Paying attention to the sermon helped. She didn’t allow Amidei to accompany her. That would cause far too much gossip. Attending on her own didn’t look very good, but at least she had Carter with her. It being Sunday, she walked. Not everyone was as devout, as the road outside the church was thronged with carriages, all emblazoned with crests. Did people really know them all? Could someone tell who was attending the service this morning by studying the carriages?
She’d had Carter pin her broad-brimmed hat flat on her head, so that she could hide her face if she tilted her head a little. Since ladies were not required to remove their hats in church, she could tease people that way. But she didn’t make too much of it, and she didn’t flirt. Once she deployed her fan, but only to waft the air before her face, not to flick and charm. That could come later.
She looked good, better than she’d ever appeared, Carter had declared, but Portia knew why. For the first time in her life she didn’t care. She only wanted these people to talk about her and speculate, so that when she revealed herself next week, she had a start. The mystery woman, at least for today.
On leaving the church, she didn’t linger, but walked away, Carter trailing behind. She didn’t meet anyone’s eyes, didn’t slow her pace, and when possible ensured people got out of her way.
By the time she got to the Pantheon Club and closed the door behind her, she was trembling. That performance had been the greatest strain she could remember, except for coming to London in the first place. Even then, her father had initiated her flight. This time she had nobody except people she barely knew to support her—against the man she had considered her husband, the love of her life.
Holding on to the banisters, she climbed the stairs and went to her room to change. She wasn’t expecting anyone today and she’d achieved her ambition.
During the afternoon she went downstairs to view the empty club for the last time before the doors opened to the public. Anyone could enter the grand hallway, which was polished to within an inch of its life, but only immortals could pass through both levels of the club to the sacred rooms beyond.
On the ground floor was situated a dining room, closer to the kitchen and with a good view of the gardens at the back of the house. Gardeners rushed around outside making last-minute adjustments, daring a recalcitrant rosebush to drop one of its tender buds or the late narcissi to droop. Crocuses poked their cheerful heads above the ground and everything was in joyous celebration of the fertility of the season.
At the front of the house Amidei had situated most of the offices and cloakrooms, but only the officials would be allowed there. The officials, the people who would occupy the suits of livery hanging in one of the rooms, would arrive tomorrow, but since this club would be open to both sexes, there were maids’ aprons and caps too.
At the other side, in the same situation as the dining room lay another. Portia appreciated the symmetry, and the lighter colours that made it obvious this room was for women. A clever plan, to give women their own areas. It would appease propriety, at least to some extent, and give women sanctuary, somewhere to go and gossip that wasn’t their own drawing rooms.
Goodness, this could work. Portia had been doubtful until now. Touring the public rooms and seeing what Amidei planned, with everything in situ, all Holland covers and dustsheets removed, brought the place to life. She couldn’t imagine they’d have many women visitors at first, but she’d promised to help her new friend, and she would. While helping herself.
Upstairs, an arrangement of drawing rooms showed how the guests would dispose themselves. Coming out of the women’s drawing room, she almost collided with Amidei, who was, as yesterday, in his shirtsleeves. Smuts of dust and dirt attested to his recent occupation.
“I’d have changed. I have to apologise in you seeing me in such a state.”
“Nonsense.” They kept far apart, because not all the workmen here today were immortal. Amidei wanted them to gossip about the house. He had obviously spent a lot of time creating a place of discreet taste, expensive because that kind of discretion cost a lot of money, and now he wanted people to know about it. “Amidei, do you plan to have the women and men completely apart?”
He shook his head. “There are a few rooms on each side that are exclusively for the use of one sex. Men sometimes like to drink themselves into a stupor, and maybe women like to do the same, without danger of opprobrium. They may wish to rest or merely to be with others of their own sex. They have that right and I plan to give it to them. With the clientele I am expecting to join, they will behave a little differently to the way they behave in general society.” He motioned to the floor above. “Upstairs they may do as they please.”
Gods will be gods, she sent him with a smile.
Indeed they will. He returned the favour, then held out his arm, before withdrawing it hastily. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to force you to soil your clothes by touching me in this state.”
She scoffed. “It’s a few marks. You’ve been gardening.”
He snorted. “Telling them what to do, more like. And it’s in the nature of ‘May we have something purple there, please?’ instead of doing it myself, which I may tell you I am perfectly capable of. Gardeners are extremely proprietorial. I shall have to allow them in once a week, I can see, instead of doing it all with the servants.” He led her upstairs. “I’ve had a small repast served. Now you’ve been to church, would you like to break your fast?”
“I would love to.” Despite his protests, she took his arm. “I’m not in my church finery now. For your information, I rarely go on an empty stomach. I know you’re supposed to fast before taking communion, but it’s far better to fortify oneself than fall at the celebrant’s feet.”
His laughter rang around the hall. “Indeed, my lady. Your grace. Ma’am. Portia.”
“Portia!” Another, angry, voice echoed off the walls to mingle with Amidei’s laughter. She spun around to see Edmund standing on the black-and-white tiles, hands on hips. He wore another gorgeous outfit, a dark blue coat and red waistcoat and breeches. The coat was braided in red and the waistcoat gleamed with gold embroidery.
She caught her breath, as she did every time she saw him. Hardly daring to believe it, she held herself back from flying to him. Had he remembered? He sounded just the same as ever, and perhaps, this time when she turned around, she’d see that wonderful warmth in his eyes.
Bewilderment met her gaze. “I beg your pardon,” he said, pokering up. “According to your account, we are married, and to see you flirting with another man—” He sounded stiffly polite, but that confusion betrayed him. If he didn’t remember her, then he recalled something, felt something for her. That was what she’d wanted when she decided on this course. That and more.
“You’re forgiven.” She added a smile. “This once. Did you have a reason for visiting?”
“Yes.”
Amidei took a hand in the conversation, but only to add a brief, “Come up,” and to lead the way to the drawing room.
The sound of footsteps behind her told Portia that Edmund had accepted the brusque invitation. She had no intention of doing anything so crass as to turn around. He’d know she was anxious, then. She had enough mental power to hide away everything except a calm, clear exterior. No sense of the turmoil assaulting her now would pass that barrier between her inner emotions and her outer shell. He could read that all he liked. It would tell him nothing.
They stopped at the top of the stairs. Before they could enter the drawing room, Edmund said, “I’ve come to take you home,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” Portia was glad she’d decided to carry a fan because she could deploy it now to cover her confusion. She tried to project anger. “You wish to return to Dover, perhaps?”
“Not yet.” He paused. “Perhaps not at all, because with my mother’s death, I must go to see to affairs in Scotland. In any case, I have decided that if I
began as your husband, if I—” He turned to Amidei angrily. “Do you have to be here?”
Amidei’s mouth turned up at the corners. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” he drawled. “Besides, the duchess needs a friend. You may compel her and I cannot allow that to happen.” A tinge of an Italian accent returned to his voice.
Portia had noticed it was a fragile thing, but in private and when relaxed, it disappeared almost completely. However, Amidei was an old one who had survived the explosion thirty years ago. He’d had a long time to learn many things. Like how to speak several languages perfectly. The accent charmed her and she enjoyed its return.
Edmund’s eyes flashed. Blue streaks appeared when he turned his head.
Amidei held up a hand, palm out. “Not here, if you please. This place is barely a fortnight old in its present incarnation. I would rather not start my new enterprise with a fire. You seem intent on destroying my careful renovations.”
“I would prefer a private word with the lady.”
Instinctively she recoiled. What could he say to her? “If you’d called me your wife, I might have listened. Now I’m not so sure.”
Amidei lounged against the banister, perfectly at ease. “Do continue.”
Edmund shot him a fulminating glance, but without the sparks this time, then swung his gaze back to Portia. “I’m willing to take you into my house. We should talk—in private—and resolve this. If you are legally my wife—”
She turned her back while she blinked her tears of shock away and folded her arms. “Why should I listen to such insults?”
“Please, I’m doing my best.” That sounded more like the Edmund she knew. More than the stiff, angry aristocrat who intimidated and infuriated her on equal terms. “You could ruin your reputation this way.”
She turned around, gaining some small satisfaction in the way her skirts swished against her legs. “Is that your concern? That I’ll bring your name down? Disgrace you?”
Immediately he shook his head. “I can live with it, but you may find the situation difficult. I want to spare you that.” The instant response made her inclined to believe him, but she still wasn’t prepared to meekly obey. He’d rejected her in the worst way possible, damaged her heart and her spirit. Made her cry.
Not that he’d ever get to know that. Having managed to control her tears, she faced him, chin up. D’Argento did nothing, but a muscle in his jaw tightened when she glanced at him. He knew how much this meant to her. She appreciated that he also knew she wanted to handle this situation herself. She was angry enough to hit her husband, but being up higher than him gave her an unusual advantage.
She took one step down. Edmund watched her warily. “Are you coming with me, then?”
“No. I like it here. Nobody accuses me of being something I am not.” Another step. “I intend to help Amidei with this club. He needs respectable women here.”
“You won’t be regarded as respectable for long,” he growled. “You will be ruined.”
“No, I won’t.” In truth, she had no confidence in that, but she didn’t care. She had far more important things to think about. “I am in a respectable club. It’s time women had somewhere to go other than their own homes and that of other people. Amidei will ensure the proprieties are observed.”
“In this society, a married woman cannot live apart from her husband without scandal.”
Provincial she might be, but she could read. “Like Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, you mean? Is there anywhere she can’t go?”
“She’s the daughter of a duke.”
“I’m the wife of one.” Her voice almost broke when she said that. “Not that I knew it at the time.” Acutely aware that people would be listening, she opted not to discuss that part further. Let them speculate. She needed to tell him so she dared to contact him mind-to-mind. I married Edmund Welles.
You married the Duke of Kentmere. If you married anyone.
That was enough.
Angrily she ran down the remainder of the stairs and picked up her skirts so she could stride to him. Without hesitation, she swung her arm and slapped his face.
The sound rang around the hall with a satisfying echo. “How dare you!”
Although he was the only person who could have heard her comment, because she directed it expressly at him, she didn’t hesitate to show her anger for everyone to see. “I will return to you when you accept wholeheartedly that you and I are wed. I want a proper apology. For treating me like I mean nothing. Because even if I had not married you, I am someone and I do mean something.”
She didn’t wait for a reply. Tears stinging her eyes once more, but this time tears of anger, she turned on her heel, grander than a princess, much less a duchess, and flung herself out of the hall.
It meant she’d have to go through the service rooms downstairs until she reached the servants’ stairs at the end, but it was well worth it, because her departure was as dramatic as she could have wished.
D’Argento stretched and straightened. “Come into my parlour,” he suggested.
Fulminating, Edmund followed him, climbing the stairs she’d lately descended and following d’Argento into the blue drawing room. The colour was designed exactly to suit the man, he noted with an irritated grunt. Was he seducing Portia in this room? He could do that. They’d risk a scandal, running off together.
Why should he feel jealous for a woman he didn’t know? One who he suspected was tricking him in some way?
D’Argento closed the door quietly. “You shouldn’t talk to any woman that way,” he said.
Edmund knew that, but it served to make him more angry, not less. “I have been perfectly polite to a woman I don’t know.”
“You recognise something inside her, do you not?”
Damn the man. “What are you, some kind of fortune teller?”
D’Argento laughed softly. “No, but it is part of my work. I’m a messenger, don’t forget, and a healer. I can tell that your spirits are overturned, and frankly, who can blame you? But you should not speak to her in that way.”
“I know.” It was hard to admit it. Edmund had always regarded himself as a fair man, even a compassionate one. He’d learned more, recently, but for that infuriating blank part of his life. “I got Lightfoot to remove the false memories he’d floated in my mind. He hadn’t put them very deep.”
D’Argento snorted. “He’s a satyr.” As if that explained everything. “They tend to flit from one thing to the next, apart from whatever they have decided is their interest.”
“His is clothes.” Edmund lifted the skirt of his coat and let it fall again. “I shall miss him in that regard, but not in the other.”
“I’ll send someone else to you. Someone with a little more gravity. An immortal. You are new to this world, are you not, so I’ll send someone experienced.”
“Thank you.” At least he could say that with sincerity. He truly appreciated that. It angered him that he felt so unaccustomed, but what had filled him with fury was the knowledge of his mother’s betrayal. It had been worse than he’d ever imagined and he could do nothing to defeat her at the time. He’d been recovering from the blow that could have killed him, when Lord Stretton—Bacchus—had believed Edmund meant to take his sister away.
He pushed his hand into his hair, heedless of the smoothness of the style. “I am all at sea. I have just recovered my attributes, when I discover this. What am I supposed to do? Accept her without question?”
D’Argento strolled silkily across the room to the window and moved the curtain aside. “You did before. You introduced her as your wife with pride. I was shocked, but I accepted it. How could you think such a lovely girl would tell such a lie?”
“My mother was lovely once. She had no compunction in telling all the lies she wanted to in order to achieve her aim.”
“Fair enough.” D’Argento glance
d back at him. “In the meantime, you need to think carefully, and you do not have much time. Venus is on her way, with the woman you have contracted yourself to. She may choose to tell the whole of London of the precontract, and then you are lost. Or rather, Portia is lost to you. It means whether you remember a marriage or not, it is invalid. I will try to persuade her to reconsider. If I do not succeed, then it is your mess to sort out. I will, however, offer Portia any help she wishes. Make no mistake—I am for her. Not you and not Venus.”
Their gazes snapped together. “I am not against her,” Edmund said quietly, putting menace into his voice. “I merely wish to discover the truth.”
“Not good enough.” D’Argento kept his pale gaze steady. “You must choose, and in the next few days. You cannot hope to recover the memories taken from you.”
“So I must choose knowing only what I do now. I am sorry,” he said, “I had hoped to recover.”
“They’re gone. Believe me, I tried to recover them for you. Then I waited, hoping that time would help, but it did not. The error was partly mine, because I thought you would recover what you have lost, but you won’t. I’m sure of it now.”
Edmund heard the words with a dull acceptance. “You think I haven’t tried?” He lifted his arm, then let it drop to his side with a decided slap. “I have worn myself to a rag trying to recall what happened. That blow Bacchus gave me—God, why didn’t I write something down for me to remember?”
“You may have done,” d’Argento said. “You certainly signed marriage lines. Her father will prove a problem if you reject her. You realise that, do you not?”
“I do. I don’t know the man.”
“He is very protective of his daughters. Oh yes, he has three, including your wife. And no, I will not stop calling her that or introducing her as the Duchess of Kentmere. A title, I might add, she has to accustom herself to.”
Arrows of Desire: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 3 Page 20
