"Not at all, but my father was a literature don at Cambridge, and he always had a half dozen or so of the creatures trailing after him." Portia's expression softened as she recalled those halcyon days of her childhood when their house had been filled with the sound of male voices raised in earnest argument. She used to sit on the steps in her night rail, listening entranced as her father discussed Shakespeare and Milton with his students until the wee hours of the morning.
There was nothing he had liked more than a good debate, and he always favored those students who dared to disagree with him. Perhaps that was why she had begun defying him, she mused with a sudden flash of insight. She hadn't been purposefully obtuse, as he had so often accused. She'd been trying to win his approval.
Connor was watching her closely, as if trying to read her thoughts. "Shall we start back, Miss Haverall?" he asked, pushing himself away from the pillar to stand over her. "The wind is rather sharp today, and I wouldn't wish you to become chilled."
Portia nodded distractedly, still lost in her troubling thoughts. He helped her remount, easily lifting her onto the saddle. They rode back a different way, and Portia emerged from her bleak memories long enough to notice her surroundings. They were riding past a clear brook tumbling and frothing over sharp, black stones, and she pulled her horse to a halt to admire it.
"How beautiful," she said, sighing as she listened to the musical sound of rushing water. "I've always thought of Yorkshire as a cold, desolate place, but this is lovely."
Connor leaned forward in his saddle. "It is that," he said, his voice filling with pleasure and satisfaction as he gazed out at his land. "But don't let the beauty of this place blind you to its true nature," he warned, his eyes coming to rest on her features. "It may appear civilized, but beneath the surface it is wild and dangerous. You would do well to remember that."
Portia nodded silently, thinking the description could also be applied to the earl himself. Except in his case the wild danger was all too obvious, she decided, stealing a thoughtful glance at him as they resumed their ride.
Dressed as he was now, in a plain jacket of black wool, his white stock tied carelessly about his tanned throat, and his dark hair pulled back from the sharp planes of his face, he looked utterly at home in the harsh surroundings. She remembered how out of place he had seemed in the inn's shabby parlor, and realized this was his true element. For all his fine title and great wealth, he was really a simple farmer, and she found she admired him the more for it. The realization kept her quiet for the remainder of their ride.
Within a week of her arrival Portia felt as if she'd been at Hawkshurst forever. She and the countess had become fast friends, and Portia enjoyed every moment spent in the older woman's company. Unlike most of the invalids she'd had the misfortune of meeting, Lady Eliza didn't dwell on her infirmities, but instead remained surprisingly cheerful. Not that she was all sweetness and light, however. Lady Eliza was sharp-witted and often sharp-tongued, and she kept Portia entertained with her wry observations of those about her.
The countess also manipulated her brooding son with a cunning combination of helplessness and hectoring that left Portia wide-eyed with admiration. She'd come to regard her own tendency to control those about her as unfeminine and unladylike, but no one could accuse the countess of being anything other than a complete lady, and yet she exercised complete command over her household. For someone who had vowed to become a true lady regardless of the cost, as Portia had, it was a most illuminating observation.
Although her mornings were devoted to the countess, her afternoons were her own. While Lady Eliza slept, Portia either read or explored the huge, elegant house. She was in the library one afternoon when the earl came upon her studying the portraits of his ancestors.
"A smug-looking lot, are they not?" he drawled, smiling as he gazed up at a painting of a darkhaired man in velvet and lace. "Lord of all they survey."
"Lord of this place, certainly," Portia answered, her gaze shifting from the features painted on canvas to the man standing beside her. He had just come in from the fields, and he carried the smell of sweet hay and horses on him. That she should notice such a personal thing unnerved her, and she turned back to the portraits to cover her confusion.
"And who might this gentleman be?" she asked, her voice determinedly light. "He is certainly a fierce-looking fellow."
He glanced up at the portrait she indicated. "That is my grandfather, the fourth Earl of Doncaster."
Portia studied the man's dark hair and cold, remote expression. "You favor him," she said, recalling the first time she had seen him looming in her doorway.
The earl lifted his eyebrow as he gazed down at her. "Do I?" he asked, his deep voice edged with laughter. "That is hardly a compliment, you know. He was known as the Black Beast of Hawkshurst Hall, as much for his temper as his dark hair and eyes. I am said to resemble him in that as well."
The dryness in his tone told Portia he was teasing her, and she responded in kind. "Yes, I have noticed how the household quakes in fear of your fierce temper," she murmured, recalling how only that morning Gwynnen had scolded him soundly for tracking mud into his mother's sitting room.
Another portrait, that of a young lady with golden hair and wide blue eyes, caught her attention, and she moved closer to inspect it. "Who is this?" she demanded, caught by the sweetness of the woman's expression. "She is lovely."
An indulgent smile softened the edges of the earl's mouth. "That is my grandmother, the lady who tamed the Beast," he explained, his voice filled with obvious affection. "She died when I was a child, and I have few memories of her. I remember her playing the pianoforte. I believe she was quite talented."
A sudden memory of her own mother sitting at a pianoforte and picking out a tune flashed into Portia's mind. "My mother played the piano as well," she said, aware of the wistful note that had crept into her voice. "But I can't recall that she did so with any marked degree of ability." She shook off her sadness, and flashed him an impish smile. "In that, my lord, I am said to resemble her."
His green eyes sparkled in understanding. "Do you mean to say you are not a gifted musician, Miss Haverall?" he challenged. "You disappoint me. I thought all proper young ladies excelled at music and watercolors."
Portia's enjoyment with the situation vanished, and she glanced back at the portrait. "A proper young lady, your lordship, would never dream of excelling at anything," she said with a forced laugh. "To do so might lead to her being labeled intelligent, or, even worse, intellectual, and you must know that would never do."
"Why not?" He was frowning at the sharpness in her voice that her laughter couldn't quite disguise. "Beller to be considered clever than foolish, I should think."
"Ah, that is because you are a man, sir," she said, her tone bitter. "A man is supposed to have a brain, and he is granted leave to use it freely. But for a woman to do likewise is considered an impropriety of the worse sort. Men will shake their heads at her and call her a bluestocking, a sobriquet certain to destroy any young lady's hope of achieving a match."
The earl's expression grew hard, and he drew himself up to his full height. "I think you are being rather harsh in your assessment of the male of the species, Miss Haverall," he said coolly. "Men are not the only ones who unfairly label others. Your sex is also guilty of passing judgment and affixing cruel names to innocent men."
Given the many times she had suffered the cutting tongues of some of her neighbors's brattish daughters, there was no honest way Portia could deny his icy observation, but that didn't mean she was willing to concede the field to him. Instead she turned to face him, her chin tilted at a defiant angle.
"That may be, my lord," she said, her cheeks flushed with temper, "but it isn't often a gentleman so labeled would find himself on the shelf. Indeed, from what I have observed there's nothing a man likes more than to have an amusing name affixed to him. It is rather like a reputation, I suppose: desirable in a man, fatal in a woman."
&nb
sp; The earl's jaw clenched in anger, and his eyes became as frosty as a winter's morning. "If you believe that, Miss Haverall, then you are an even bigger widgeon than I suspected," he said, his tone as icy as his eyes. "Now if you will pardon me, I must go and change. Good day to you." And he strode off, leaving Portia glaring after him.
Three days after her confrontation with the earl, Portia was sitting in the countess's study, a pile of letters heaped on the desk in front of her. Her ladyship maintained a correspondence with what appeared to be half the ton, and one of Portia's most important duties was to help her sort through the letters that arrived with each day's post. She had just handed one missive to the countess and was in the process of opening another when she heard the older woman give a heavy sigh.
"Is something amiss, my lady?" Portia asked, the open letter held loosely in her hand as she glanced up. "You haven't had bad news, I trust?"
"No, no, good news, in fact," Lady Eliza replied, setting the letter to one side with another sigh. "My neighbor and dear friend, Lady Alterwaithe, is returning home next week, and she has written asking permission to call on me."
"I see," Portia answered, uncertain if she should press for further explanation. "Would you like me to write a letter of regret to her ladyship?" she asked, decided that must be what was distressing the other woman.
"What?" Lady Eliza looked briefly mystified, then shook her head. "Oh, no, not at all," she said, lifting the cup of tea she had been drinking and studying its contents. "I am looking forward to seeing dearest Henrietta again. It is just . . . " Her voice trailed off.
"It is just what, my lady?" Portia prompted gently.
"It is just that she writes that her niece and a friend are returning with her, and she wishes to introduce them to me."
"Yes?" Portia could sense no great catastrophe in so mundane a request.
"Don't you see?" Lady Eliza exclaimed, setting her cup aside with a clatter. "It's not me Henrietta wishes them to meet, it is Connor, and you must see that that is quite impossible!"
"But why?" Portia demanded, more puzzled than ever. "I should think you would be grateful your friend wishes to introduce his lordship to two eligible young ladies! There can't be many marriageable females in this part of Yorkshire."
"But that's precisely my point!" Lady Eliza wailed, wringing her hands in agitation. "There isn't but a handful of young ladies of rank left in the entire neighborhood who don't swoon at the very mention of my son's name, and now Henrietta means to bring two of them to tea! If Connor succeeds in frightening them off as well, whatever will become of him? He will die a bachelor, and the line along with him!"
The older woman's distress left Portia speechless. Until this moment it had never occurred to her that unmarried males suffered the same harping from anxious parents as did unmarried females. The realization struck her as highly diverting, but as it was obvious the countess did not consider the matter one for levity, she wisely kept her amusement to herself.
"I can see your ladyship's concern," she replied carefully, striving to keep her tone even. "But if the earl doesn't meet any ladies, will he not suffer the same fate regardless?"
"Eventually, I suppose," Lady Eliza conceded, looking so unhappy that Portia's heart went out to her. "But I was hoping with time I could make him more acceptable. You must agree that no lady in her right mind would take him as he is now."
"My lady!" Portia stared at the countess in astonishment. The older lady's sharp words reminded her of that last bitter argument with her father, and it hurt her that the woman of whom she had grown so fond could pass such a harsh assessment of her son.
Lady Eliza flushed guiltily at Portia's stunned expression. "Now you are thinking that I must be the most unnatural mother alive," she said, her eyes misting with tears, "and I suppose you are right. It is just that I worry about Connor. I want him happy, I want him married, and that will never happen so long as he persists in behaving so churlishly."
The countess's tears as well as the anxiety in her voice made Portia relax. Still, she felt oddly obliged to defend the earl, despite that she was somewhat hipped with him. "I haven't observed his lordship to behave with any marked degree of impropriety," she lied, her eyes not quite meeting Lady Eliza's.
The older woman refused to be taken in by such sophistry. "You hit him over the head with a bed warmer within seconds of clapping eyes on him," she reminded Portia with a sniff. "Laid him quite out, according to Gwynnen."
Portia's cheeks flamed with color. "He had just forced his way into my room!" she exclaimed, eyes sparkling with indignation. "What else was I to do?"
"Oh, I am not condemning you for your actions." Lady Eliza dismissed her protest with a wave of her hand. "I agree you behaved as well as any lady might under similar circumstances. But again, you miss my point." She leaned forward, her gaze earnest as she captured Portia's hand in hers.
"Connor had no right to force his way into your room," she said in a stern voice, "and it is precisely that penchant for brutish conduct that renders him so ineligible as a parti. How do you think a delicately bred young lady would respond to such provocation, hmm? She'd faint dead away, and any hopes I had of getting him married off would vanish like so much smoke."
"Perhaps," Portia agreed, reluctantly remembering Miss Montgomery's reaction to the earl. "But I still say you are refining too much on the matter. Besides, what can you do about it? The earl is a grown man, and he is hardly likely to change his behavior at this late date."
Lady Eliza beamed at her in delight. "Exactly so, my dear, and that is why we—you and I—must change it for him."
5
Lord, he was exhausted, Connor thought, brushing the sweat-dampened hair from his forehead as he wearily climbed the front steps leading to the house. It had been a hellish day, filled with frustrating, backbreaking work, and he wanted nothing more than to bolt down his supper and crawl into bed. He was contemplating forgoing the food entirely when the door opened and his butler greeted him with a bow.
Connor stopped in mid-step, his brows gathering in a frown as he studied his majordomo. Williams had been with him only a short while, but Connor knew the older man thought entirely too much of his own consequence to answer the door like a common footman. That he had deigned to do so boded ill, and Connor straightened his shoulders with a reigned sigh. "What is it, Williams?" he asked heavily, saying a mental goodbye to his hopes for a quiet evening.
"Her ladyship and Miss Haverall are waiting for you in the drawing room, my lord," Williams replied, his face expressionless as he took in his master's disheveled appearance. "They ask that you join them there."
Connor bit back an oath. "Now?" he demanded, making no effort to hide his displeasure.
Williams paused, a bushy eyebrow arching as he gave Connor a cool look. "I am sure her ladyship will understand if you wish to change first," he said with an eloquent sniff. "Shall I inform her you will be with her shortly?"
Connor glanced down at his dusty jacket and grass-stained breeches, realizing he was in no fit state to grace anything other than a stable. He opened his mouth to agree, then abruptly closed it again. The devil take it, he thought sourly, his lips thinning with impatience. If his mama and Miss Haverall were so anxious to see him, then he would be happy to oblige them. He raised his eyes to meet his butler's disapproving gaze. "The drawing room, did you say?"
"Yes, my lord." William's features unfroze enough to acquire an anxious mien. "However, I feel you should—" He broke off in resignation as the earl turned and stalked away.
The door to the drawing room was closed, and Connor pushed it open with an angry shove, his jaw set as he prepared to do battle. His mother and Miss Haverall were sitting beside a blazing fire, and he greeted them both with a cool nod.
"You wished to see me, ma'am?" he asked, making no move to join them.
If she noted the sullen note in his voice, his mother gave no indication. Instead she beamed at him with undisguised pleasure, holding out her a
rms in welcome. "Ah, Connor, there you are!" she exclaimed happily. "Stop hovering in the doorway and come greet your mama properly. I have not seen you in days!"
Connor pushed himself away from the door, feeling a stab of guilt at his boorish behavior. He crossed the room, his annoyance forgotten as he bent to press a kiss on her cheek. "You saw me yesterday at dinner," he reminded her, smiling as he drew back to study her face. He thought she looked less pale than she had of late, and the realization pleased him.
"Yes, saw you was about all I did," Lady Eliza returned with a pretty pout. "You scarce said more than a dozen words, and you left before the dessert was served. Had it not been for dear Portia, I should have been left to converse with the sylabub!"
The image of his mother talking earnestly to a dessert glass of meringue and wine brought a twinkle to Connor's eyes. "My apologies, Mama, but as I told you Lady Gold was in foal, and—"
"Yes, yes, I know," she interrupted, waving aside his apologies with a graceful hand. "And I wasn't scolding you . . . precisely. Was I, dearest?" She turned to her companion for confirmation of her good intentions.
"Indeed you were not, my lady," Miss Haverall assured her. "You were the very model of restraint."
"There? You see?" His mother gave him a triumphant smile and patted the settee beside her. "Now sit down and tell us how you have spent your day. You've been with the cows, if your clothing is any indication."
Before answering, Connor accepted the cup of tea and plate of delicacies Miss Haverall handed him. "We moved the herd to the north pasture," he began, uncertain what details of his hectic day would be suitable for a lady's ears. "Now that all the calves have been delivered, it is time we began fattening them for market. If prices hold, we'll make a tidy profit by autumn."
"How wonderful!" His mother's face fairly radiated maternal pride as she turned to Miss Haverall. "Did I not tell you my son was brilliant?" she demanded, her smug tones making Connor feel decidedly uncomfortable. "He knows exactly what he is about."
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