Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
“You are just making excuses now when you know that he didn’t have to marry you but did anyway. Probably because he still has feelings for you just as you do him, so perhaps you would do better to consider that rather than using pathetic excuses to overcomplicate things.”
“Things are complicated, Kitty. He married me in haste to get me out of trouble—not because he had a burning desire to spend eternity with me. There is nothing romantic in that.”
“Are you sure? Because from where I am standing, his noble sacrifice sounds like the most romantic thing in the world.” Kitty swept her hand in an arc as if painting the sky.
“Duke tells a chaperone she calls to his soul, rushes to rescue her from prison—twice—then marries her to save her from transportation to a penal colony and perhaps certain death.”
“It really wasn’t like that.” Although if viewed through a less cynical lens than Portia was prone to, perhaps it was. Leo had been the only one there for her. Jumped in front of a bullet for her. Put her safety over his own happiness and what was that if not hopelessly romantic?
Kitty must have seen her indecision because she reached across the table to squeeze Portia’s wrists.
“Nobody who loves you would judge you for deciding that you do not have to completely be the person that you chose to be at sixteen. You can still be an idealistic, lecturing, crusading pain in the backside and make a little room in your life for love.”
Like Leo would let that happen! He practically hit the roof when he assumed she had been writing sedition again. “I would have no choice but to pick one or the other. If I remain his duchess, he has made it repeatedly plain that I cannot have both.”
“I’ll wager you could if you both stopped being such stubborn fools and gave love a chance. Especially when you clearly like him—so much in my humble opinion that it terrifies you—and he has made it plain that he liked you well before you married.”
“Kitty—”
“Well, he did, didn’t he? And you were not immune to his confession. In fact, if I remember it correctly, you wrote to me at the time that you wished he wasn’t a duke because then you wouldn’t have had to rebuff him.”
“I was confused and—” Portia found herself talking at her friend’s raised palm.
“I know you better than anyone and I can see that your martyring and oh-so-convenient belief that you couldn’t possibly ever give up your precious independence for something as wonderful as love is wavering!
If you forget for one moment that he is a duke, then he has obviously affected your heart enough that you are tempted to want more of him.
And let us not forget that his kisses made you swoon—just as yours did him.
” Her incorrigible friend wiggled her brows.
“All that pent-up lust between you isn’t healthy you know.
Nobody can think straight with all that complicating matters—so uncomplicate them and give your love, in all its splendid forms, a chance. ”
“Things are complicated enough without adding that into the mix, thank you very much, and we can hardly indulge in that anyway if we want an annulment.” No matter how much her body and, heaven help her, perhaps even her heart, craved different.
“You do know that there are only three criteria in English law for an annulment to be granted, don’t you?
And the only one you stand any sort of chance with is fraud because the other two are incompetence and impotence.
” Thankfully Kitty made sure to whisper that last word.
“If neither party is underage then the only way to prove incompetence is to have one of you declared insane by a physician and then they would have you locked up. A physician would also have to prove impotence, and the tests for that are extremely invasive. Your poor duke would have to physically display before witnesses that he is not capable of consummating your marriage, and from what you hinted at in your letter about your midnight tryst beneath the moonlight, he very much is.”
A ferocious blush bloomed on Portia’s cheeks but she did not doubt her friend because for all her chaotic flakiness and optimistic, overly romantic nature, Kitty’s brother was training to be a lawyer, so the strange complexities of the English legal system was something she knew about. “So proving my fraud is our only hope?”
“Unless a couple of expert courtesans—or better still, you—can’t stir something in the Duke of Debden’s breeches in front of a doctor, it is.
” While Portia’s jaw hung slack, her incorrigible friend gestured for the waiter and then grinned.
“Therefore, even if the marriage is doomed not to last as you seem so stubbornly convinced that it has to be, it would be a crying shame for you both not to have enjoyed at least one of the benefits of it while it does.”
“Why the devil aren’t you wearing your court clothes, Leo?” The fanfare of feathers atop his mother’s head quivered in outrage as much as they could within the confines of the carriage as he joined all the ladies in it. “Or did you not see that I had them expressly laid out on the bed for you?”
“I saw them and then expressly ignored them because they are hideous.” It would be a cold day in hell before he ever donned those unflattering gold satin breeches and gaudy red satin and gold brocade coat again.
“But it is perfectly acceptable for me to look ridiculous?” That came from his wife who, to be fair to her, had to sit with her neck hunched to avoid damaging the veritable ostrich wing sprouting from her hair while the heavy cream and brocade gown that she was trussed up in like a ham caused her bosoms to be scrunched under her bent chin.
“Thank you for the show of husbandly support.”
“I am here, aren’t I?” He had to lift her enormous train just to be able to sit next to her. “Besides, nobody is going to care what I am wearing when it is you they are all itching to see.”
“Please don’t remind me.” Worry was etched in her expression. “Something that is impossible to do when this stupid headdress weighs a ton. I dread to contemplate the size of the bird they plucked these feathers from, but I will wager it was the biggest ostrich that ever lived.”
She had a point. “They are rather tall.”
“On purpose,” said his mother who was doubtless responsible for the gargantuan avian confection. “We want her to stand out as it sends a defiant statement.” She wafted a regal hand. “We are the Sloanes and Sloanes do not care one jot what anybody thinks of us.”
“Easy for you to say,” said his wife, trying and obviously failing to find any position that made her comfortable. “I am about to meet two hundred people who, if today’s edition of The Times is any gauge, all already hate me.”