by Olivia Drake
“But I loathe sewing,” Blythe said, plucking out a rose and brushing the soft petals against her cheek. “It seems so pointless when we have servants to do such tasks for us. And who cares if we have embroidered chemises, anyway? It’s not as if I’ll be undressing in front of a man anytime soon.”
At once, Portia saw herself slithering out of her chemise while Ratcliffe watched from his bed. In the midst of sewing a stitch, she accidentally pricked herself with the needle.
Annoyed, she sucked on her injured forefinger until the sting receded. “Honestly, Blythe, you shouldn’t even be thinking about such matters yet.”
“Why not? You were carrying on with that Hindu prince when you were my age.”
Portia shared a cautionary glance with Lindsey. Blythe didn’t know about Portia’s secret plan to return to India.
“His name was Arun,” Portia said. “As for ‘carrying on,’ I certainly wasn’t doing anything immoral with him.”
“Then why did Mama and Papa move us to England in such a rush, hmm?” In the pale green gown, Blythe looked older than her fifteen years—at least until she gave a childish toss of her flowing auburn hair. “Not that I mind, of course. I would far rather be in London than stuck in the backwaters of India, far from any decent shops.”
“It’s having close neighbors that I like,” Lindsey said. “There’s always someone to watch. Did you know that Mrs. Faraday picks her teeth in the privacy of her garden? And Lord Gilhearst … I wonder where he goes at precisely nine o’clock each morning?”
“To his club, perhaps.” Portia welcomed the change in topic from Arun. “Or to Tattersall’s to look at the horses for sale. Or to the watchmaker or the tailor or any one of a number of places that gentlemen frequent.”
“I think they’re all going to buy flowers,” Blythe said as she strolled to another table overflowing with bouquets. “It does seem the standard token to send to a lady he danced with the previous evening.”
Portia had to concur. She had attended a ball at Lord and Lady Wortham’s house until the wee hours, and her feet still ached from the hours of dancing. This morning, a torrent of gifts had begun arriving from the men who had vied for her attention. A team of servants had been kept busy accepting deliveries and arranging flowers in vases.
“Men.” Lindsey snorted. “I can’t imagine why they think a mere posy would influence how a lady regards them.”
“Oh, I rather think it depends upon the posy,” Blythe said. “Portia, do you hold any affection for the Honorable Henry Hockenhull? I hope not, because he’s only sent you daisies.”
Portia laughed. “Daisies are fine enough. And in his defense, he’s a third son with very few coins to spare.”
Blythe was reading the cards tucked into each vase of blooms. “The daffodils are from Lord Dunn. Pretty but a bit too prissy, I think. And this enormous bouquet of tulips is from the Duke of Albright, of course. He always manages to outdo all of your other suitors.”
Portia kept silent. Increasingly, she felt uncomfortable showing any interest in the duke. She didn’t know what the fuss was all about, anyway. He always treated her with the utmost courtesy. He never asked her for more than two dances at any ball. He had never made any improper advances toward her, either.
Unlike another man she knew.
Ratcliffe had flirted outrageously at every opportunity. He had pushed her onto his bed and kissed her madly. The mere memory of it threatened to suck her into a quagmire of longing.
“I suppose one can learn something about a man by the gifts he chooses,” Lindsey said thoughtfully.
“Absolutely,” Blythe agreed. “Take these pink roses from Lord Wrayford, for instance. They’re beautiful, I’ll grant, but rather clichéd, which suggests the gentleman himself is lackluster. Is that true, Portia?”
The man’s sole interest was staring at her bosom. “Quite.”
“And look at the other presents. Bonbons? Delicious, but dull. A handkerchief? How practical of a suitor to give a lady something with which to wipe her nose.”
Lindsey looked up from her sewing, her mouth curled in droll humor. “What’s worse, it’s something else that Miss Underhill will expect Portia to embroider.”
As the girls shared a laugh, Blythe went on. “The best flowers you’ve received aren’t even here, Portia. Remember how Lord Ratcliffe climbed up to your bedchamber to deliver a stem of orchids to you? Now that’s original.”
A thrill skittered over Portia’s skin. She did remember. Far too well. Even now, she couldn’t walk through her room without thinking of him sitting in her chair by the fire, a wicked half-smile on his lips.
“Shhh,” she said, glancing at the open doorway. “I don’t want anyone to know about that.”
“I expected him to call on you sometime,” Blythe went on in a lowered tone, giving her a speculative look. “I wonder why he hasn’t.”
“Obviously you’ve forgotten, the scoundrel has been barred from polite society.” Anxious to change the subject, Portia added, “So you’ve found fault with everything here. What sort of gifts would please you?”
Her sister took the distraction. “Diamonds,” she declared, a mischievous glint in her hazel eyes. “Necklaces and bracelets and earbobs.”
“A young lady must never accept jewelry from a man unless they are betrothed,” Lindsey said in a fair imitation of Miss Underhill’s severe voice.
“Oh, pooh. When I am a debutante, I intend to break all the rules.” Blythe twirled around the drawing room, her skirts flying. “I’ll waltz at my first ball. I’ll dance more than twice with any man I like. I’ll—oh!”
She came to an abrupt halt, narrowly avoiding a collision with a footman who had entered the drawing room.
The poker-faced servant was carrying a silver salver, on which rested a parcel no larger than a snuffbox. He advanced straight to Portia. “A delivery for you, Miss Crompton.”
In the middle of a stitch, she nodded at the table across the room. “Pray set it down over there with the other things, please.”
Blythe came hurrying over, snatching the little box from the tray and turning it over in her hands. “Who is it from? Oh, there doesn’t seem to be a return address. May I open it, please? I do so enjoy unwrapping presents.”
Portia smiled. “It’s likely another handkerchief. But go ahead.”
“Maybe it’s jewelry. Maybe one of these buffoons has finally given you something interesting.” Blythe gleefully tore at the paper and opened the box. Reaching inside, she lifted out a small object and frowned. “Why, look at this. Someone’s sent you a miniature.”
Portia’s head shot up. From across the room, she recognized the distinctive filigreed gold frame.
Horror surged through her. Blythe would see the painting of Arun. She would want to know where it had come from. She might run to Mama with the news and there would be all sorts of sticky questions …
Uttering a choked cry, Portia threw down her sewing and leaped out of her chair. Too late.
Blythe had turned over the frame and was gazing down at the picture. “Oh, my! Now here’s something novel—”
“Give me that.” Portia snatched it out of her hands. Fingers trembling, she looked at the little oval frame, expecting to see Arun’s familiar features.
Instead, she was flummoxed to find herself staring at a portrait of Ratcliffe. It must have been painted at least a decade in the past because his face had a more youthful look, his black hair was cut shorter, and his features had not yet gone hard and calculating.
Blast him! The scoundrel had replaced the painting of Arun with one of himself. She was too livid to feel even the slightest relief that her secret was safe.
“What’s wrong with you?” Blythe said in an injured tone. “You told me I could open it.”
Portia reined in her runaway fury. “I know. I’m sorry. I—I just couldn’t believe anyone would be so bold as to send me a miniature of himself.”
“Let me see,” Lindsey said. Tak
ing it, she studied it for a moment before handing it back to Portia. “Lord Ratcliffe. And to think we were just talking about what a depraved man he is.”
“I knew he hadn’t given up on you,” Blythe crowed. “I just knew it.”
“Oh, bah,” Lindsey said. “Imagine, giving such a personal item as a gift. I’ve never heard of anything so conceited.”
“I don’t believe it’s conceited at all,” Blythe enthused. “I believe it’s romantic and clever. Lord Ratcliffe wants Portia to think of him, and what better way than to send her a miniature of himself?”
What better way, indeed? Portia thought darkly as she jammed the miniature into her pocket. It gave her more reason than ever to despise him. She was incensed to know he had dared to get rid of Arun’s picture. What had the rascal done with it?
Just what had he done with it?
CHAPTER 13
COLIN WAS BEGINNING to doubt himself. It was irritating because he seldom suffered qualms over his own actions. The nagging uncertainty he felt was about as welcome as a sore tooth.
Or a sore arm.
In his dressing room, he winced while donning his fashionably tight coat with the help of Tudge. “Good God, man. Have a care how hard you yank on that sleeve.”
The manservant chuckled. “Ain’t healed yet, eh? Who’d a thought ye’d be brung down by a mere slip of a girl.”
“That slip of a girl is stronger than you think,” Colin muttered.
Tudge didn’t know Portia very well, or he wouldn’t view her as weak. She had turned out to be a far more formidable woman than the naïve young girl Colin had envisioned at first. She wasn’t easily charmed. She could match wits with him in a way no other female of his acquaintance had ever done. And he couldn’t always predict her reactions. He had fallen far short on the business of the miniature.
At the least, he had expected to receive a scathing letter from her. At the most, he’d harbored the hope that she might come charging over here to his house to blister him in person—and then he would have another prime opportunity to romance her.
But in the past three days there had been no communication from Portia. Not a word.
Her silence set him on edge. Perhaps he had made a mistake in sending her that miniature of himself. Perhaps she viewed his replacement of her dear Arun’s picture as an unforgivable sacrilege.
Or perhaps she hadn’t received the miniature at all. Maybe that dragon of a mother of hers had opened her daughter’s mail and then tossed it into the rubbish bin.
That last possibility had spurred him into action. He had cooled his heels long enough. He had to talk to Portia. Tonight.
Adjusting the lapels on his dark brown coat, Colin strode to the pier glass. He wanted to look his best, but the sight of his reflection made him scowl. “This green waistcoat looks all wrong. And what the devil is this cravat you’ve tied for me?”
“A waterfall,” Tudge replied, eyeing him proudly. “ ’Tis the latest rage among the toffs.”
“It looks more like a puffed-up snowball.” Colin ripped off the offending raiment and reached for a fresh strip of linen. “I should never have plucked you out of that sinking ship in Madagascar. You make a better pirate than you do a valet.”
“Huh. Lemme do that.” Tudge stood in front of Colin, his thick fingers deftly tying the new cravat. “Mebbe I shouldn’t ’ave saved yer skin along the Barbary Coast, either. If I ’adn’t known them pirates, ye’d’ve been fed to the sharks.”
“Instead, I’ll be fed to the sharks tonight.”
He was going to a ball that would be attended by all the snooty hens of society who had been so quick to condemn him as his father’s murderer. Always clucking gossip, they would be eager to revive the old scandal, especially now that his mother was back in their flock. He only hoped they had the manners to shutter their beaks in her presence.
“Off to lure Miss Crompton into yer clutches again, are ye?” A grin slashed across Tudge’s scarred face. “No wonder ye’re so jittery.”
“I’m perfectly calm.” Realizing his snappish words had failed to put a damper on Tudge’s amusement, he added in a more reasonable tone, “I shan’t wait around twiddling my thumbs while she’s being courted by the Duke of Albright.”
Glinting in the lamplight, a knife appeared in Tudge’s hand. “Ye want I should waylay ’is coach, m’lord? ’Twould be a pleasure to slit ’is scrawny throat.”
“For pity’s sake, put your weapon away. You’re not sailing under the Jolly Roger anymore. I’ll handle Albright myself.”
He couldn’t fault Tudge for his loyalty. The man had been his boon companion on his world tour. Having left home the instant he’d reached his majority, funded by a small inheritance from a maiden aunt, Colin had spent four years on the high seas, traveling to Africa and India and China. He had absorbed the sights, collected exotic plants, and reveled in the freedom of answering to no one. When at last he had returned to England, a pauper again, all hell had broken loose at home.
Or rather, all hell had continued during his absence, and resolving the disagreements between his parents had once again fallen onto his shoulders. It was the same old drama, act seven hundred and forty-five, scene two thousand and one.
Would he have such a marriage with Portia? The uneasy thought made him break out in a cold sweat. He couldn’t imagine how two people could live forever together in peace, especially when they were like tinder and flint, as he and Portia were.
It didn’t matter, he reminded himself. He was only wedding her for her money. The lust he felt was merely an added bonus, ensuring them nights of vigorous lovemaking. Nothing else mattered.
At least he knew one sure method to melt her frosty regard. He had only to disrobe her, to stroke that beautiful body in all the right places, and she would be his willing slave. The fantasy invigorated him, yet an unsettling disquiet lingered. It was time he coaxed her into marriage, using any means possible.
Only then would he have the right to keep her all to himself. He wanted no other man to touch her, not her precious Arun, not all those toadying lordlings, and certainly not that viper Albright—
A knock sounded on the outer door, jolting him back to the present. Tudge went to answer it, and Colin followed, leaving the dressing room and entering his bedchamber.
The door opened before Tudge was halfway there, and Hannah stepped inside. It was still rather startling to see her in the modest gray gown, the ruffled white apron concealing all but a hint of her pregnancy, rather than the scandalous garb of her past.
“I could have been dressing,” he growled. “Next time, kindly wait until you’re admitted.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Forgive me, your lordship. Though if I may be permitted to point out, I’ve already seen everything you have to offer.”
Her impudence rubbed him the wrong way. Then again, everything had rubbed him the wrong way tonight. Nevertheless, he was about to take her to task again when he spied the letter in her hands. “Is that for me?”
“Yes. It’s just arrived.”
He snatched it from her. Perhaps this was it. Perhaps Portia finally had written to him. He grabbed his gold-rimmed spectacles from the bedside table and shoved them on. His heart thumping, he tore the letter open.
As abruptly as his hopes had arisen, they crashed to pieces. He was staring down at another bill. This one for a diamond tiara ordered by his mother.
“Damn!” Crumpling the paper, he hurled it onto the bed. For good measure, he slapped the mahogany bedpost. “Damn, damn, damn.”
His palm stinging, he turned to see Tudge and Hannah standing side by side, their heads together. They made an incongruous couple, Tudge with his scarred face and missing ear, and Hannah with her sensual beauty beneath a prim white mobcap.
“Master’s a bit tetchy tonight,” the manservant was telling her. “ “E’s goin’ to see ’is little miss.”
“Oh? I’d been wondering if he’d lost interest in Miss Crompton. Considering his presen
t mood, I’m thinking perhaps it might be best for her if he did.”
Colin wanted to retort that he was standing right there and they could cease their infernal gossiping. But expedience made him swallow his ill humor.
“I need a woman’s opinion,” he told Hannah. “What do you think of this waistcoat? Would I look better in a gold pinstripe?”
Portia had just finished dancing a reel with the Honorable Henry Hockenhull when she spied Lord Ratcliffe.
She came to an abrupt halt. Much to her frustration, the brief glimpse of him was blocked by the clusters of guests leaving the dance floor. Surely he was a figment of her imagination. He wouldn’t have been invited, not to a ball given by Lady Jersey, one of the grandes dames of society. Not when so many of the ton still believed he had murdered his own father.
“Are you feeling faint?” Mr. Hockenhull asked, his gloved hand cupping her elbow as if she were a delicate butterfly. “Did the dance overtax you, Miss Crompton?”
She dragged her attention back to her partner. His freckled features were taut with worry beneath a boyish thatch of auburn hair. “Certainly not,” she murmured, while covertly trying to look over his shoulder at the area where Ratcliffe—or his twin—had been walking through the crowd. “I enjoyed it very much.”
“May I fetch you a glass of punch? Or champagne perhaps?”
“Thank you, but no. I’m perfectly fine, truly I am. And you needn’t escort me back to my mother. I can see my next partner right over there.”
Portia nodded vaguely toward the entryway, and while he turned his head to peer in that direction, she slipped away into the throng of guests. She garnered a few curious looks, no doubt due to her solitary status. It was a cardinal rule that young ladies were to be taken back to their guardians at the end of each dance. Portia had only a few minutes until the next set, which she had promised to the Duke of Albright.
But she could not ignore the curiosity burning inside of her.
To discourage conversation, she kept her gaze modestly lowered so as not to meet anyone’s eye. She didn’t quite understand her sense of urgency. She ought to be avoiding Ratcliffe. After receiving the miniature in the mail, she had vowed not to give that scoundrel the satisfaction of a response. Why bother when it was highly doubtful that he would tell her what he had done with the painting of Arun. Besides, if she ignored him, he might lose interest and leave her be.