A woman walked in pushing a cart laden with books. “Afternoon, my lady. I’m the house keeper, Mrs. Crosby.” Stopping beside the bed, she bobbed a brief curtsey.
Portia rose up on her elbows, her heart accelerating at the haphazard stack of books. The sight of so many, some whose leather spines never looked to have been cracked, filled her stomach with butterflies.
“What have you there?” Nettie asked.
“Lady Moreton selected these books for Lady Portia.”
Portia glanced from the twenty-plus books to Mrs. Crosby, a brow arched suspiciously. “Lady Moreton selected these?” No doubt her grandmother’s letters had related Portia’s fondness for books.
She reached for one, examining the spine. “Voltaire,” she read aloud. Her hand went for another and another. “Austen, Cervantes, Burney, Defoe.” Trying to still her racing heart, she slid her gaze to the house keeper. “Where did all these come from?”
“The library. Perhaps when you feel better you could explore it yourself, my lady. It’s quite a large collection.” Mrs. Crosby made a tsking sound with her tongue. “Oh, but you’ll be leaving, won’t you? Unfortunate.” In that moment Portia knew Lady Moreton had sent the books deliberately.
Portia reassessed the books, trying to suppress her tremor of delight now that she understood them for what they were—a bribe. She pressed her lips into a grim line and crossed her arms over her chest. No amount of books would tempt her to stay. She had her pride. Nothing could keep her here with that brute skulking about the place.
Then she spotted it. Her breath caught in her throat. With a shaking hand, she pulled a thin volume off the top stack. Freshly bound, her fingers skimmed over the smooth leather surface with its shiny embossed lettering. Mr. Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.
She had heard of Mr. Poe’s unconventional stories.
“Oh, that one came in a few days ago. Lady Constance always sees that the library is kept current.”
“Incredible,” Portia murmured, her estimation of the stern Constance lifting a notch. She would have had to send away to America for this book. And at no small expense. Who knew what other books awaited below stairs? Likely a veritable treasure trove. Her chest constricted. Unfortunate she had to leave.
A deep yearning to investigate the Moreton library hummed through her veins. Such temptation was hard to resist. Unbearable. Her family’s library hadn’t been updated in years.
Her fingers caressed the sleek leather, her mind working furiously, searching for justification in staying. The image of herself immersed in books, exploring tome after tome, filled her head until she grew giddy. What better way to spend the Season than far away from Town and a new crop of Grandmother’s handpicked suitors? She nodded decidedly. Sound justification. What more did she need? Moreton Hall was precisely where her Grandmother wanted her to be. So what if the earl wished her gone? No threat of him liking her. No threat of him proposing. A slow smile spread across her face.
“I think,” she began slowly, “I should like to stay.”
Mrs. Crosby beamed. “Splendid, my lady. I shall inform the countess at once. She will be so thrilled.”
Portia nodded, ignoring the peculiar look Nettie shot her as she slowly opened the book. The spine gave a small creak and goose bumps broke out over her skin as the smell of ink and freshly cut paper assailed her. “Yes, do that, Mrs. Crosby.”
“Certainly, my lady.”
For the first time in an age, Portia felt giddy from anticipation. A good book. Time away from her family. From another disappointing Season.
Even the memory of the earl’s hard visage couldn’t dampen her spirits.
Portia rotated in a small circle in the center of the library, the Persian carpet plush and yielding beneath her bare feet. She had waited until nightfall before sneaking from her bedroom, until a hushed silence fell over the household.
A visit to the library would have been impossible during the day. Not with everyone still treating her like an invalid, and not with Mrs. Crosby standing guard.
Yet standing at the center of the vast, cathedral-like room, she was glad she had waited. It was a reverent moment, almost spiritual. Standing alone with so many books, she didn’t want to share the experience.
Never in her life had she seen such a collection. The wind howled outside, rattling against a large mullioned window that looked out onto the moon-washed moor. Portia trembled in her thin cotton gown, half from cold, half from anticipation. The fire burned low in the hearth, and the smell of burning wood mingled with the perfume of leather and parchment. She inhaled deeply through her nostrils. Heaven.
She hugged herself and rocked on the balls of her feet. Mrs. Crosby had not exaggerated. The library was huge. Beyond impressive. Her head fell back, taking in the vaulted, forty-foot ceilings. The books extended to Heaven itself.
Excitement brimming in her heart, she started in one direction, then stopped and turned in another, unsure where to begin. Yet begin she would. All libraries were arranged with some kind of system in mind. Portia vowed to learn the design of this one as quickly as possible.
She had come armed with her reading spectacles. A true indicator of her seriousness considering she abhorred the need for them. Ever since the day she had first donned them and her grandmother recoiled as if confronted with Medusa herself. Pushing them up her nose, she started just left of the door, reverently trailing her fingertips over the leather spines.
“What are you doing here?” A deep voice sounded from behind.
Portia whirled around, stifling a scream. Heath watched her from where he lounged on a sofa—a great jungle cat, all long lines and loosely coiled muscle. Strength and danger lurked beneath his seemingly idle air. How had she not seen him when she first entered the library? How had she failed to notice him?
He stared at her from beneath heavy lids, his wicked gaze liquid dark in the fire glow.
Apparently he had watched her from the moment she entered the room—while she gawked and twirled in a circle like a silly child. Her blood burned with mortification.
“I heard you possessed a splendid library.” She clasped her hands together in front of her, hoping he did not notice how her voice quavered. “I came to see for myself.”
His gaze skimmed the cascade of hair over her shoulders, making her wish she had taken the time to pull it back. “You should be abed.”
Wetting her lips, she swallowed and said, “I’ve slept enough of late—”
“You’re ill.” His hard gaze fixed on her face as if he could see beyond flesh and bone to all that she guarded. “You should have more sense than to be up and about. Especially dressed only in your nightgown.”
Heat scalded her cheeks. Slipping her spectacles from her face, Portia lifted her chin and leveled him a reproving glare. “I wish everyone would cease treating me as though I were a piece of crystal to be handled cautiously.”
“You are gravely ill—”
“A mild ague, no more.”
He scrutinized her for a long moment, his gaze intense. She stared back and held her ground, chin up. Finally, he shrugged as if her welfare were of no account. And why should it be?
Her face burned as she recalled the way he had flirted with her. The memory of his hands on her body ignited a writhing lick of heat in her belly. A nameless female passing through might have been fit for dalliance—but not a lady his grandmother hoped him to wed. He wanted nothing to do with her. Perhaps he had when he thought her an anonymous female. But not now. Not that he now knew her identity.
“What are you doing here?” Sitting up, he flung one arm along the back of the sofa and gestured about the room with the other hand. “You don’t belong here.”
“As I said, I wanted to see your library—”
“No. Here. Moreton Hall.”
Pressing her lips together, she debated how forthright to be. He had certainly ended all need for niceties between them when he had ordered her from Moreton Hall with all the finesse of an ogre.
With that burning humiliation in mind, she mocked, “Come now, Lord Moreton. You know why I’m here.”
“To snare a husband,” he rejoined, his voice hard, cutting. “Me.”
“That would be my family’s wish, yes.” Portia drew a deep breath, ready to explain that he need fear no pressure from her on that score. That she was as much a victim as he, that she had no wish to press him for a proposal. She had no interest in marriage, in handing over what precious freedom she had to a husband.
Only he never gave her the chance to explain.
“Save yourself the trouble,” he growled. “I have no intention of marrying. Ever. My grandmother knows this, you understand, she simply can’t accept it.”
Angling her head, she observed him curiously. She never met a gentleman opposed to matrimony. There were heirs to consider, after all. And family alliances to be made. Intrigued, Portia asked, “You don’t want a son? An heir?”
His face hardened, convincing her that she hit a nerve.
“No.” The single word fell like a stone, hard, final. Not to be questioned.
“Why not?”
He scowled and even in the dim light she could see a muscle jump angrily in his jaw. “You haven’t a clue how to hold your tongue, have you?”
She stared, waiting.
Sighing, he dragged a hand through his hair and confessed, “I can’t have children.”
Her hand flew to her lips. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“No,” he bit out, rolling his eyes. “I will not.” Shaking his head, he demanded, “Did your grandmother not explain the Moreton curse before she sent you here?” He sent her a pitying glance, the kind that seemed to say, poor fool.
Portia shook her head, a slow sense of dread tightening her chest.
He smiled cheerlessly. “Ah, the sacrificial lamb. Shall I explain exactly what your family has plotted for you?”
The dread in her chest grew, leaving no room for air. Unable to speak, she nodded jerkily for him to continue, to confess all.
“Your grandmother sent you into the lion’s den quite unprepared.” His humorless smile slipped and he turned to study the dancing flames in the fireplace. “But then perhaps that was her plan.
To have you blink those pretty eyes so guilelessly at me. Such charming naïveté,” he broke off with a snort.
Deliberately ignoring his backhanded compliment, she snapped, “You make no sense. What curse?”
“Madness, my dear. Porphyria. As ugly as it gets,” he declared, his voice hard as granite. “My father fell victim to it.” His expression grew shuttered. “As did my younger brother.”
Madness? He had not been jesting. Portia eyed his profile closely, as if she could discern the madness he spoke of lurking beneath his hard exterior, see it in the smoky depths of his gaze, in the unyielding line of his jaw, in the wide mouth and full lips.
He turned then and caught her staring at him. A knowing smile twisted his mouth. “Yes, it’s there, runs thick in my blood. Some say it has already surfaced.” He shrugged one broad shoulder as if it mattered little.
An image of the wicked man from the road, the one who had nearly run her over with his horse, who flirted outrageously, who played with knives for sport, flashed through her mind.
“Explains much, doesn’t it?” he asked, lips curving in a strange, humorless smile. As if he were determined to feel nothing, as if being mad cast no shadow over his life.
Yet his eyes betrayed him. Hot, determined, they glowed like polished jet, the gray nowhere in evidence. The sight made her heart beat harder against her breast. A purely feminine reaction—
one for which she sharply reprimanded herself.
“So you see,” he continued, “I won’t have children. Won’t risk future generations.”
She rubbed the base of her palm against her temple, struggling to understand why her grandmother would want her to wed a man burdened with such an affliction. “But my grandmother claimed you’re a catch—”
“Money, my dear,” he cut in sharply, his words echoing within the cavernous room, in the far corners of her heart—a death knell that marked an end to her clinging faith, to the belief that her family regarded her above that of money.
“Many families would gladly forget my tainted bloodlines for a piece of the Moreton fortune,”
he said, his voice rolling over her like a numbing fog—pervasive, consuming, obliterating.
Families like hers.
Shaming heat crawled up her neck and face.
He continued, “I’m guessing your family is in dire need of funds.”
She longed to deny it, to deny that she belonged to such a family—deny that her heart wasn’t breaking to think that her grandmother cared so little for her. She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged.
“We might be the Mad Moretons,” he went on, not bothering to wait for her reply, “But we’ve more money than we have use for.”
More money than we have use for. That would be her family’s sole requisite.
She sank down onto a chair, her shaking legs unable to support her weight. Bile rose in the back of her throat as cold comprehension settled over her. Her grandmother would surrender her to a madman all because his pockets ran deep? Portia had thought she loved her. At least as much as she could love anyone. True, Grandmother strove to see her wed, but Portia had not thought her so desperate, so uncaring. She wouldn’t put such a scheme past her brother and his wife. Bertram and Astrid would sell her to the Sultan of Turkey, if Grandmother let them.
He continued, the velvet timbre of his voice doing nothing to soothe her. “Now you know and you can depart and count yourself lucky to have escaped.”
Depart? Return to her family?
Lifting her gaze, she shook her head. “No.” Absolutely not. More than ever she was determined to remain here. To escape. At least for as long as she could. Grandmother had warned her that this Season would not be like the others—had vowed that Portia would be betrothed by the end of it.
“What do you mean ‘no’?” He rose, two long strides bringing him before her.
Evidently she had spoken aloud. Her head fell back to take in the great length of him towering over her. She wet her lips and told herself that he did not intimidate her.