"Top drawer," he said, nodding at the elegant writing desk in front of the narrow windows. "Mother usually keeps her stationery there."
Grateful for the chance to leave his disturbing presence, she hurried across the room to retrieve the needed items. When she returned, the earl was regarding her with such a look of innocence that she was instantly suspicious.
"Where do you wish to start?" he asked, his deep voice rich with laughter and challenge.
She glared at him, wishing the tape was a garrote so that she could have the pleasure of throttling him. "The neck, I suppose," she said with a singular lack of enthusiasm, stepping closer and raising her arms to loop the tape about his tanned throat.
He was so tall she had to stand on her toes to put the pieces of tape together, and the action brought her even closer to his muscular body. She could feel the warmth of his skin, and smell the crisp, masculine scent of the cologne he favored, and the sensations made her concentration waver. Unbidden, she found herself wondering what it would be like if those strong arms hanging loosely at his side were to close about her and . . .
"Not so tight, if you please," he protested, wincing slightly as she tightened her hold on the tape. "I have no wish to be strangled."
"A tempting thought," she muttered darkly, gritting her teeth when he gave a rich chuckle in response.
"What next?" he asked, his gaze resting on her as she stepped back to jot down the numbers.
Portia's fingers tightened on the quill. "Your . . . your chest," she said, unable to meet his eyes. This was proving even harder than she imagined, and she was strongly tempted to admit defeat. Only the knowledge that such cowardice would doubtlessly delight him kept her from doing just that, and she mentally stiffened her spine as she turned back to him.
She kept her manner brisk and her face blank as she reached around him, ignoring the racing of her heart. The rising and falling of his chest was almost as big a distraction as the cloud of dark hair she could see beneath the thin fabric of his shirt, but she stoically paid them no mind. Finally it was over, and she uttered a silent prayer as she wrote down the last figure.
"Here you are, my lord," she said, eyes averted as she handed him the piece of paper. "You may present these to the modiste."
"Do you mean to say we are finished?" he asked, eyes mocking as his fingers closed around the paper. "What of the rest of my clothing? As you have already pointed out, I can hardly appear in society dressed only in a shirt."
Portia took his meaning at once. "I am sure your valet is far more capable of finishing the task, my lord," she muttered, willing herself not to blush.
He gave her a wicked grin. "More capable, perhaps," he conceded in that low, mocking voice she was coming to recognize, "but I doubt I would enjoy the experience nearly as much."
Her face flamed red, and she threw the tape in his face. "You may go the devil!" she exclaimed, almost hating him in that moment. The sound of his laughter followed her as she fled from the room, and she vowed furiously that if it was the last thing she did, she would make him pay for his mockery.
The day of the garden party dawned cool and gray, the heretofore blue skies leaden with the promise of rain. Portia stood in front of the French doors leading out into the gardens, her expression as stormy as the weather as she stared out at the tables and chairs she and the staff had spent most of yesterday arranging. The thought that all of their efforts were for naught was most disheartening, but she brushed her disappointment aside and began formulating alternate plans should the worst occur. She was weighing the possibility of moving the festivities to the orangery when she heard the countess's Bath chair behind her. She turned just as the countess, pushed by a footman, entered the room.
"Never say it is raining!" Lady Eliza exclaimed in disgust, dismissing the footman.
"Not yet, but I fear it may before the afternoon is over," Portia said with a sigh, moving away from the window. "Ah, well, I suppose it was too much to expect the good weather to hold."
"What nonsense. We often have beautiful weather this time of year. This is all your fault!" Lady Eliza retorted, fixing Portia with a dark scowl.
"My fault?" Portia repeated, stung by the accusation.
"Certainly. If you had invited the vicar, as Connor suggested, this would never have happened. It never does to insult God, you know."
The waspish reply made Portia laugh. "You are the one who said the man was an unmitigated bore," she reminded the countess, moving to sit at her desk. "And for your information, my lady, I did invite the good vicar. He and his wife will be here along with the rest of your neighbors."
"Hmmmph. So we will be preached to death as well as rained upon," Lady Eliza grumbled, drumming her fingers on the handle of her chair. "I must say this is vexing; nothing is going as I had hoped it would."
The surprising observation made Portia glance up from the list she had been perusing. "Whatever do you mean?" she asked, puzzled and more than a little hurt by the countess's words. She'd worked very hard on the party, and she thought everything had been going remarkably well.
The countess saw the hurt on Portia's face and gave a self-deprecatory shrug. "Oh, dear, I hadn't meant to sound quite so critical," she apologized. "You have done an excellent job of arranging this party, and I am quite sure it will be a wonderful success. It is just that I am worried about Connor."
Portia stiffened at the sound of the earl's name. In the days since the incident in the parlor she had gone out of her way to avoid him, and when she could not, she treated him with stilted civility. He seemed to find her efforts most amusing, and more than once she had longed to slap the knowing smile from his lips. Arrogant devil, she brooded resentfully. Whatever had made her think him a cold fish? He was a teasing, provoking beast, and she was still determined to exact her revenge on him. All that remained was deciding where and how she would do it.
Realizing the countess was waiting for her reply, Portia bestirred herself and gave the older woman a look of polite inquiry. "What of his lordship?" she asked, pleased with her cool tone. "There isn't a problem with his wardrobe, is there?"
"No, thank heaven," the countess said with a relieved sigh. "In fact, the lad has seldom looked better. That valet of his is a wonder with a thread and needle, and he has brought several of Connor's jackets up to crack. No, 'tis not the clothes themselves that bother me; rather 'tis the man inside those clothes."
Portia gaped at Lady Eliza in amazement. However angry she might be at his lordship, she still admired him, and she found it difficult to imagine him doing anything to bring disgrace on himself or his family name.
"What does your ladyship mean?" she asked, striving to understand the countess's worry.
Lady Eliza gave another sigh. "You do not know Connor as well as I do," she said, her eyes sad as they met Portia's gaze. "He is not nearly as sanguine about this party as he lets on."
"I know he only agreed to it to please you," Portia said slowly, recalling the earl's initial resistance to the idea, "but since then he has been most helpful. Indeed, it was his suggestion that we use the small tents to protect the food from the heat and the insects."
"Oh, yes, Connor would do whatever he thought was required of him, regardless of how painful it might be," the other woman said with a humorless laugh. "He is much like his father in that respect. But that doesn't mean he is looking forward to this afternoon with anything other than dread."
"But why?" Portia was confused. Admittedly the party was bound to be a dead bore for a worldly man like Doncaster, but she sensed the countess meant something far more serious than a simple case of ennui.
The countess hesitated as if uncertain what to say. She threaded her fingers together, her expression anxious as she studied Portia's face. "We never mention the matter, even amongst ourselves," she said in solemn tones, "but I know it is because of this tragic incident in his past that Connor has hidden himself on our estate. He would be furious if he knew I have told you, but I feel you have
the right to know."
"Thank you, my lady," Portia replied, steeling herself to hear the details of some dreadful scandal. It was a duel, she decided, easily envisioning the earl with a pistol in his hand, his green eyes full of icy calm as he faced his opponent. The earl had killed his man, and now he was an outcast from society.
Or perhaps it was an affair, she amended, recalling the devastating charm his lordship could wield when it suited him. Yes, he had gone mad for a married lady, and the woman's husband had threatened scandal. Perhaps he had even called Connor out, and he had no choice but to accept. Perhaps . . .
"It began the year he turned twenty-one, and his papa and I insisted he come to London for the Season," Lady Eliza began, her expression pensive as she lost herself in the past. ''He'd always resisted before, claiming he couldn't leave his books or his duties on the estate. He is so very conscientious, you know, just like his father, and usually he would do whatever was asked of him without question."
As Portia had already experienced the earl's dedication to duty firsthand, she could readily believe his mother's glowing praise. But as she was still annoyed with him, she was unwilling to give the devil his due. "Mayhap he was enjoying himself too much to leave," she said, lowering her gaze to the papers piled on her desk.
The countess shook her head with a soft laugh. "It wasn't that at all!" she replied. "I know you would not credit it to look at him, but while he was at Oxford Connor was dreadfully bookish. He preferred his studies to the ladybirds and carousing . . . quite unlike his father when I first met him, I might add."
Portia winced, recalling the morning at the ruins when his lordship had demonstrated his obvious expertise. "But you say you were able to persuade him to go to London?" she asked, hiding her shame behind the gruff question.
"Yes, and almost from the start it was an unmitigated disaster."
That brought Portia's head up with a snap. "A disaster?" she echoed in disbelief.
"It is his size, you see," Lady Eliza explained with an earnest look. "He has always been so much taller than most of the men, and he simply towers over the ladies. People would stare so whenever he entered a room, and I fear it made him dreadfully self-conscious."
The idea of Doncaster being anything other than supremely arrogant would have been laughable in any other situation, but Portia didn't feel like laughing. "It is rather difficult to imagine his lordship being self-conscious," she said, her heart aching for the earl. "He always seems so sure of himself."
"And so he is . . . now," the countess agreed with a sigh. "But this was when he was younger, and uncertain of himself in social situations. He tried, but the more people stared and whispered, the more he withdrew into himself. We could hardly get him to accept any invitations, and just when things were looking their bleakest he met that woman."
"What woman?" Portia asked, wondering if her original suspicions were correct, and the earl had indulged in an illicit affair.
"Miss Olivia Carlisle, the niece of the Earl of Stamford," Lady Eliza provided, her mouth thinning in anger. "She was the toast of London, all blonde curls and dimpled smiles, a perfect pocket Venus. The blades all went mad for her, including Connor. He offered for her, and do you know what that hussy did?"
"As his lordship has no wife, I would gather she refused him," Portia replied, hiding her surprise that a mere niece of an earl would have turned down so eligible a parti as his lordship. Unless the lady had bigger fish already on her string, she added to herself, wondering what had become of the young woman.
"Ha! That was only the half of it! She laughed at him, saying she would as lief marry her mother's footman as tie herself to him. She called him . . . Oh! I can not say it!" Lady Eliza's eyes flashed with fury. "Even a dozen years later the memory of her vile insult makes my blood boil!"
Portia blinked in astonishment. "Good heavens, ma'am!" she said, trying to imagine what Miss Carlisle could have said to have so enraged the usually placid countess. "Whatever did she call him?"
"She called him by the cruelest of nicknames," the countess raged. "The name she herself had given him. She called him the Ox from Oxford!"
7
"The what?"
"The Ox from Oxford," Lady Eliza repeated in a clipped voice. "The little baggage named him that after he fell and broke a table at Almack's. Not that it was his fault, mind," she added anxiously. "Another man tripped him, accidentally he claimed, but it was poor Connor who took the blame."
"That is terrible," Portia said, understanding now the earl's remarks that day at the ruins. No wonder he had such a poor opinion of her sex, she mused sadly. A sudden thought occurred to her, and she sent the countess a curious look.
"Whatever became of Miss Carlisle?" she asked, hoping to hear the chit had met with some terrible misfortune.
The countess gave a haughty sniff. "She married the Marquis of Duxford," she said in a voice dripping with scorn. "the man was old enough to have been her father, but he had more than enough gold to make up for his advanced years. Now that he's finally popped off, I hear she is on the catch for a new title. 'Tis rumored she will be visiting the Bowlands later this summer, and I am praying she won't bother us. It shall be difficult enough getting Connor to cooperate with our plans, but if he should learn she is lurking about, well, I needn't tell you what that would portend!"
"Indeed you do not, my lady," Portia replied, easily envisioning the earl's possible reaction to the news. "Still, I feel it might be better if we at least mention it to him. That way he won't be taken by surprise should he encounter her. 'Forewarned is forearmed,' you know."
"Perhaps, but if Connor even suspects that minx is in the neighborhood he will likely hole up like a badger in his den." Lady Eliza's expression was stern as she met Portia's gaze. "You must promise you shan't say a word to him."
Portia was uncertain what she should do. She certainly had no desire to defy the countess, but neither did she wish to deceive his lordship. Instinct told her he would not appreciate being kept in the dark, and she could imagine his fury should he learn the truth. On the other hand, she did not see why she should upset him unless it was absolutely necessary.
"Very well, my lady, I shall do as you ask. But," she cautioned when the countess would have spoken, "if Lady Duxford does stay with her friends, then I insist his lordship be told. It is only fair."
Lady Eliza opened her mouth as if to disagree, and then closed it again. "As you wish, my dear," she said, inclining her head in approval. "Now that we have resolved that matter, there is something else I should like to discuss with you."
"What is that, ma'am?"
"I have decided that instead of introducing you as my companion, I shall introduce you as my guest," Lady Eliza said in a decisive tone. "And 'tis more or less the truth when you think about it. Georgianne did write granting you permission to stay with us, you know."
Portia cringed, recalling the letter her great-aunt had written the countess some two days earlier. The elderly lady had learned of the incident at the inn, and if the three-page tirade was to be believed, she was far from amused. She had informed Lady Eliza that if she wanted "the little hoyden" to remain with them, then she was welcome to her. She also added a cold postscript that should Portia learn to conduct herself in a manner befitting a proper lady, she was free to return to the bosom of her family. Until then, it was strongly suggested she might find the wilds of Yorkshire more to her liking.
"That is very kind of you, my lady," Portia said, shaking off the remnants of old pain as she smiled at the countess. "But I do not care if people know I am your companion. That is why Lord Doncaster brought me here, after all."
"You may not care, but I do," the countess answered with surprising vehemence. "People, even good people, tend to treat companions and poor relations as if they are invisible, and I'll not have you snubbed by our guests. Believe me," she added grimly, "I fully know whereof I speak."
"Oh?" Portia was intrigued by the confession.
T
he countess shook her head. "It is an old story, child, and a long one. Someday when we have more time I promise to tell you all, but in the meanwhile I believe I shall go to my rooms for a little nap."
Portia rose to her feet and moved over to the countess's chair. "Shall I push you to the steps, my lady?" she asked, placing her hands on the chair's lacquered handles.
"If you wish," the countess agreed, closing the leather apron that covered her lower limbs. "It will be quicker than sending for the footman."
"I've often wondered why you do not use a wheelchair," Portia remarked as she guided the chair with its two large back wheels and smaller front wheel through the door. "They're much smaller, and you wouldn't need to depend on others to push you about."
"I'd thought of it." Lady Eliza surprised Portia with her admission. "But I didn't wish to offend the servants."
"How would your buying a wheelchair offend them?"
The countess gave an unhappy sigh. "They were all so upset when I had that silly fall," she muttered. "They could not do enough for me, and if I attempted to do the smallest thing for myself they acted so hurt. I vow, if I'd had any idea the entire household would be thrown into such chaos by all this, I'd have never—" She broke off abruptly.
"Never what, my lady?"
"Never tried to take that silly fence, of course," Lady Eliza finished with a light laugh. "But that is pride for you. In my case, it truly went before a fall. Ah, there is John!" she exclaimed, summoning the stocky footman with a wave of her hand.
"Will there be anything else, Lady Doncaster?" Portia asked, watching as the footman lifted the countess from her chair.
"Heavens, no!" the older woman replied, giving her a quick smile. "Just try to relax, my dear, and pray the party doesn't end in disaster. That is all any of us can do."
"If your lordship will kindly refrain from squirming, I shall have this thing tied in a moment," Samuels pleaded, swaying on tiptoe as he added the finishing touches to Connor's cravat. "It needs only one more tug, and . . . there! Perfection!"
A Proper Taming Page 9
