by Deb Marlowe
Portia’s chin went up. ‘Don’t distress yourself, Mateo. I’ve no mind to let this linger on any further than need be, either. I’m tired of feeling as if an axe is about to fall on me. Where is that damned deed of conveyance? Who is this Averardo? Will I be able to keep Stenbrooke or be turned out on my ear? I need to know.’ She gestured to her companion. ‘We need to know.’
She stood suddenly, and crossed to the other side of the bed. ‘That courier…I haven’t been able to get him from my mind.’She looked over her shoulder at him. ‘Doesn’t it begin to feel like we are being manipulated? As if this Averardo, whoever he is, doesn’t wish to be known?’
‘I’d reached the same conclusion,’ Mateo confessed. ‘I think he’s purposefully putting obstacles between us. It only adds another element of urgency to this mess we are in.’
‘All right,’ Miss Tofton said. Her voice rang with disapproval. ‘I accept that all speed is necessary, but all the original objections to the two of you travelling alone still exist.’ She sighed. ‘I know I’m not a bruising rider like you, Portia, but I will do my best.’
Portia crossed the room again to kneel at her companion’s feet. ‘I’m afraid it will be too rough for you, dear,’ she said gently.
‘She’s right, though,’ Mateo said quietly. ‘It would be easier were I to go alone.’ After the stairwell, she had to have an inkling how true a statement that was. He stared down at her. The light of the fire caught in her hair and flowed, molten, through her heavy locks. Her eyes, though, were hidden in shadows. ‘You can trust me, Portia.’ It came out in nearly a whisper.
He wanted her to trust him, so intensely he ached with it.
She put her head down on Miss Tofton’s knee, and his heart fell.
‘In my head, I know that is true, Mateo.’ Her voice was muffled in her companion’s skirts. Suddenly her head snapped back up. ‘But I’ve played the docile daughter, sister and wife for too long, and I’m less than satisfied with where it’s got me.’ She shook her head and stood. ‘It’s less about trusting you than it is about learning to trust in and rely on myself.’ Her jaw set and determined, she met his gaze. ‘I’m going with you.’
Mateo breathed deeply, waiting for his pride to pound annoyance and disappointment into submission. ‘All right.’
Miss Tofton still wore a disapproving frown. ‘How long will it take you to get to Lambourn and see the baron?’
‘A few hours’ ride to arrive. Not long to discuss it, provided we find him home. A full day, then, to see the business done,’ Mateo calculated.
Miss Tofton’s chin lifted. ‘Well, then. I will take the carriage back to Hungerford and await you at the Bear. Meet me there once you’ve talked to your baron.’ She let loose a weary sigh. ‘Then perhaps we can go home.’
Portia said nothing, just looked to him. Mateo scowled. Should he expect the pair of themto place their trust in him at this late date? Apparently not. He gave a curt nod.
Portia reached down and gave her hand a squeeze. ‘If it’s any consolation, Dorrie, I promise not to ravish him on the ride over.’
Mateo snorted and pushed away from the mantel. ‘You’d best get some sleep. We’ll need to depart early in the morning.’
‘I’ll just ask Mrs White to have a maid awaken us at dawn.’ She took a step towards the door and then stopped. ‘I’ll also be sure that two mounts will be readied in the morning.’
He nodded and she swept from the room. With a sigh of resignation, Mateo bent low over Miss Tofton’s hand. ‘I’ll be sure that the driver has the landau’s top up for you.’
She rose from her chair and stopped him as he turned for the door. ‘I can’t help but notice that you did not make me a promise similar to Portia’s.’
No, he hadn’t, and what he likely needed was a damned vow of chastity. He glanced towards the doorway where Portia had disappeared, and was distracted by a sudden thought. ‘Miss Tofton—does Portia normally use her title?’
The lady frowned. ‘No. As the daughter of an earl, she could, of course, choose to use the honorary title, but I’ve not heard her addressed as Lady Portia in years.’ Her scowl deepened and she regarded him thoughtfully. ‘Do you mean to say you’ve heard her refer to it?’
He nodded. ‘She used her title today, when she introduced herself to Mr Riggs.’ He paused. ‘Do you think it is significant?’
‘Yes,’ Miss Tofton said quietly. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘What does it mean, then?’
She frowned at him once more. ‘It means that you had better make me that promise, Mr Cardea.’
He laughed and this time he kissed her hand as he bent over it. But he didn’t promise.
Chapter Nine
The lane they followed narrowed further as Portia and Mateo grew close to the town of Albourne. For some time now there had been nothing to see save for the massive hedgerows on either side. But while the view was restricted, the noise was immense. The thick walls of crossing haw thorn branches provided a home for hundreds of warbling, chirping, twittering and peeping songbirds. They’d set a good pace, but the combination of hot sun, monotonous surroundings and cacophony of sound had lured Portia to a pleasant daze. When the concert suddenly ceased, it was a shock. She jerked to attention.
Her bad-tempered, piebald mount swivelled her ears, puzzled by the sudden absence of sound. They fixed forwards when a jingling of traces sounded ahead, around a curve in the lane. A squeal followed, and then a string of curses. Portia met Mateo’s questioning look with a shrug, and they approached the turning with caution.
‘What the devil?’ Mateo exclaimed.
They were met with the curious sight of a highbalanced rig backing towards them.
‘There must be someone coming this way,’ Portia explained. ‘There’s no room to pass.’ She studied the vehicle advancing towards them, end first. It barely fitted the lane, brushing the hedges on either side with its wheels. ‘We’ll have to go back.’
They retreated nearly half a mile, until they reached a wide turn that left room to manoeuvre. Patiently they waited while the gig made its slow way back and squeezed into the narrow space left. The driver, a redfaced young man, continued to swear and bemoan the scratched paint on his rig.
At last, then, they got a clear look at the cause of the ruckus—a placid-faced farmer driving a cart loaded high with stacks of hay. He ignored the cursing young blade, but tipped his hat at Mateo and winked at Portia. This last bit of insolence pushed the young man past his limit. He cracked his whip over his poor team’s heads and went thundering back down the way they’d all come.
Laughing, Portia and Mateo followed at a more reasonable pace.
‘I have some sympathy for the fellow,’ Mateo confessed. ‘That’s exactly how this enterprise has felt: one step forwards and two steps back.’ He shot Portia a crooked smile, the first that she’d seen since before they’d met Mr Riggs. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been as crotchety.’
‘I think we might be excused, even if we were to curse a blue streak to rival that young man’s,’ Portia said, returning his smile. ‘Heaven knows we’ve reason enough.’ Her smile twisted a little. ‘And heaven knows I heard worse when I tagged after you and my brothers.’
‘And J.T.’ He’d gone still, tense.
‘And J.T.,’ she agreed. She chose not to meet his gaze.
Mateo was suddenly blinded by a flash of insight. J. T. Tofton was not the sort of man who would appreciate his wife having a rank higher than his own. Had he insisted that Portia abandon her rightful title and take up his name instead?
He turned his gaze ahead. ‘We should reach Albourne shortly. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ride through. Mrs White packed us a huge luncheon; I thought perhaps we’d find a likely spot off the road to eat, after a while.’
She agreed. Soon the hedgerows ended, and the lane widened as they drew near the little town. They were quickly through, and the road out opened up again, and Portia gradually became aware that the quality of the sile
nce had changed. Tension radiated from Mateo. He held his face carefully expressionless.
She waited.
Eventually he broke. ‘I don’t know that I’ve adequately thanked you, Portia, for giving me a chance to get Cardea Shipping back.’
‘Of course you have. But it’s I who owe you thanks, and perhaps an apology. My simple plan did not turn out as we expected, did it?’
He grunted. ‘Well, neither of us could have predicted all of this.’ He tilted his head, indicating the countryside about them. ‘But I was wondering if getting Stenbrooke back would be enough.’ He paused delicately. ‘Miss Tofton mentioned debts, a pile of them that emerged after J.T.’s death.’
She felt herself colouring. ‘Thank you for your concern, but we’ve managed. I’ve met all the honest debtors who have come knocking.’
‘She also mentioned…indignities.’
Portia kept her tone carefully even. ‘I believe Dorrie has been talking a bit too much.’
His brow lowered and a grim light shone from his dark eyes. ‘If someone has bothered you, if a man, perhaps, has been importuning you…’ His voice fell away.
‘No man has importuned me,’ she said, telling the truth, just not all of it. ‘I’ll be all right, Mateo. Dorrie and I will both be all right. We’ll live a happy life at Stenbrooke, I promise you. You may rest easy.’ She gentled her tone. ‘But thank you for asking.’
He nodded. They grew silent again. Portia tried not to dwell on how his concern warmed her. The undulating downs did not provide much of a distraction, though one loomed soon enough when they reached a ridgeand the track they followed veered sharply south.
Mateo pulled to a stop. ‘Now we leave the lane and head out across the plain.’
‘It’s forbidding, isn’t it?’ Portia asked. The open, rolling landscape, empty of anything save dry, waving grass and the occasional planted field, made her feel small.
‘We shouldn’t be out there long. Believe it or not, there’s a stretch of wood ahead, the ostlers said, a thin remnant of an ancient forest. When we reach it, we turn north and should intersect another useful lane.’
They rode on. The sense of isolation was nearly complete. Occasionally her horse would shy from a breaking ground bird, but the absence of any tree cover or variation quickly grew to be as monotonous as the hedgerows. She caught sight of a dark smudge on the horizon and wondered if it might be the beginning of the wood Mateo had mentioned.
Closer proximity revealed it to be a burial mound, instead. It was quite the longest one she’d ever encountered. The most prominent feature in the landscape—indeed, the only one—she found her eye inescapably drawn to it. There were several ploughed and planted plots in proximity, but a wide swathe of undisturbed plain had been left to surround it.
Mateo dismounted as they drew close, running a curious eye over the length of the thing. ‘Shall we stop? It may be the only shade we see for a while.’
‘Let’s,’ Portia agreed. She let him see to the staking of the horses while she unpacked the saddlebags. Mrs White had thoughtfully folded a large linen square in with her hearty luncheon. They had the makings of quite a nice little picnic.
‘Come, sit down,’ she beckoned. Mateo was pacing around the curved end of the mound, eyeing it with interest. He obeyed her summons, and took a seat a little apart from her. Leaning against the thing, he downed a long swill of Mrs White’s apple cider, then patted the turf-covered mound behind him. ‘This I have not seen in Pennsylvania, though it reminds me of the ceremonial lodges the savages build. I’m sure you can tell me why the English would fashion a hill in such a desolate spot. Does it serve a ritualistic purpose?’
She smiled around her sandwich. ‘It’s a burial mound.’
‘As in, filled with the dead?’ He wore a slightly horrified look.
She nodded. ‘There’s no need to be frightened, though. I’ve heard of the occasional ghostly figure at these sights, even unearthly spirit hounds, but I believe they mostly show up during the solstices.’
His hand hovered over the food, deciding. ‘I’m not frightened. I just hate the thought of them, trapped in the dark, mouldering in the earth, drying, decaying.’ He shuddered.
She put aside her sandwich. ‘Thank you so much for that vivid description.’ She looked at him closely. ‘So no burial for you, then?’
Juice dripped down his chin as he bit into a peach. Portia found herself licking her own lips. Stop.
‘Aye, but it’ll be a burial at sea, like any good sailor.’
She shivered. ‘So you’d prefer being devoured by sharks and crabs? I don’t see as that has any more appeal.’
‘Ah, but it does. For I’ll become part of the great, living sea.’ He sighed. ‘Free in the vastness of the ocean.’
His eyes unfocused and she took the opportunity to drink in the sight of him. Someone should paint him, she decided. His constant energy had been harnessed for the moment as he leaned back, one arm propped on a raised knee, wearing a contemplative expression on a face turned up towards the sun…She sighed.
‘I’ll be the wave that slaps against the shore, the breeze that lifts the sail of some lucky brig.’ His tone vibrated with intensity.
‘The hurricane gale that sinks ships,’ she said wryly.
‘Only my competitors, perhaps.’ He laughed.
She turned away from the beautiful picture of him smiling at her. He was stealing all the pieces of her heart, one smile, and one touch at a time. It frightened her, but it also stirred her temper—towards him, for staying resolute in pursuit of his goals, and towards herself, because she did not.
‘I was wrong, then. You make a good case.’ She sighed. ‘Crossing the ocean was one of my favourite parts of visiting your family in Philadelphia. I loved the ship at night, when all grew quiet. I would stand at the rail and feel as if I were alone with the wind and the stars and the sea.’
Reaching out, she ran a hand over the rough turf. ‘Perhaps these men have become part of this land,’ she suggested. ‘It seems likely that they might have loved this place as much as you love the sea.’
‘If they wished it, then I hope it is so,’ he said quietly.
She looked out over the plain. Suddenly the place did not seem so sad and desolate, not when the sun shone brightly as she sat in the blowing grass, amidst the buzz of insects and with the sky so brilliantly blue overhead.
‘It really is lovely here, isn’t it?’ she asked with wonder. ‘It’s hard to believe, while sitting here in such tranquility, that someone might be scheming against us.’ She turned back to him. ‘It does seem so to you, too, though?’
‘We’ve had only a hint here and there. I suppose we cannot prove it, but I feel the truth of it.’
She understood just what he meant. It almost felt like a tickle, at the very edge of her consciousness, a hint of a forming pattern taking shape in her mind.
Their dark thoughts had broken the spell of the place. Mateo shifted restlessly and climbed to his feet.
‘I’ll pack the rest of this away,’ she told him. ‘Let’s go on.’
They rode companionably close, without speaking. It was to be found in silence, too—that connection she’d been craving. It rippled through her, setting her alight, making her very aware of how close his leg was to hers. He rode just a stride ahead of her. If she nudged her horse just a little, then their legs might brush. She didn’t do it, though. Instead she looked her fill, following the solid curve of his booted calf up to his muscular thigh, and climbing higher to where he sat firmly in his saddle.
Firm. A very good word.
‘What did you mean to do, Mateo,’ she asked, mainly to distract herself, ‘if I had refused to sell my interest in Cardea Shipping?’
‘Hmm? Oh, I had a few ideas.’
‘Such as? Or are you not comfortable sharing them with me?’
‘Packet boats,’ he said. ‘The Lady Azalea is my own ship, not the company’s. I thought to use her to start up a business with a re
gular schedule of packets from Philadelphia to English and European ports. There are a few very successful enterprises out of New York; I thought to give them a run for their money.’
‘You’ve family here in England. I know Papa told me your cousin Sophie had married into the aristocracy. Did you never consider a life here, perhaps?’ She tried with all her might not to betray the blind, breathless hope that suddenly sprouted inside her.
He laughed. ‘No doubt Sophie would see me set up somehow, but can you see me giving up the sea?’
Hope withered away. She sighed. ‘No, I suppose not.’
‘What a challenge that would have been, though,’ he mused. ‘To have the run of a business from the start.’
‘I’m sure you would have made a success of it,’ she said stoutly. ‘But there’ll be no need, if we can just track down the elusive Averardo.’
He looked back. ‘I’d forgotten what a good listener you are, Portia. It pains me to remember all the adolescent twaddle I poured into your ears when we were young. But I always felt better after talking to you.’ He turned his gaze towards the plain. ‘Perhaps that is why my father tried so hard to see us married, back then.’
‘Do you think this is what your father hoped for?
Why he wrote his will the way he did? Was he hoping that we would be thrown together like this?’
He glanced back at her over his shoulder. ‘In all likelihood. I’m sorry that he did not appear to have considered your feelings when he came up with the idea.’ He sighed. ‘It is just like him, though. Everything must always be his way. He knew but one way to run a shipping company, had one clear-cut vision of how a merchant gentleman should conduct himself and considered marriage the only route to happiness.’
He rode on quietly for a moment. ‘Do you know, if your father were still alive, I’d suspect him of conspiring to carry out my father’s wishes and drawing out this process. The whole mess just reeks of the two of them.’
