“I have no wish to wed you,” she said coolly, striving to sound practical, matter-of-fact. “And you have no wish to wed me. What difference does it make if I remain here? I could use a little escape.”
“A little escape,” he echoed. “What is it you wish to escape?”
“When I return home, my family will begin where they left off, pelting me at gentlemen whose pockets run deep enough to cover my brother’s debts.” She lifted one shoulder in a carelessly affected shrug, as if that fact did not make her chest tight and her skin itchy. As if she did not feel like a commodity to be bought and sold.
“And money doesn’t interest you?” His skeptical gaze slid over her, stopping at her bare feet peeking beneath the hem of her nightgown. “You prefer owning tattered nightgowns with frayed hems?”
Air escaped her in a whoosh. So her wardrobe was a bit shabby. He was no model of fashion.
“The need for funds motivates my family. Not me.” She straightened her spine where she sat, resisting the urge to pull her legs beneath her and hide her unraveling hem. “Is it so hard to imagine that I wish to—”
“Remain a spinster?” he finished for her. “Yes.”
Her hands knotted into fists at her sides. “Like you, I have my reasons for eschewing matrimony.”
His lips quirked in a scornful smile. He looked down at her in that mocking, skeptical way of his that set her teeth to gnashing. “Madness runs in your family, too?”
It would seem strange to him—to anyone—that she wished to live her life unwed, pitied and reviled by Society. But there was freedom in it. No ties. The freedom in never answering to a husband, in being bent to his iron will. Freedom to pick up and leave when her mother came for her. Perhaps it was foolish to cling to that particular dream. Especially now, eight years later. Yet Portia remembered the mother who had read to her, talked to her for long hours, dismissed the governess so that she herself could teach her daughter her favorite Greek myths. That mother had promised to come for her, promised that they would live a grand life of travel and leisure together. Without husbands.
She raised her eyes to his waiting stare. He would never understand. And she had no intention of revealing so much of herself in order to explain.
“My reasons are my own and none of your concern.”
“Convenient,” he mocked. “However, if this is some trick or device to stay here in an attempt to persuade me to marry—”
“Don’t,” she snapped, outrage consuming her, burning low in her belly. “You give yourself too much credit.” Was there no end to his arrogance? “Even if I were interested in finding a husband, I certainly wouldn’t look to you.”
“Not rich enough?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Or you require wealth and a family tree with no threat of insanity?”
No. Those reasons paled in the face of her real fear. Even if it came down to her marrying, nothing would motivate her to choose him, a man who could reduce her to a quivering mass of nerves.
She swallowed and strove for a show of courage. “You needn’t be afraid.” She flicked her eyes over him, conveying her disdain. “You’re safe from me.”
“I’m not afraid,” he gritted, his chest expanding.
With an audacity that even surprised her, she retorted, “Good. Because I’ve been invited here, and I have no intention of leaving Moreton Hall until I’m well and ready.”
His nostrils flared in challenge.
Unable to stop herself, she leaned back in her chair. Tapping her fingers on the cushioned arms, she baited him further, “Best grow accustomed to the sight of me.”
“Careful, Miss Mud Pie,” he growled. “You may come to regret your decision.”
Bristling at the reference to their less than dignified first meeting, she flung out, “Only people who don’t know themselves have regrets. I know myself exceptionally well.” Pushing to her feet, she thought to depart with that final, ringing announcement.
Yet her breath quickened at finding herself chest to chest with him. Their gazes locked. His gray eyes deepened, blue-black, reminding her of the first time she saw him cursing and spitting mad in the midst of a storm, his eyes identical to the coal gray skies.
He leaned in, crowding her further with the wall of his chest, his primal presence. Her senses filled with him. His musky smell. His towering height. The incredible breadth of chest that seemed to stretch on forever. His intense gaze burned deep into her, searing her soul. Panicked, she jerked back a step. The chair bumped her thighs, preventing her retreat.
“Be warned,” he breathed against her ear. “If you stay, expect no quarter from me. You’re not wanted here.”
She shook her head, bewildered at why he simply couldn’t believe her—why he refused to see her as anything but a scheming gold digger. Did she really pose such a threat?
She lifted her hands to shove at his chest, then thought better of it. She all too well recalled how the mere feel of him undid her.
Curling her fingers into her palms, she dropped her hands at her sides. Seeing no other choice, she stepped closer in order to squeeze past. Her breasts grazed the rock wall of his chest. Her nipples sprang to attention, hardened peaks that chafed against the thin cotton of her nightgown.
Her stomach plummeted and her gaze flew to his face, to eyes no longer gray but a dark, blistering blue.
Heat suffused her and she crossed her arms tightly over her breasts. With all the grace of a bolting hare, she fled, eyes fixed straight ahead, afraid to look back, afraid that she wouldn’t see the earl at all—merely the wicked temptation of one stormy night when she had lost herself in a pair of shifting gray eyes.
Portia’s heart skipped at the swift knock. Pressing the open book to her chest, she stared unblinkingly at the thick oak-paneled door.
For one fleeting moment, she wondered whether the earl had decided to follow her up to her room. Her heart did a full somersault at the possibility.
Then reason asserted itself. A gentleman dead set against matrimony would not risk visiting a lady’s room in the middle of the night. Not with his grandmother lurking about, determined to see them wed.
“Come in,” she called, closing the book and setting it beside her.
Lady Mina entered the room. “I saw the light beneath your door. Are you feeling well?”
“I’m fine. Merely reading.”
Without waiting for an invitation, Mina bounded forward, her single dark plait bouncing over her shoulder as she hopped onto the bed. More bouncing and jiggling followed until she settled across from Portia.
“Then you won’t mind me staying for a bit. We haven’t had much time to talk. Perhaps you could tell me about life in Town. Especially the Season.”
Portia stifled a sigh. The abysmal go-rounds of the Season were not something she relished recounting. “One Season begins to resemble another after a time. There’s nothing extraordinary about Town life. I find country living far preferable.”
“You would not say that if you’d never been more than ten miles from here.” Mina brought her knees up to her chest. “Perhaps I would not mind so much if Heath would let me attend some of the local gatherings.” She lowered her chin to her knees and stared at her toes peaking beneath the hem. “I could have at least a small taste of Society, even if not the glitter and bustle of Town.”
Portia studied Mina’s profile for a long moment, realizing they were not so different. Both were struggling against the strictures foisted upon them, searching for their own happiness, their own kind of freedom.
Feeling a sudden kinship with the girl, Portia grasped her hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. “Perhaps I can convince your grandmother to invite some neighbors over for tea while I’m here.”
Mina shook her head. “Oh, Heath wouldn’t allow—”
“I’m a guest here, am I not? Lady Moreton would merely be humoring the requests of her guest.”
“You don’t know my brother,” Mina grumbled, her bottom lip jutting forth. “If he catches wind of it—”
“Then we will simply see that he does not hear of it until it is too late.” Portia smoothly cut in.
“Trust me. I know all about circumventing authority.” How else could she have avoided matrimony for these many years?
Mina’s eyes sparkled. “From the moment you appeared I knew things would change.”
“Indeed?” Portia asked, smiling wryly. Collapsing in a dead faint did not signify as the most auspicious of beginnings. “If my arrival strikes you as thrilling, then you are quite right. Your life is exceedingly dull. We must see what we can do to add some excitement.”
Mina released her knees and clapped her hands. “Oh, you brilliant creature. My prayers were answered the moment you arrived.”
Portia smiled grimly. What was the earl thinking, cloistering his sister from the world so that she went into histrionics over a simple tea? He was a tyrant. Clear and simple. No better than her father. Her mother had been unable to wear a gown if it did not meet her father’s approval.
Everything from clothes to the company she kept had fallen under his inflexible purview.
“Portia,” Mina dragged out her name, casting her a sly look from beneath her lashes. “Have you ever…kissed a gentleman?”
Portia blinked, taken aback and wondering at the random question.
As though sensing her bewilderment, Mina rushed to explain, her expression solemn and tense,
“I only ask because you mentioned excitement.”
Excitement? Kissing? Mina equated the two?
Portia pulled back, exasperated. It was the same everywhere. Country or Town—nothing differed. Women looked to men to supply life’s excitement. Eligible gentlemen never roused anything remotely close to excitement within her. Portia winced, realizing she could not make such a claim any longer. Not since her path crossed the earl. But then, he couldn’t be considered eligible, could he? Or even a gentleman for that matter.
Portia opened her mouth, ready to gently reprimand Mina on her unseemly questions, but then snapped her jaw shut. Mina had been denied quite enough in life. Chastised. Corrected. Bullied.
She deserved forthright conversation at the least.
“Yes,” Portia began, knowing she was about to dash Mina’s romantic notions. “Or to be more accurate, I was the recipient of a kiss.”
Mina leaned in, her face brightening. “Was he handsome?”
“His name was Roger Cleary. He was sixteen. The vicar’s son, and determined not to live up to his father’s lofty standards.” Portia laughed briefly, remembering that winter’s day after church in Nottinghamshire. “I was fifteen and didn’t see it coming.”
“What was it like?”
“It was,” she paused, searching for the appropriate words to describe being hauled behind the refectory and subjected to a thick-tongued kiss that tasted vaguely of sardines. “Messy.”
Mina’s face fell. “Oh. And there have been no others since?”
Portia shook her head, not bothering to explain that she saw to it that no man took such liberties again. When gentlemen looked at her, they did not see a woman they wanted to drag off to some darkened alcove and kiss. She had done her utmost to see they never did. The risk of finding herself shackled in matrimony presented too great a threat. Heath had been the only one to look at her with interest—the only man to make her toes curl and her body tingle and burn in the most shocking, intimate places.
“With the right man,” she hedged, “I’m sure kissing is a lovely experience.”
Mina pulled a face. “I’ll never meet the right man. Not buried out here. Heath and Constance will see to that.”
“Mina,” she began, uncertain if she should say what she felt compelled to, what the fire in her soul demanded. “This is your life. You have choices. No one can make you do anything you don’t want to. Not even your brother and sister.”
Mina angled her head and studied her curiously. “You truly believe that, don’t you?”
“I’m twenty-two and unwed.” Portia hesitated a moment before confiding, “That’s no coincidence, I assure you. My life plans don’t involve marriage.”
Mina shook her head. “I’m not as strong as you.”
Portia smiled. “You’ve mettle, Mina. Why don’t you tell your brother what it is you truly want?”
Mina snorted. “He knows—”
“You must keep telling him until he hears you. Practice if need be.” She waved a hand at Mina.
“Pretend I’m Heath. Go on.”
Mina exhaled, sat up straighter. “I want to go to parties,” she announced as if she were tossing down an ultimatum to Heath himself. “To meet people my age. To dance.” At Portia’s encouraging nod she continued, her voice gaining volume, color blooming in her apple cheeks,
“I want romance—and a husband.” She fisted her hands at her sides and jammed her eyes shut in deep anguish. “And for one moment I want to live my life free of a stupid curse, to pretend that my father wasn’t a madman, that my brother is not…that I am not.”
Portia cringed at the pain in the girl’s voice and asked solemnly, “Can you tell him all that?”
Shaking her head as if suddenly weary, Mina opened her eyes and looked searchingly at Portia.
“Does it make me selfish to want things I have no right wanting?”
“No,” Portia replied, her voice gentle. “I’d say that makes you fairly normal. You want what every woman wants.”
Except you, a voice whispered. Portia desired freedom. Pure and simple. Autonomy. The very things a wife never found within the bounds of matrimony.
“Well, if it’s so natural, then why can’t they understand me wanting these things?”
Portia sighed, unable to answer. She couldn’t say whether or not the Moretons should bar themselves from marriage—from procreating. Was it guaranteed their offspring would inherit this affliction? Could the risk be so great?
“I don’t know,” she offered, wincing at such an ineffectual reply.
“I want love, a husband, children.” Mina pulled her slight shoulders back. “You’re right, Portia.
My brother doesn’t rule me, nor does fear of a disease that may or may not strike. I’ll show him.”
With that said, she rose, pressed a quick kiss to Portia’s cheek and headed for the door, calling over her shoulder, “Thank you for the advice.”
Portia sat up, reached out and grasped air. “Mina, wait. I simply said you should talk…to…your brother…”