He submitted to his valet’s ministrations in a trance. And when he was clean, shaved, and dressed he went downstairs to dine with his brother and sister.
Portia ran through a forest that went on forever. Thorns and limbs tore at her skirt and wicked, grasping branches scratched her face. Everywhere fallen trees, rotting logs, and hidden stumps tried to stop her. She tripped, stumbled, and pitched headlong into a bottomless tangle of brambles. The footsteps behind her got louder and louder and she burrowed into the tearing, gouging thorns to hide. The briars turned into hundreds of hands, pulling and grasping.
Portia! Portia come back, you can’t hide from me!
Portia tried to scream but no sound came out. She struggled against the iron grip that held her, kicking and thrashing until she tore free and her eyes flew open. She gasped for breath and her eyes slowly focused.
She wasn’t in the woods but back in her very own bed. She felt the bed next to her and found it empty. Where was Stacy? She sat up and squinted through the gloom; he was sitting in the over-stuffed chair beside the bed, the dull glow of the fire bathing him with warm, red light. His head rested against the chair back, his eyes were closed, and he was breathing deeply. He was still wearing his evening clothes but had unbuttoned his coat and removed his cravat. His shirt was loose and open, exposing the white, muscular column of his throat; he looked like an angel at rest.
She squinted at her bedside clock; it was three twenty-two in the morning—the witching hour and the loneliest time of the night. Yet she was not alone; he must have fallen asleep watching her. He looked delicious and she wanted him—needed his quiet strength and his powerful, sheltering body. She opened her mouth to wake him when it all came crashing down on her.
Ivo. He was back.
Chapter Nineteen
It had been Ivo who’d been camping in the old falling-down cottage. Ivo, who was very much alive. Ivo who had come back for her.
Portia screamed when she saw his face and he’d grabbed her with rough, cold hands, clamping the bent fingers of his damaged hand over her mouth.
“Sh, mia cara!” He was not much bigger than Portia, but he was wiry and strong and held her in an unbreakable grasp while uttering a string of placating endearments in Italian—not something he’d done for many years. When he felt the struggle go out of her body he loosened his grip. “I’ll remove my hand from your mouth if you will promise not to scream.”
Portia nodded and he took away his hand, still keeping an iron grip on her wrist. She stared, shocked by how haggard and gaunt he looked.
“The ship you were on—it went down with you and your w-wife on it—I read it in the paper.” Portia spoke Italian, the only language adequate to express her anger, loathing, and shock.
His sensual lips twisted in a way that used to make her heart throb faster a long, long time ago. His eyes were the color of brandy, warm and intoxicating. But Portia knew they masked a man who thought of only one thing: Ivo Stefani.
“You look well, Portia. Very well for a grieving widow.” Her stomach lurched as his smile twisted into something unpleasant. “You did not grieve for me, did you? It made you happy that I was not just pretend dead, but real dead? You simply moved on, eh?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Imagine my surprise when I showed up in London and found my school closed and our house empty.”
“Your school? The only thing you ever gave to the school was your name—and debt.”
Ivo squeezed her wrist until she cried out.
“What a harpy you are, Portia, always on about the same thing.” He yanked her close, his eyes dark with fury. “Mrs. Sneed did not turn a hair when I showed up on her doorstep. That is when I knew you never told the newspapermen either the tale of my hero’s death in the War or my unfortunate demise at sea. Even when you thought I was dead you didn’t mind keeping me alive to use my name and status.” He made a clucking sound as he pushed her down onto a pile of mossy stones that must have once been part of the wall. Portia tucked her feet beneath her skirt and buried her hands in her cloak. Ivo sat beside her, his hand like an iron manacle around her wrist.
“It took some work to get your address from Mrs. Sneed without looking like a fool. I told her I was just back from a family emergency and had lost my baggage in a shipping debacle. Ha!” He slapped his thigh, clearly amused by his own cleverness. The suit of clothing he wore had once been one of his better ones. Now the cuffs were ragged and shiny patches showed the coat had been cleaned and pressed to within an inch of its life. His cravat was yellowed and knotted carelessly. And his once beautiful boots—boots he’d commissioned from the great Hoby himself—were a scuffed, battered disaster.
“What happened, Ivo?” Portia prepared herself for the web of lies he would no doubt spin. Ivo could not tell the truth even if it would help his cause. She’d learned long ago, and to her detriment, that he lied for the pure joy of manipulating his listener.
“I might ask you the same thing, cara.” He reached out to take her chin and she jerked out of his reach. He laughed. “I hear you are married to a very rich man.” His pupils shrank and she noticed the deep grooves beside his mouth and nose. He looked older than he’d done a mere eighteen months ago but he was still a very handsome man. Portia hated him. She wished—God have mercy on her soul—that he really was dead at the bottom of the ocean. The only things he’d ever given her were pain, humiliation, and a miscarriage.
“What business is it of yours, Ivo, we were never even married. You are less than nothing to me. Where is your wife?” Rage made her body shake. But beneath her rage was fear. Why had he come back?
He laid his right hand over his breast and cast his eyes skyward. “Alas, poor Consuela! She really did perish this time.”
Portia gave a rude snort. “I suppose you were the only survivor out of an entire ship?”
Ivo smirked, pleased to illicit emotion from her, no matter what it was. “Not just me, gattina. When we saw which way the wind was blowing, pardon my inexcusable pun, another gentleman and I took one of the two lifeboats. My darling Consuela refused to get into such a small craft. I tried coaxing her but she was adamant. She could not swim, you see, and believed that staying on a larger ship that was headed for calamity would somehow save her.” He shrugged, demonstrating the same depth of emotion for his wife that he’d felt for Portia.
“We had a few nasty moments, my companion and I, but we were fortunate in that we had ample supplies and encountered propitious currents. We did not have very much remaining to us by the time we made landfall but it was enough that we could bring our few possessions ashore and convince a local fisherman to give us shelter.” He stopped and gave her a look of disbelief. “I must tell you, my love, that you and I were fortunate to have left Rome when we did. The Corsican made a bloody mess of the entire Continent. Banditti run rampant and it is worth a man’s life to travel anywhere. Unfortunately, it was worth my companion’s life. I’m afraid he did not make it to Grenoble—the home of his lovely widow.” Ivo’s smile made Portia’s flesh crawl. When had he become this man? Was it the loss of his hand or had he always been unscrupulous and his beautiful gift had merely masked it?
“I remained with the grateful widow until her officious brother arrived from Paris and made my position untenable. I’d begun to miss you in any case, my pretty Portia.” He squeezed her, his hand like a vise. “It breaks my heart to learn you do not feel the same.”
Portia didn’t bother trying to pull away. That was what he wanted, a struggle. He’d always become violent when thwarted.
“What do you want, Ivo?”
“I want my wife back. But what did I learn? That you were spreading those white thighs for some other man. That you were already carrying some other man’s brat, and a freak of a man by all I’ve heard.” He laughed and grabbed her hand before it could make contact with his face. “I’ll hit you back, gattina, and I’ll do it twice as hard.”
She wrenched her arm away. “What do you want?”
His features twisted into an expression that was half rage and half something else—jealousy? Portia found that difficult to credit. It was more likely pique that she’d not wasted away after he left her, brokenhearted.
“What would your wealthy freak say if he knew you were already married and that your long-lost husband had returned?” He pushed a finger against her midriff and she flinched back. “And the child in your belly is legally mine?”
Fear clamped around her chest until she could barely breathe. She could not show Ivo how terrified she was, it would be the end of her. She pulled from his grasp and sneered at him.
“You forget we were never legally married, Ivo.”
“And how will you prove that, my dove? We held ourselves out to the world as blissfully married for almost a decade. It just so happens I have our wedding lines to prove it.”
That made her laugh. “Our wedding lines just so happened to survive a shipwreck?”
His smug, ugly smile chilled her. “Oh, darling.” He laughed, and it actually sounded genuine. “You don’t think I planned to stay away from London forever, did you? I only humored Consuela to get her out of England. One way or another, I was coming back so I tucked away money and valuables in my bank in London.” He grinned. “Too bad you did not declare me dead, eh? Perhaps then the bank officials would have sought out my unfortunate widow?”
Portia’s head throbbed with such rage she could not speak.
“In that bank box I put money, your mother’s lovely jewelry, and a few important documents. I’m afraid I had to sell the jewelry, and I’ve run low on the money, but I still have my documents. So, what will your new husband believe when he sees our marriage lines, eh? I’ll bet you were too ashamed to tell him about Consuela, weren’t you?” He laughed at whatever he saw on her face. “And now it is too late to disclose the truth without it sounding suspiciously self-serving.”
A strange humming noise filled her head. His lips kept moving but Portia could no longer hear his words. She would kill him before she let him claim her child and ruin her life. She would kill him.
He grabbed her shoulders and shook her until her teeth rattled.
“Are you listening to me, you mad bitch? I will not put up with one of your crazy rages, do you hear me?” He slapped her so hard her head snapped back and the metallic tang of blood flooded her mouth. And then he shook her. “I tolerated you for a bloody decade—you will give me recompense, or I will claim what is in your belly for my own.”
Her head pounded from the blow, the vicious shaking, and her own rage. They locked eyes, the air around them thick with violence and a fine, cool mist as the rain struck the feeble roof above them with increasing frequency and force.
He squeezed her shoulders until they ached. “Do what I tell you or pay the price.”
Portia’s stomach churned and her anger slowly drained away until she felt cold and dead inside. “What will it take to make you go away and never, ever come back?”
He grinned and the avarice in his eyes sickened her. “I believe two thousand pounds would set me up quite nicely. Perhaps I will go back home and buy a small villa. Two decades of turmoil has played havoc with the value of land and has created many new opportunities.”
“Two thousand pounds?” Just saying the amount made her dizzy. “Are you mad, Ivo? Where do you expect me to get that?”
The smile slid from his face. “Use that whore’s body, Portia, I’m sure you’ll find a way.”
The rain pounded overhead and the spray soaked them. Portia didn’t know how long they’d sat locked in silent argument when a voice floated toward them from the direction of the path.
“Stefani!”
Ivo leapt to his feet and grabbed her arm, yanking her up. “You must get out of here. I cannot be seen talking to you. Go!” He shoved her so hard she stumbled, landing on her knees beside the broken stone wall.
“What is wrong with you?” She shot him a look of pure hatred as she struggled to her feet.
“Go!” he hissed, murder in his eyes.
“With the greatest of pleasure.” She began picking her way over a pile of rubble and heading toward the corner of the cottage.
Ivo grabbed her arm and almost yanked it from the socket. “Not that way, stupida, you will walk right into him! There is a road in that direction.” He gestured vaguely toward the other side of the woods. “You will return to me with the money in a week or—”
“Ten days,” she grated out. “I cannot possibly do it in less.” It was unlikely she could get so much money even in ten years. But she needed as much time to think as she could get.
He let out a string of curse words. “Ten days, no more.” He shoved her and she almost fell again.
Portia knew the road in question but had never crossed through the woods to get to it. She glanced back and saw Ivo glaring.
“Go.” he mouthed.
Beyond him the underbrush rustled as somebody approached the derelict cottage. Portia was tempted to wait and see who it was just to interfere with whatever Ivo had planned. They stood, eyes locked, and his expression turned from ugly to terrified. What was he afraid of?
Portia decided she did not want to know. She turned and ran.
She staggered blindly through the rain for perhaps a quarter of an hour before she accepted that she was lost. The sky was almost black and it was impossible to tell direction by the position of the sun. For all Portia knew she could have gone in a circle and would soon come back to Ivo and whoever it was he was meeting.
The rain began to fall in solid sheets and thunder sounded somewhere in the distance. She pulled up the collar on her drenched cloak and picked a direction. By the time she found the enormous tree she was stumbling more than walking. It was an ancient monster with a large hollow at its base. The depression was filled with weeds and bracken but it was big enough that she could wedge her body out of the rain. Portia was so tired and wet she no longer cared about rain, insects, Ivo, or anything except closing her eyes. The next time she opened them it had been to find herself cradled in Stacy’s arms.
Portia wanted to cry as she looked at her husband asleep in the chair beside her bed. He’d stayed close in case she had need of him. She’d been groggy but she recalled the sick worry she’d heard in his voice as he held her. She’d also heard affection and perhaps even love, or at least the beginnings of that emotion.
Tears were sliding down her cheeks and she was clenching her jaw so tightly her head throbbed. This was a mess, a terrible mess. There was only one way out of it: she would find the money, no matter what she had to do to get it.
For a man who’d refused to stay in his own sickbed after he’d been shot twice Stacy had no sympathy for Portia’s desire to get out of bed. He bullied and browbeat her for three full days before he allowed her to leave her bedroom. Not only that, but he refused to make love to her the entire time.
“I will sleep in your bed, Portia, but that is all we will do. The doctor says you are suffering from extreme exhaustion. You’ve refused his recommended treatment so now you must submit to mine.” The stern expression on his face when he issued his orders made her ache for him.
Of course everything her husband did made her ache for him.
“Are you listening to me, Portia?” His cool, clipped words interrupted the fantasy that had begun to develop in her mind—yet another fantasy of Stacy without any clothing.
She heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Yes, Stacy. I am listening.”
He was wearing his dratted glasses, hiding his thoughts from her along with his beautiful eyes. She was positive he did that to torment her.
His mouth twitched, as though he could read her thoughts. But his humor was short lived. “You will stay in your bed, eat at least three meals per day, and get a full night’s sleep for three days. At the end of that time I shall reevaluate your condition and decide accordingly.”
He’d said all this while looming over her, arms crossed over his broad, muscular chest, dresse
d in his riding clothes. Her eyes drifted from his impassive face over his elegant, snug-fitting clawhammer and lingered on the front of his buckskins. They been tanned black, to match his coat, and fit his taut, narrow hips and powerful thighs like a glove. Looking at him made her mouth water.
“Portia?”
“Hmm?” She wrenched her eyes away from his body and looked up.
“What did you promise me?”
She fluttered her lashes and touched a hand to her brow. “I don’t remember.”
“Do I need to summon Doctor Gates to remind you?”
Portia sat up. “You wouldn’t. You promised, Stacy.”
He uncrossed his arms and began to turn.
“No, stop. You are a bully,” she said when he turned back.
“Yes, but I am your bully, thanks to your promise. Now come, it won’t be so bad. I will go for a ride while you take your bath. When I return I will entertain you. But first I shall make sure you eat everything on your breakfast tray.” He stared down at her, the muffled tap, tap, tap of his boot against the thick rug telling her the threat was not an idle one.
And so it went. For three entire days.
It was on the second of those days that Stacy explained his aunt’s absence from the house and passed along Viscount Pendleton’s startling revelations.
Portia listened to tale with her mouth hanging open. “But this is utterly fantastical, Stacy! What must your father be like to have done such a monstrous thing to his own child?”
“According to Pendleton he is an implacable man who keeps his own counsel. Even now, at almost ninety, he has no regrets.”
“So why has he finally told your brother about you now?”
“Robert says he’s only thawed because you are with child. The earl didn’t want me, but I am my brother’s heir if he does not have children. That would make a male child of ours the next in line. Otherwise the title would go to some distant relative. Apparently the earl cannot countenance such a thing.” They sat in silence as they considered this new twist for their unborn child’s future.
The Music of Love Page 18