Seven Wicked Nights

by Courtney Milan

  “But Magnus!” She went wide-eyed again. “The room is green, and green, my dearest Mr. Temple, is not a color I appreciate.”

  “No?” He kissed her knuckles again. “Away with it then.”

  Crispin looked to Portia. His expression was bland, but she was convinced he was taunting her. “What color would you do the room in?”

  “Green, I fear.” She had been a fortnight with the painters choosing that shade of green and another week before she was satisfied all the colors were exactly perfect for the room. It was six weeks before the room had been painted to her satisfaction. “If I had known Magnus was going to marry, I’d not have had the work done.”

  Eleanor gave one of her delightful laughs. “One acquires a certain sensibility when one has lived in society. I have seen, as you have not, Portia darling, some of the great houses of London. Northword House, for example. So inspiring, my lord. I am most anxious to see it again, and I do hope one day that Portia, too, will see the house so that she will understand precisely what I mean to do here at the Grange. After all, Lady Northword was a woman of exceptional taste, and one will never go wrong studying what she wrought at Northword House.” She took a tiny bite of duck. “I will never forget how kind she was to give me a personal tour when I first called.”

  This fascinated her. “You met Lady Northword?”

  “I like to think we became friends.” Eleanor touched the strand of pearls around her throat. “I hope you don’t think me presumptuous, Lord Northword, to speak of your wife. I know you mourn her still.”

  He nodded. “Not at all, Mrs. Temple.”

  “Your wife and I had a great many interests in common.”

  “Did you?”

  Portia accepted the sting to her heart. She had nothing in common with Lady Northword. What had brought her and Crispin together was not what made a man settle on the woman he would marry. She shredded her duck until she had reduced it to a paste. Half an hour, she told herself. In half an hour, she could plead a headache and retire to her room. Which happened to be green.

  “Oh, yes, my lord. We spoke at great length of how one ought to decorate and arrange one’s home. To be sure, Doyle’s Grange can never be on the scale of Northword House, or Northword Hill.” Eleanor surveyed the room, eyes moving over the architectural features and, no doubt, totting up all that must be removed, repainted or destroyed in order to make Doyle’s Grange over in the exquisite sensibilities of Lady Northword.

  “The parlor, for example, might be made quite lovely. Lady Northword had the most exacting opinions about parlors. She had a particular horror of green, and ever since I have shared that opinion. Even so,” Eleanor went on, “there is a charm here that can be brought out. A few of Magnus’s best paintings might be hung on the walls, for example.” She gazed at Magnus. He gazed back, besotted and beguiled by his wife, and Portia could only feel the hollow certainty that she would never, not in a hundred thousand years, gaze at her husband that way.

  Eleanor continued. “Several rooms are in need of the attentions of someone with refined tastes. So as to bring out charms that currently are hidden. Imagine how much more easily this can be accomplished if Portia could see the homes that inspired me. My dear Mr. Temple, we simply must bring her to London!”

  Portia shot to her feet. Crispin stood, napkin in one hand. Magnus, too, after a moment. “Do sit down, you two.” She drew a breath and then found everyone staring at her as if she’d gone mad. Perhaps she had. The walls closed in on her, and she wanted nothing more than to be anywhere in the world but there. “Forgive me. I don’t feel well at all.”

  “Of course, of course.” Eleanor stood and pressed the back of her hand to Portia’s cheek. “I’ll send a tisane to you. You must rest, please.”

  “Thank you. You are too kind.”

  She did not go to her room. God, she’d suffocate in there with all that green that was so offensive a color to Lady Northword. Instead, she went out the front.

  The heavy door slammed behind her.

  Chapter Four

  AFTER PORTIA LEFT THE PARLOR, Magnus sat again, but Northword stayed on his feet, in the grip of an understanding that cut to his core. Portia’s life and his had diverged beyond hope of any reconciliation beyond the polite exchanges of their letters. It didn’t matter that he found her more attractive than ever. It didn’t matter that from time to time they fell into the old habits of their past intimacy. The woman he’d loved was gone.

  “My lord?”

  Mrs. Temple’s overly sweet voice grated on his nerves, and he gazed at her, still lost in his thoughts. There was no reason to be concerned for Portia, Northword told himself. She was well looked after here, and before long she would be married and in the care of her husband.

  “Lord Northword?”

  The so-feminine lilt to the woman’s voice snapped him back to the present. Could such naiveté be genuine? The moment the doubt entered his head, he felt guilty. She was a lovely, delicate woman who had never, at any time that he’d observed, said anything to deserve an unkindness from him. But good God, Portia must hate being spoken to as if she cared for nothing but the color of the damn walls.

  “Hullo, there.” Magnus rapped on the table. “Word, you great lump.”

  “I beg your pardon.” He threw his napkin on the table and was in the act of sitting when the front door opened and then closed with more force than necessary. Uneasiness lodged in his gut and expanded to take up the whole of his chest. He did not care for the feeling. Out of the window, from the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of pink and then the unmistakable deep red of Portia’s hair. What the devil was she doing outside when the skies looked ready to break open? She’d catch her death.

  While he stared at that flash of receding pink, fat drops of rain hit the glass. She was out there, without a coat or cloak, and quite plainly, and to his mind, understandably upset. She had no one to talk to or rage at. He could not imagine her opening up to Mrs. Temple. Impossible, that.

  “Excuse me, please.” He forced himself to smile at Mrs. Temple. “I have just recalled a letter I must write immediately. I can’t fathom how I could have forgotten to get it into the morning post.”

  Magnus took a sip of his tea. “Give it to Hob when you’re done. He’ll get it to Up Aubry for you. There’s just time, I think, to make the afternoon post, if you’re quick about it.”

  “Yes, thank you. I’ll do that.” He bowed and hurried out of the parlor. He hadn’t even known his wife disliked the color green. Why had he not known that? By the time he’d fetched his greatcoat and hat and was himself outside and heading toward the rear of the house, rain fell steadily. Portia was long past the back gate and moving away from the Grange, her gown a splash of pink against the green of the field.

  He started after her. He’d made up perhaps a quarter of the distance between them when, at last, she slowed, though she maintained a brisk pace and kept her head down. When she disappeared over the other side of the slope, he walked faster. Rain came down hard enough to pound on his hat and turn the surface of the path to mud. He lengthened his stride.

  At the top of the slope, he caught sight of her again, moving rapidly toward the top of the hill that lead—eventually—to Wordless. And wasn’t that a fine joke that he should call his own home by the name Portia had given it in her letters. Wordless, because he was familiarly called Word by certain intimate friends, and he was never at Northword Hill. He’d told Magnus about that, and they’d taken to calling all manner of things Wordless.

  He cupped his hands to the sides of his mouth. “Portia!”

  Wind whipped away the sound of her name, but she stopped. Then, without turning to look, she darted off, skirts in her hands. Wasn’t that just like her, to be contrary and headstrong? He plunged down the hill and slid in the mud, though he managed to keep his feet. Once, she slipped, too, but as he had, she caught herself and kept going.

  Water dripped from the brim of his hat onto his face and wherever the drops
hit his cheeks his skin burned with cold. She slowed, and God knows she would have needed inhuman endurance to maintain her pace in these conditions.

  He caught up at the stone fence that marked the border between the Grange and his property. From here, the side of Northword Hill rose up, turned a darker gray by the rain.

  This time, he did not need to shout. “Portia.”

  She stopped walking but did not face him. Her hands hung at her sides. Water ran down the back of her neck, making rivers of the tendrils of hair that had escaped her hairpins.

  Northword took a step closer. Even if he’d been close enough to touch her, he wasn’t sure he’d dare. Never mind their difficulties, never mind the years and the chasm between them, he did not want to see her in distress. Not like this. “Portia.”

  She whirled on him, eyes ablaze. Rain dripped down her face, and she shivered once. Gooseflesh pimpled her exposed skin. “What could you possibly want from me? There’s no need to humiliate me like this. Haven’t I done enough to push you away?”

  “I didn’t come after you to humiliate you.”

  “Well, you have. Lord Northword.” She walked away, keeping to the line of the fence, away from the Grange. The hem of her skirt was muddy for several inches, and the fabric was soaked halfway to her knees.

  He followed and raised his voice to be heard over the rain and the distance she was putting between them. “Since when does my chasing after you to make sure you don’t catch your death of sleet and rain count as humiliation, I’d like to know?”

  The skies opened. Unbelievable as it seemed, it was actually raining harder, and cold enough now that there were tiny pellets of ice. He thought she meant to pretend she hadn’t heard him, but then she made a rude gesture. And kept walking. This was the Portia he remembered. Passionate. Always passionate.

  “Stop.” He took three long steps and caught her arm, pulling her around to face him. Her mouth was rimmed with white but there was a telltale tremor around her jaws. “We can’t stay in this downpour.”

  “I don’t care.” Rain plastered her awful pink gown to her body.

  “I don’t care much if you think I’ve humiliated you when I haven’t.”

  She stared him down. He did not know this woman. She was not a girl. She’d lived ten years without him, and in ten years, people changed. They left behind fancies of love and passion. They married and went on to live dutiful lives.

  “Thank you for telling me how I feel. Now that you are Lord Northword, of course you know all.” She pulled away. He didn’t let go of her arm, and a good thing, too, because she slipped, and it was only because he steadied her that she didn’t fall.

  He brought her close and raised his voice to be heard. “It’s bloody hailing. We’re going to freeze if we stay out here much longer.”

  “You needn’t have come after me.” Her chin tipped up in an expression so familiar to him he lost sight of those ten years.

  “Yes, I did need.”

  “You didn’t.” She tugged on her arm. “Let go.”

  “You know me better than that.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “You don’t at all if you think I’d leave any lady outside in this weather, not one dressed as you are, and not when I know she’s upset and unable to think as clearly as she ought.”

  Her eyes widened, and not in recognition of his good sense. She was magnificently furious. “Let me alone, Crispin Hope, you booby-headed jackass.”

  He kept his grip on her arm. “Use your intellect, if you haven’t let it be worn to a blunt by listening to your sister-in-law prattle on about gowns and London and the proper forms of address. You know as well as I that you’ll freeze out here.” He pointed toward the dark gray stones of his childhood home. “Wordless is nearer than the Grange. Let’s go there and wait out the rain.” He brought her closer to him, and he forgot everything that had gone wrong between them, the wrongs they’d done each other. Whatever else had happened, he could not bear to see her unhappy. “You can tell me everything that’s made you so miserable. Will you do that much? Please?”

  Something of what he was feeling must have transferred to her, for she wiped water out of her face and nodded. “How long have you got?”

  “As long as we need. You know that.” He ached to touch her, to console her, but didn’t dare. She was too angry. And he was too much on edge. “Out of the rain, if you please.”

  She nodded again.

  “Thank you.” He didn’t give her time to change her mind or form an objection. He swung her into his arms and bodily lifted her over the fence. From the awkward way she reacted, he knew she hadn’t expected to find herself in his arms. Nor had he anticipated doing so until it was done.

  When she was safely down and steady on her feet, he stepped over the fence himself. He shrugged out of his greatcoat and put it around her shoulders. One did such things for ladies. As an afterthought, he clapped his hat on her head, too.

  “Come along then.” He managed a smile that at long last did not feel false. “Before we drown or are killed by hail.”

  He marched them toward the house and around to the front. He remembered the days when he had run up those twenty front stairs, often with Magnus and Portia in tow. He could see the house as it had been then—the servants, now long moved on to other positions, the interior of the house. How strange to think of those rooms as empty and dark. Rooms where his wife had never been and where she had left no mark.

  No great surprise, the front door was locked. The groundskeeper lived in West Aubry and had no need for access to the house. His steward visited but twice a year to see to any interior maintenance that might be required.

  Rain beat down while they tried every other entrance and found each door locked and barred, every shutter closed. Short of breaking a window or kicking in a door they weren’t getting inside. In the abstract, he was pleased that Wordless was so well protected, but at the moment, he was inconvenienced at being denied entry to his own damn house. Both of them were shivering now, with no sign of the rain letting up and the cold getting sharper.

  “The stables?” Portia said.

  He nodded and took her hand while they dashed along the gravel drive that led to the stable block only to find the grooms’ quarters locked up as tight as the house. They took refuge in the long stone archway of the stables, eight stalls on each side. The block emptied onto a courtyard with the carriage house at the far side. That was locked tight, too, he discovered.

  Back in the archway between the two rows of stalls, they stood side-by-side, dripping water onto the paving stones. He stamped his feet and made a largely futile attempt to brush water off his coat and out of his hair. “At least we’re out of the wet.”

  “Yes.” She stared at the rain beating down on the courtyard and cascading from the gutters.

  “Tell me why you’re so unhappy?”

  “I shan’t. Not more than you’ve guessed.” She shook her head. He’d give anything to have her look at him. “You’ll only think less of me than you do already.”

  “She rubs my nerves raw, too, sometimes.”

  “Oh,” she breathed. “Awful man.”

  “True.” In the silence he stamped his feet some more and managed to dislodge some of the mud that clung to his boots. “It can’t come down like this for much longer.”

  “Yes, it can.”

  He’d lived here long enough to know it could rain like this until tomorrow. “Listen to us.” He rolled his eyes even though she wasn’t looking at him. “Talking about the weather like two old ladies.”

  She shrugged, but halfway through the motion, she shivered. Without thinking, he put his arms around her. She didn’t come close.

  “Take pity on me,” he said. “I’m cold.”

  After a moment of resistance, she leaned toward him. He eased closer and tightened his arms around her. “Better. Much better.” He rubbed his hands up and down her back. She rested her head against his chest, and he slipped his han
ds underneath his greatcoat and rested them in the small of her back. He wanted to tell her he’d forgiven her, that he’d never forgotten a moment of their time as lovers, but that seemed…unwise.

  After a moment or two of standing like this, she lifted her head and stared at the waterfall sluicing off the roof. The courtyard’s central gutters overflowed. The noise was near deafening. “I don’t think it’s going to stop.”

  Like her, he stared at the water. “We can wait a while yet.”

  “Hob will worry,” she said. “Magnus, too. They’ll wonder where we’ve got to.”

  He continued to stroke her back. “Five minutes. Then we’ll go even if it’s no better.”

  With a sigh, she settled against him, tucking her hands between them. Five minutes later, the rain hadn’t let up.

  He forgot all about the cold and the damp as he brushed away a tendril of dark red hair that had stuck to her cheek. She pushed away, and he did the strangest, most contradictory, selfishly male thing imaginable. He brought her close instead of setting her back. She lifted her chin and gave him a quizzical look. The world dropped away. This was Portia. His Portia, and whatever had happened between them, no matter how they’d changed, nothing had changed at all.

  He lowered his head to hers.

  Chapter Five

  FOR THE SPACE OF half a heartbeat, he told himself he wasn’t going kiss her. It would be stupid and wrong of him, and it would destroy the safety of the friendship they’d carved out for themselves during their years of letter writing.

  His chest was so tight with tension, he could scarcely breathe. He was seventeen again, and his brain was overset with lust and desire and emotions too big to name. His cock was hard with the joy of holding this woman in his arms and at the prospect of being inside her. At long, long last.

  Northword didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Nor did she. In no way was that fact lost on him.