fixed his gaze on her, “Well, what I thought were two men.”
“Are you spying on me?” she asked. “Or perhaps you were on the lookout for Mrs. Scarlet while she paid you a visit?”
“I’ve had no visitors, Portia, but I understand that doctor’s daughter arrived here, unchaperoned, and presumably without her father’s permission.”
“She had every right to be here.”
“In which case you’ll have no objection to my discussing the matter with Dr. Lucas.”
“Leave Miss Lucas alone. I’ll not have you causing trouble for her.”
“I’m causing trouble for no one, sister,” he said.
“Perhaps you should consider your own actions and the consequences that they reap. Not only the consequences for yourself”—he gestured toward her bandaged arm—“but the consequences for others who are not protected by the same degree of privilege that you seem to take for granted.”
He lifted his hand to his brow and wiped it. When he lowered it again, sadness flickered in his eyes.
“Perhaps the only way to teach you a lesson in propriety would be to punish those closest to you. You seem to have no regard for your own suffering, but mayhap the suffering of others would have some effect. After all, you are not entirely without feeling.”
“Unlike you, brother. You are devoid of all feeling.”
“Do you really think you’re in a position to answer me back thus? Your maid—”
“Leave Nerissa alone!” Portia cried. “She was only acting on my instruction.”
“In that, if I nothing else, I agree with you.”
“But you still intend to torture me by punishing her for something I’ve done?”
“Portia, can’t you see, I…”
He trailed off, and the emotion in his eyes threatened to shatter her defiance.
She had earned his irritation from the moment she’d arrived in the world—an arrival that had resulted in their mother’s exit from it.
She was the little sister who trotted behind him, clinging to his shirttails, seeking the comfort from a brother that only a mother could have given.
As they’d grown into adulthood and Adam had been thrust into the responsibility as head of the family after their father’s passing, that irritation had turned into frustration and anger—anger at her refusal to conform to the constraints of Society, and frustration from having to shoulder the responsibility of a dukedom.
Even his disappointment she could weather, given that it was never directly solely at her.
He seemed permanently disappointed with the rest of the world.
But his sorrow… That was something she had witnessed only in others.
Even the most stoic of rakes expressed a hint of sorrow, their shuttered expressions never quite concealing their inner pain.
But as for Adam, his clear blue gaze had always spoken of rationality and determination.
Even as a boy when she’d broken his toy boat, he’d calmly explained the folly of her actions—as if a child of two summers would learn from her mistakes.
But Portia had never believed him capable of sadness.
Until now.
“I don’t blame your maid,” he said, his voice heavy with weariness. “Nor do I blame you. I blame myself.”
“You…?”
“Permit me to speak while I have the inclination,” he said.
“I have failed you. It was my duty to care for you when Mother died, but instead, I blamed you for taking her from me, for giving me the responsibility of a child who was not the younger brother I’d hoped for.
” He let out a sigh and shook his head. “Then, when Pater died, I found myself not only responsible for the sister I never…”
He hesitated and closed his eyes. Portia’s heart ached, and she placed her hand over his. “The sister you never wanted?”
“I was young at the time,” he said. “Barely sixteen—old enough to be a man in the eyes of the law, but…”
“But not so old as to suppress your true feelings and portray the wishes and desires that were socially acceptable?” She smiled.
“Fathers want sons, and sons want brothers. I cannot blame you for that—or, at least, if I must blame you, then I must blame every other man in Society, and most of the women, who perpetuate that belief.”
“If it’s any consolation, I have, for many years, regretted my wishes, and I’m grateful to have you as my sister, even if…”
“Even if I disobey you at every turn?”
“Even if you secretly indulge in the business of dueling.”
Her stomach clenched with fear.
“Who told you?”
He paused, then tilted his head to one side. “You just did.”
“Brother, I—”
He raised his hand. “I suspected it when I saw you entering the house this morning. But it made sense. You always were a bloody good shot—better than I could ever be.”
He knew? Why, then, did he not rage at her—threaten to confine her in her chamber, under lock and key, until she learned to behave?
“You’re not angry?”
He sighed. “I’ve expended too much effort in being angry at you, sister, to no avail. I’ve no wish to be angry with you merely to punish you. My anger was only ever a result of my wish to do right by you—and to have you do right by yourself.”
Then he blinked, and the shimmer of sorrow disappeared, replaced by the resolution of a man who held her life and freedom—and that of countless others—in his hands.
“I take it the Farthing is no more,” he said.
She nodded.
“Good. Your maid told me as much.”
“Please don’t punish her,” Portia said.
“Her punishment will be to tend to you for as long as you see fit, knowing that by her complicity, she placed your life at risk—something she values almost as much as I. Each day she watches you in the mirror, or dresses you, or styles your hair… Each day she tends to you at night, comforts you in moments of distress or acts as your confidante, she will be reminded of the mistress she cares for—the mistress who could so easily have departed this earth today.”
He squeezed her hand. “I’ve lost a mother and a father—we both have.
I have no wish to lose my beloved sister as well.
” Then he smiled. “But, at least, the burden of ensuring that you do not place yourself in further danger will be shared. I have some good news for you. Colonel Reid’s card came this morning.
He sent a message expressing his eagerness to call on me, though I’ll wager it’s not me he wishes to see.
I took the liberty of issuing an invitation for tea. ”
Her heart soared with relief.
“So, like you, he doesn’t mind what I’ve done? Or…who I was?”
He frowned. “Surely you don’t think I’d be so foolish as to tell him of your antics? Good Lord, no—but it’s in the past, so is best forgotten. What he doesn’t know won’t harm him.”
“B-but…”
“But what?” he said, his voice sharpening.
“I-I thought…”
“Best not to think, Portia,” he said. “And we must keep this between ourselves. Nerissa can be trusted. As to the man who shot you, though I wish very much to know who he is, it’s best if you don’t tell me.”
She nodded. “Because you already know who he is.”
“No, sister,” he said, his voice cold and steady. “It’s because if I ever discover who he is, I’ll deal with him myself. Permanently.”
Ice-cold fingers clung to her heart at the grim determination in his eyes.
Then he patted her hand and rose. “I’ll leave you to your breakfast,” he said. “You might wear long sleeves today. We wouldn’t want the colonel to see your arm.”
In that, her brother was right—for if Stephen’s role in her injury became known, he was a dead man.