by Deb Marlowe
‘I gather you’ve recalled the matter?’ asked Mateo.
‘I have, now that you explain.’ When he was seated again, he crossed his fingers in front of his mouth. ‘I do not know how much help I’ll be, but I’ll tell you what I know—’ He held up a hand. ‘Provided you promise not to mention the matter to my wife.’
‘Agreed,’ Mateo answered without hesitation. He and the baron both looked to Portia now. Disappointment and reluctance warred with her need to know.
‘Portia?’ Mateo’s brows flagged his disbelief.
She nodded and shifted uncomfortably, wondering just what she might be asked to hide.
The baron mimicked her uneasy movements. ‘Yes, well, it is somewhat of a delicate matter.’
Mateo’s mouth twisted. ‘Let me take a stab in the dark. You agreed to handle the matter for someone else, a friend, perhaps.’
Dowland shot him a look of surprise. ‘Almost. I did—but not a friend, exactly. For the Countess of Lundwick.’
The name meant nothing to Portia. She looked to Mateo and saw incredulousness creep in. ‘You didn’t!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ve heard of the woman—even seen her in action. She’s a better strategist than most military officers I’ve met. You don’t mean to say…’ His words trailed away and he stared at his friend.
The baron nodded.
‘But she’s married!’
Dowland glared at him.
‘And near old enough to be your mother, besides!’ Mateo remonstrated. But Portia saw the grin dancing at the side of his mouth.
‘Yes, but she’s a beauty none the less, and quite the most determined woman I’ve ever met. Her husband is a member of the Jockey Club and heavily involved in racing. She is left alone and to her own devices—’
‘Far too often for society’s comfort!’ Mateo laughed.
‘And once too often for mine. I was drunk—a good three days beneath the mahogany.’ He ducked his head. ‘My dear Lady Portia, I do apologise for the coarseness of this conversation.’
‘As you’ve shown you knew my husband, I’m sure you realise that none of which you speak is new to me.’
The pain she felt at uttering this must have shown. He hurried to add an assurance.
‘Oh, no. Please do not think this a recent development. My…liaison with the Countess was long before I met my wife.’
‘A fact for which she is eternally grateful, I am sure.’ Her tone was as dry as her mouth.
‘That is the point; I don’t wish her to become aware of it at all. Unfortunately, I left the Countess in possession of some rather…damning information. I never gave it a second’s thought, though, until just months ago, when she thoroughly enjoyed rubbing my nose in my carelessness.’
‘So she blackmailed you,’ Mateo said flatly.
‘I suppose you could call it that. Though it was done very prettily and in the sweetest tone imaginable. She assured me that she would not whisper such choice titbits in my wife’s ear if I handled a delicate matter for her.’ He glanced apologetically at Portia yet again. ‘I’m sorry, but after the scandal of your husband’s death, I was not in the least surprised to learn that he had also gambled away your home. The Countess told me the man who had won the estate was unable to claim it himself. She claimed that the timing was important and asked me to see it done.’ He lookeda way. ‘I was not inclined to refuse. I am quite fond of my wife, you see, and hated to think that something so unimportant to me might be dreadfully painful to her.’ He sighed. ‘In truth, I was relieved that what the Countess asked was not more…unsavoury.’
Portia kept her gazed fixed firmly on her hands in her lap. Nothing about this episode in her life had been savoury.
‘Dowland,’ Mateo said in a strange, strangled voice, ‘did the Countess give you the papers right then?’
‘What? Oh, no. She sent them later.’
Portia did look up then, and straight into Mateo’s eyes. ‘By courier!’ they said together.
Mateo leaned in towards the desk. ‘Tell us about the courier.’
The baron frowned. ‘He did ride an exceptionally fine mare,’ he mused. ‘Fifteen hands, I’d say, well developed and the softest grey colour, like the breast of a dove.’
Portia could not help but laugh. Mateo cast his eyes heavenwards.
‘Anything you can recall about the man himself, Dowland?’
‘He had an unusual name. Foreign. Wait, I’ll have to think a moment.’
Portia met Mateo’s gaze again. Breathless, they stared. And waited.
She couldn’t stand another second, of anticipation or of Mateo’s warm regard. ‘Might it have been Lorenzo?’ she suggested.
‘No.’ The baron leaned back in his chair, his face a study of concentration. ‘Stranger than that. Cormi…Corsica…’ He sat straight up. ‘Cosimo—that is it!’
‘Cosimo?’ Portia repeated, disappointed. Was it not the same man, then?
‘What did he look like?’ asked Mateo.
‘Hmm. Tall, if I recall correctly. Well done up, for a servant, I thought. His clothes were plain, but of good quality. Well-favoured, I would have to say. I remember thinking that the Countess might have turned in a different direction for her pleasures.’
He sat straighter. ‘I also remember thinking that I wanted the job done as quick as possible. My wife is in a delicate state again, you see, and at that point she was feeling particularly unwell. I didn’t wish to be gone from her for long, nor did I wish to answer many questions as to what I had to do. We were fresh out of all the trouble that occurred with Bright Early Morning—I assume Riggs told you about that?’
Portia nodded.
‘Suffice it to say that I was steeped in enough misery and not looking forward to bringing it on to someone else—on to you, in short. That’s when I hit upon the idea of having Riggs handle it for me.’
‘It was your idea?’ Mateo asked. ‘This Cosimo did not suggest it?’
‘No, it was my notion. Riggs was feeling particularly guilty and I thought he might be better for something to do. The man needed something else to think of besides the accident. So I wrote him a long letter and asked the courier to continue on to Longvale and make his delivery there.’
He scrubbed a hand across his jaw, clearly thinking. ‘The man appeared struck by the notion. I thought it was because he knew his mistress intended me to carry out the deed. I assured him it would be taken care of.’
Mateo stood. Portia watched him as he walked over to the double doors and stared out. She knew he wasn’t seeing the afternoon sun falling softly over the lush green landscape.
‘Do you think that he might be Averardo? This courier?’ she asked suddenly.
Mateo turned. ‘It’s possible, I suppose. But why? Why place so many barriers between you? Why would he not just tell you himself that he was taking over Stenbrooke? It’s almost as if he’s toying with you.’
Her mouth twisted bitterly. ‘Perhaps he is a former friend of J.T.’s. It does seem like something his crowd would do, out of sheer malice.’
He stared at her for a moment. ‘Perhaps it is as I said before and the conveyance is a fake.’
‘That would be the best possible outcome,’ the baron said. ‘Although the documents appeared to be correct. It would be a lot of trouble to have witnessed accounts and everything else made up or forged.’
‘And what am I to do? Sit at home and wait for someone to show up and throw me out? Or not, because it is all a hoax?’ Anguish stabbed through her. ‘I cannot do it. How could we live with such uncertainty?’
Mateo slammed a hand against the door frame. ‘Then why all the subterfuge? None of this makes a damned bit of sense!’
‘Lord Dowland, would your Countess be likely to know what all of this is about?’
Wry, he said, ‘If there’s the smallest bit of skullduggery afoot, then the Countess is highly likely to know about it. That is, if she’s not thoroughly entangled in it.’
Before Portia could reply, the study do
or swung open.
‘Reginald!’ sounded a bright, happy voice. ‘Your son has something to show you!’
A pretty woman with tired eyes stood on the threshold, a toddling child clutching tightly to her hand. They advanced into the room and Portia saw the moment when she realised her husband was not alone.
‘Oh! I do apologise. I had no notion you had company.’
Lord Dowland’s face had changed, softened. It cost Portia a pang to see it.
‘Come in, dear,’ the baron said, standing swiftly. ‘An old friend has come to visit. This is Mr Cardea, and this is his friend, Lady Portia Tofton.’
‘How do you do?’ The baroness dipped a curtsy. She was hampered when the child at her side objected to the presence of strangers and hid behind her skirts.
The baron coaxed him out and took him up in his arms. ‘Cardea, Lady Portia, this strapping fellow is the next Lord Dowland. Now come, my boy,’ he wheedled, ‘take your finger from your mouth long enough to say hello!’
The boy opened his mouth, but kept his finger firmly in place towards the back. ‘Ungh!’ he said.
His father was able to correctly interpret this. Obligingly he peered into the boy’s mouth. ‘By George, look at the size of that one! Well done, my boy! It’s no wonder you’ve been wearing your mother’s nerves to a frazzle!’
The boy, reminded of her existence, reached for his mother. Smiling, she took him and he snuggled close, emitting a sigh of utter bliss before laying his head on her shoulder. From his perch he granted his father a sloppy baby grin and turned a magnanimous eye to the rest of them. A chubby king, surveying his domain with satisfaction.
They made a beautiful picture. The three of them, complete and happy. It seemed almost a sacrilege to witness their moment of contentment. Portia glanced away, looked to Mateo to gauge his reaction to the family’s tranquillity—and caught him in an unguarded moment. He stared, white-faced at the scene, an odd intense emotion washing pale his tanned complexion. If Portia had been forced to label it, she would say it looked like…pain.
But the baroness had spotted an incongruity in her perfect world. ‘Reginald!’ she scolded. ‘You haven’t even sent for a tray? Your friends must think us incredibly inhospitable!’
‘It’s quite all right, Lady Dowland,’ Portia assured her. ‘We’ve come on business, truly, not a social call and we won’t intrude much longer.’
‘Nonsense, you must stay for tea at least.’
‘I wish we could, ma’am,’ Mateo replied. His expression had cleared. ‘But our business is pressing and it sounds as if we’ll have to be setting out for London.’ He looked to the baron. ‘Am I right, Dowland? London is where we’ll find the answers to our remaining questions?’
A worried frown wrinkled the baron’s brow. ‘I should think so, but you’ll have to be fast. The…men you seek should be there now, but they are racing enthusiasts. They’ll be leaving for Doncaster soon for the running of the St Leger, and then back to Newmarket.’
Portia stood. ‘Then we must be off.’ She smiled. ‘It was lovely to meet you all.’ To the baron she said, ‘Thank you for your help.’
He shifted his stance. ‘It was nothing, really, the least I could do.’
The baroness glanced outside. ‘But there are only a few hours of daylight left. Perhaps you should stay the night and set out in the morning.’
‘They are pressed for time, dear.’ Her husband went still, pondering, and then his head came up suddenly. ‘Of course! I can loan you my post-chaise. It’s very well sprung and my teams are the fastest you’ll find on the roads. I’ll be happy to send one of my men along as postillion.’ He clapped Mateo on the back. ‘You’ll be halfway to London before the night is out.’
‘That is very kind of you, but we’ve left my companion in Hungerford and must meet up with her when we leave here. A post-chaise will likely not seat three comfortably.’
‘No.’ The baron’s face fell. ‘It has just the one frontfacing bench on the inside.’ He glanced at Mateo. ‘But there is the outside seat in the back, over the rear wheel.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s by far the fastest option.’
Questioning, Portia met Mateo’s gaze. He turned away and looked out of the doors again. She could almost see him weighing their options, calculating time and distance and measuring days in his head. He turned back.
‘It’s enclosed. Will you manage?’
She thought about it. ‘A post-chaise?’ She turned to Lord Dowland. ‘Is it the travelling chariot sort? With the glass panel in front?’
He looked startled at the question. ‘Yes, it is.’
‘Then I should be all right.’
‘I would feel better if you would allow me to help you in this way.’ The baron meant it, she could tell.
Mateo’s gaze held hers first, then moved to Dowland’s. Grimly, he nodded.
Chapter Eleven
Damned if Dowland hadn’t been right. Mateo marvelled as the post-chaise moved smartly along, especially once they reached the well-travelled roadway in West Shefford. The beautiful Berkshire countryside passed by in a blur. They’d likely reach Hungerford in less than an hour’s time.
It had been a long day. Portia sat next to him on the bench seat, far enough away so that the bounce and sway of the carriage did not jostle her against him. Out of the corner of his eye he watched her, and tried hard not to be caught at it.
The line of her limbs, the way she sank into the padded bench—they spoke of her weariness. Even as he watched, she tilted her head back to rest and closed her eyes. She wouldn’t sleep, though. Her trust only extended so far, and she was too noticeably not touching him to be truly relaxed. A sigh escaped him.
Her hair was falling again. Did it ever stay put? The strands lay, a delicate adornment to the slender column of her neck, pointing the way to his spot. The spot he loved to kiss, longed to taste again. When he touched his tongue to her there, she made the most delicious sounds in the back of her throat.
He closed his eyes and sought to distract himself before he began to think too hard about touching his tongue to all the other delectable parts of her.
That stable boy’s outburst rang through his head again. And the carefully blank faces of all those other men. What did they all know about J.T.’s death? It seemed wrong, a disgrace that the world should know something so basic about her life while he did not.
He opened his mouth to ask her.
‘You had a very strange look on your face today,’ she said into the silence.
He resigned himself to waiting a little longer. ‘Did I?’
‘You did—when Lord Dowland and his wife and son were grouped together, looking like an artist’s rendering of the perfect young family.’ She rolled her head on the cushion to look over at him. ‘You looked as if it hurt, seeing them like that.’ After a moment she continued. ‘I wondered…were you perhaps thinking of your father? Of the problems you had with him?’
‘No,’ he was surprised into answering. It was a difficult subject, his family, one he never spoke of, nor often allowed himself to dwell on.
But Portia was the one person, perhaps, who would understand. It felt important, suddenly, that she did understand.
‘It’s just that—it struck me—the way tht boy lay his head down on his mother’s shoulder. That little sigh. Such peace. I felt it, right here.’ He pressed a fist to his gut. ‘And I knew, suddenly, that I hadn’t felt such a thing since my own mother died.’
She nodded. Quiet fell over the carriage again. Except, of course, for the rumble of wheels and the pounding of hooves and the jingle of harness and trace.
‘Have you been seeking it, do you think? For peace?’ She wasn’t looking at him any longer.
He pondered his answer. ‘No. My father used to ask me much the same thing. He’d get so upset with my wandering, pursuing new imports and markets and contacts. What was I doing? Why could I not stick to the tried and true? What was I searching for? He’d ask it with such exasperation. I used
to answer him quite truthfully: nothing.’
He set his own head back against the cushion. ‘I don’t think I’ve been searching. Instead I’ve just been keeping busy…distracting myself. Perhaps so I wouldn’t have to think about what I was missing.’
Her gaze had fastened on him again. He could feel the weight of it, a substantial thing that made his skin flush with warmth. He kept his own gaze directed towards the glass panel in the front, where the road unravelled over the steady rise and fall of the horses. ‘It shames me when I think of what we spoke of yesterday—about becoming part of the vast ocean. Suddenly I’m thinking about what I’ve done with this life—and I realise I’ve wasted so much time. I think I’ve only been skimming the surface of life, afraid to look too deep.’
Her head shook in disagreement and she followed his gaze forwards. ‘I don’t believe that at all. You delved deep enough all those years ago, enough to see a young girl’s loneliness and offer her your friendship. You looked hard enough to notice her feelings and treat them gently. You weren’t skimming when you worked so hard and long for your family and their legacy or when you acted as a good friend and example to my brothers.’ She reached out then, and touched his face with gentle fingers, forcing his head to turn, his eyes to meet hers. ‘Perhaps it is only your own needs that you are afraid to look too closely at.’
He stared, unable to even begin to summon a response to that.
Her hand fell away. She stretched and yawned. ‘Now, I am extremely weary. We have a short while before Hungerford, yes?’
Still silent, he nodded.
‘Then I think I’ll take a quick nap.’
And to his amazement, and utter gratitude, she did.
Portia did sleep a little, lulled by the rhythmic sway of the carriage and the warm feeling of having returned a little of Mateo’s kindness. Her last thought, before she drifted off, was that perhaps he should be happy that she did not repay some of his more painful lessons.
