Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter
TWENTY-ONE
“Welcome home, your grace.” Mrs. Rumpole, the housekeeper, dipped into a curtsy as soon as Portia walked through the front door.
The woman looked shocked to be doing it, but she could not possibly be as shocked and stunned by it all as Portia was.
“I have had the maids run a bath for you.” She then dipped a curtsy toward Portia’s new mother-in-law.
“As requested, your grace, I have also sent up all the medical supplies you asked for.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Rumpole.” It was the duchess—now the dowager duchess—who answered because Portia had no words.
Neither, apparently, did her new husband, who hadn’t uttered a single one to her since they had hastily mumbled vows to one another in that fetid prison cell several hours ago.
That he chose to stalk straight to his study and slam the door rather than linger in her company any longer now that they were finally back in the Royal Crescent did, however, speak volumes.
“Could you have some breakfast sent up on a tray shortly too? Our new duchess has had quite the ordeal overnight and desperately needs some rest.”
On leaden feet, she followed Leo’s mother up the stairs and was about to continue up the next flight when the other woman stopped her with a gentle hand and a smile.
“I hope you do not mind, but I sent word ahead while we were waiting for everything to be sorted to have all your things moved to your new bedchamber on the family floor. I couldn’t allow you to see the mess that horrid constable made of your things.
Some, I fear, are now beyond repair and they confiscated so much but…
” She brushed that violation away. “We’ll sort all that out in due course. Let’s get you cleaned up first.”
“Thank you.” Portia forced a smile even though she felt dead inside because this woman had been nothing but kind to her over the last few turbulent hours.
Why she wasn’t as angry as her son was that he had married someone like her, she couldn’t fathom, but she was grateful for at least one friendly face on the worst day of her life.
She was led to an enormous bedchamber painted in soothing soft green.
It was a feminine room, but not overtly so.
Like everything in this house, it was decorated and furnished more for comfort than to make a statement, yet it made a statement anyway.
A beautiful, canopied bed was draped in expensive, crisp linens that had been delicately embroidered with trailing ivy and wildflowers.
A thick, luxurious rug covered almost all of the highly polished wood floor.
Gossamer lace billowed gently in the summer breeze floating through the open window and just before it was a fancy enamel bathtub.
Inviting steam wafted from the frothy bubbles, which reached all the way to the top of the bath.
As much as Portia wanted to sink into it, it still felt wrong.
“This is too much, your grace. There was nothing wrong with my old room and I will be perfectly content to remain—”
“Nonsense.” The duchess—the dowager now—bustled over and began to unlace the back of Portia’s gown. “You are the new mistress of this house, and this is the mistress’s room.”
“Your room, you mean?”
“My darling girl, it was never my room. I always slept in there.” She flicked her hand toward a side door that Portia hadn’t noticed.
“With my husband.” Which likely meant that her husband now slept in there and knowing that they weren’t even separated by a solid wall unsettled Portia instantly.
“It has much better views of the garden and I always slept more soundly next to Rafe.” As the laces loosened and back of Portia’s dress gaped, the duchess helped her step out of it before she kicked it out of the way.
“I fear the only way to clean that is to burn it. That cell was positively filthy. Inhumanely so. Thank goodness Leo managed to get you out of it.”
By selflessly sacrificing himself. “He hates me now, doesn’t he?
” He had uttered every vow curtly; staring straight ahead.
So obviously hurt and angry at her betrayal that he couldn’t bear to look at her.
Hardly a girl’s dream wedding scenario. Not that she had ever wanted one, but now that she had, it had been the stuff of nightmares.
“He’s hurting, dear girl. Hardly a surprise after all the lies you’ve told him.”
“I didn’t want to. I…” Her voice trailed off. “I should have left this house the second that I realized that he was a magistrate. I know that now and bitterly regret that I didn’t but…”
“It is him you need to purge yourself to, not me. He deserves the truth after all he has done for you, doesn’t he?”
Portia nodded, feeling utterly wretched. “I’ll go and talk to him.”
“Leave him be for a while. Like my Rafe used to, Leo needs to pickle in his own juices for a while before he’ll be in any mood to listen.
” The duchess smiled kindly as her gaze swept the length of Portia, who was now standing in nothing but her shift.
“You are covered in bruises, you poor thing. Is that all the work of that vile constable or did somebody else do the dirty for him?”
“It is all his. He enjoyed pushing me around.”
“Undoubtedly. Bullies like him enjoy taking their revenge out on the helpless and I daresay that the weaselly coward felt obligated to take it out on you after Leo gave him a well-deserved pasting right on our doorstep.”
“He did?”
“Punched the snake on the nose and sent him flying onto his backside when he came to arrest you. Of course, the soldiers restrained him then as we all knew that Leo had only just started, and you know what happened next because they came to fetch you. But it was all rather unpleasant and unnecessary.” The duchess frowned as she took a closer look at Portia’s face and then stroked her cheek.
“Did the violence only involve pushing, my dear, or were you subjected to worse?”
“Only pushing.” Thank goodness.
“I shouldn’t be relieved to hear that as a man who uses any violence on a woman is abhorrent enough—but external injuries do at least heal.
Do you think you need to see the physician?
” Portia shook her head. “Very well. You enjoy a nice long soak in the bath in peace and I’ll come back and put some iodine on all your bruises once you’re done. ”
“Thank you, your grace.”
“It’s either Mama now, seeing as we are family, or Letitia. I really do not mind which.”
Her mother-in-law closed the door behind her as she left, leaving Portia all alone with her tangled thoughts.
She gingerly removed her chemise and wandered to the long mirror in the corner to assess the damage for herself.
She ached so much because she did indeed have bruises everywhere.
There were grazes on her hands and knees from where she had landed on the cold flagstones of the cell floor.
Her hair was a rat’s nest and her hands and face were filthy.
But it could be worse. She could still be there. But entirely thanks to Leo she wasn’t.
Once she was clean and when he was ready to see her, she would have to thank him, but until then the bath called. She carefully eased her battered bones into it, sighing as the warm water enveloped her in its comforting embrace.
For the longest time, all Portia did was soak as she stared up at the ceiling, too overwhelmed to do anything else.
She knew she had to think and regroup and find a way to deal with her strange new reality, but didn’t have the energy to do that yet.
Her bath had started to cool before she even thought about scrubbing the dirt from her skin and, conscious that the dowager was doubtless waiting patiently for her to finish, she forced herself to set about it with some purpose.
Her hair was full of soap and bubbles when the main door suddenly opened a crack. “Just a moment, your grace! I’m not decent!”
But instead of the duchess returning as she expected, it was M’Lady Whiskers who swung in, her whole fluffy white body hanging from the doorknob by her claws.
The cat dropped silently to the floor, took one disdainful look at Portia, and hissed her disapproval.
Then she sauntered over, lifted her tail, and swiveled to show her bottom.
That cutting feline insult delivered, she hopped up on the bed and began to paw at it for at least half a minute until she settled herself on the pretty comforter, making sure to thoroughly ignore Portia while she licked her snow-white paws.
Bizarrely, that small, unfriendly bit of familiarity made Portia smile. “If you can open doors, M’Lady, basic good manners dictate that you should learn to close them too. Especially when somebody is in the bath.”
Sadly, with the door to the landing still ajar to the width of one spoiled Persian and Portia as naked as the day she was born, she could no longer afford to linger in that lovely bath, so she quickly dunked her head under the water to rinse away the soap in her hair.
“Is your plan to ignore your new wife forever?” His mother walked into Leo’s study with her arms folded. “Because if it is, somebody should tell the poor thing. She is just staring into space with no clue what to do next.”
“That makes two of us.” After the most fraught and shocking night of his life, and now that so many of her lies had been exposed, he couldn’t bring himself to so much as look at the duplicitous minx, let alone speak to her.
If publishing sedition wasn’t enough, she had also been in cahoots with Percival Bloody Digby, and that was a betrayal too far.
Now, his poor, battered heart was bleeding and he felt like the world’s biggest fool.
“I am currently mulling the benefits of immediately sending her as far away as possible and pretending none of this ever happened.”