“Indeed. Stacy is my most promising student.” She smirked to demonstrate that she, too, could behave with amused sophistication.
“You still teach music?” The viscountess could not have sounded more surprised if Portia had confessed to running naked through the streets of Mayfair.
“My wife is jesting. I am her only pupil and a very demanding one.” Stacy gave Portia the first genuine smile she’d seen in a month while his sisters and brother laughed with more enthusiasm than the comment merited. Still, it served to lighten the atmosphere and the seven of them broke into smaller, more conversable groups. Portia found herself with the four women while Stacy and his brother spoke quietly together.
“How are the plans for the nursery progressing?” Frances asked, the yearning in her voice making Portia even angrier at Stacy for banishing the woman from Whitethorn.
“Very well. Nanny helped me pick out the colors for the new drapes and wall hangings and Daisy has been stitching her fingers to nubbins.”
“How are Mr. and Mrs. Lawson? Has Jeremy’s new assistant arrived?”
“They are well and Jeremy is pleased with the young man who has joined his practice.”
Rowena must have decided the conversation had gone on long enough without the mistress of the house contributing.
“Is this a physician you are speaking of?” Something in the way the viscountess said ‘physician’ made Portia’s hackles rise.
“He is also a friend”
“Yes, he is,” Frances agreed. “He’s the vicar’s son.”
The viscountess looked amused. “Ah. The vicar’s son.” She took control of the conversation after that and it revolved around the entertainments she’d planned for their two-week visit. The first week was for family but more guests would arrive the following week. There were to be alfresco parties, dinners with local luminaries added to the pool of guests, shooting for the men, a riding party to the Bishop Caverns, and other activities usual at country house parties.
“His lordship has not been well so we’ve not had such an entertainment at Thurlstone Castle in years—not since before my arrival,” the viscountess told her, an odd gleam in her eyes.
Portia could only assume Stacy’s return was the reason for the sudden change and wondered if that irritated the woman.
“A grand ball will take place next week, after the guests have arrived.”
As she listened to her sisters-in-law discuss the ball, she realized she did not have a suitable garment.
Frances leaned toward her. “Did you bring a ball gown?”
“I have never owned one. Is there a modiste nearby?” The area on the way to the castle had looked as remote as that around Whitethorn.
“We’ll take a trip into Plymouth. My sisters and I go to a woman who does lovely work.” She shot a glance at the others to ensure they were not listening and then asked, “How is he?”
They both looked at the man in question, who was engaged in a conversation with his brother. A stranger might overlook the subtle signs of tension, but Portia knew him well enough to see the tightness around his mouth and the stiffness in his shoulders. He was far from relaxed.
“He is hurt, but I know he misses you. It will take time.” Her words were inadequate but there was not much more she could offer given her own position. “This visit is a very good sign, in my opinion.”
“And you? Are you still ill in the mornings?”
“I am no longer sick, but now I eat everything in sight and tire very easily.”
“This is your first child, Mrs. Harrington?” The viscountess’s voice startled her and Portia looked up to find her rather avid green eyes boring down into her. Why did Portia feel like Lady Rowena was trying to make some obscure point with everything she said?
She decided to see what effect raw honesty would have on the noblewoman’s supercilious demeanor. “I’ve had a disappointment in the past.”
Mary and Constance murmured soft platitudes but the viscountess merely raised her pale eyebrows. “I feel certain you will be successful this time. After all, life in the country must be so much healthier than the hectic life you led with your first husband.”
What kind of musician did she think Ivo had been—a strolling minstrel?
Portia held the woman’s cold green stare. “Yes, life at Whitethorn is quite lovely and relaxing. Are you from this part of England, my lady?”
“My father has a hunting cottage between Thurlstone and Plymouth. It is where I first met Lord Pendleton.”
“I wouldn’t call it a cottage,” Robert said as both he and Stacy came to join the conversation. He smiled at Portia and sat beside her. “The duke’s hunting lodge is quite commodious.”
The viscountess gave her husband the same coldly amused look she seemed to bestow on everyone. “Pendleton stays with my brothers and father every year for a few weeks, hunting and also spending some time in Plymouth. You rather enjoy Plymouth, don’t you, my lord?”
The question was for her husband but her eyes were on Stacy.
Stacy’s eyes were . . .well, Portia could not see what he was looking at.
Pendleton gave his wife a formal smile that did not reach his eyes. “I’ve had some of the best times of my life there.”
An awkward silence filled the room while the two spouses held each other’s gaze.
Just what is going on?
Robert turned to Portia and broke the spell. “I’m going to steal your husband for a few moments, if you do not mind?”
Portia looked from his smiling face to Stacy’s unreadable one. “As long as you bring him back, my lord.”
Harrington chuckled and even Stacy’s mouth twitched.
“There is some resemblance between them, is there not?” The viscountess asked as they watched the men depart.
“That is to be expected. They are brothers, after all,” Frances said sharply, indicating what Portia had already guessed: that there was no love lost between the two women. Frances turned to Portia with a look that seemed all the more affectionate in contrast. “You must be exhausted, Portia. Would like to rest before dinner?”
“That would be wonderful.”
“Come, my dear, let’s get you to your chambers.” Frances took her arm. “You will soon find your way,” she promised as she led her up a particularly grand staircase Portia had no recollection of using before. “I daresay it is you who persuaded Stacy to come.”
“No, he was eager to meet his family and I believe he feels your absence keenly.” Portia squeezed Frances’s hand. “Everyone misses you. I’m afraid managing a household is not one of my skills. I dearly miss you in that regard as well as others.”
Frances flushed at the compliment and then stopped in front of a door Portia didn’t recognize. “Well, here you are, my dear. Get some rest and I shall see you at dinner.”
Daisy was busy in the large dressing room when Portia entered.
“Where have they put you?”
“I couldn’t say, ma’am. I doubt I’ll ever find my room again. Powell brought me here. Without him I would have wandered for days.”
Portia collapsed on the bed without even removing her slippers.
“I’m so tired I’m afraid I might sleep through dinner.”
Daisy removed her shoes, lifted her legs onto the bed and pulled a blanket up over her. “Don’t you worry, ma’am. I’ll wake you in time.”
Portia closed her eyes and within seconds the dream started.
It began the same way it always did. She was on the cliff in front of Nanny Kemble’s cottage, running and getting nowhere. The sky was dark with rain and her gown was soaked and whipped by the wind. She was looking west and there was Ivo, silhouetted against the sea. She tried to run toward him but her body refused to move. He was standing too close to the edge and she tried to warn him but the wind tore away her words.
Ivo stared at something over her shoulder and shook his head. His large brown eyes were sad and held compassion, a look she’d not s
een in them since her father died.
Portia remembered Ivo was already dead and she could not save him. But he had to leave; he had to go back where he belonged. She tried to scream when he took a step into thin air and disappeared over the edge. Only when he was gone could she make a sound.
“No!” Her eyes flew open and she lurched upright. She blinked rapidly, her vision blurry; she wasn’t on a cliff watching Ivo die, she was in her bed, in Thurlstone Castle.
And she was alone.
Chapter Twenty-Three
By his third day at Thurlstone Stacy realized he genuinely liked his brother. Indeed, it would have been difficult not to. Robert did everything in his power to make their visit enjoyable and comfortable. When Stacy contrasted his brother’s behavior with his father’s, Robert’s kindness was even more noticeable.
Stacy hadn’t been expecting much from the man who had banished him at birth and that turned out to be a very good thing. The Earl of Broughton was an old man but the years had done nothing to soften him. At first Stacy thought his father’s conspicuous absence was because the old man was ashamed of his behavior; it had taken only a few minutes in the earl’s presence to dismiss that thought.
He doubted the earl even knew the meaning of the word shame. Or love. Or kindness. He treated Stacy with the same contempt he displayed toward all his children. Even Robert, his heir, appeared not to merit any interest or kindness. If anything, the earl seemed to like Robert’s cold wife best. That didn’t surprise him—father-and daughter-in-law were stamped from the same mold: aristocrats more concerned with position than anything else.
Like his sons, the Earl of Broughton was tall and broad-shouldered, or at least he had been. His big frame had been ravaged by time and he was now confined to a wheeled chair. Not even the chair and his bone-thin body could diminish his presence, however. He resembled an ancient falcon that had been hooded but was still dangerous if one came within range of its razor-sharp beak and talons.
His gray eyes were the only part of him that looked alive and they burned with fierce loathing whenever they rested on Stacy. The Earl of Broughton hated him; the realization did not sadden him, but it did confuse him. Why had he disclosed Stacy’s existence if he despised him so much? Stacy pondered that question far more than he wished. He knew his father was a twisted, bitter, hateful old man who deserved nothing from him. Yet he was fascinated by him all the same.
The earl might ignore his children, but he was not immune to Portia—at least not to her music.
The second night of their visit Portia played the Beethoven sonata Stacy loved. By the time she was finished there wasn’t a dry eye in the room and that included the harsh gray eyes of his parent.
“I say!” Robert exclaimed, clapping his hands hard enough to leave bruises. “You are absolutely brilliant, the best I’ve ever heard.”
Portia accepted his brother’s words—the praise of a person who knew next to nothing about music—with a tolerant smile.
Not only had she played magnificently but she looked good enough to eat. She had on the red gown that enflamed him every time she wore it. The red made her hair and eyes look even darker and her skin was the ivory velvet of a magnolia blossom. Around her elegant throat were his mother’s pearls. Stacy saw his father’s raptor-like eyes rest on the jewels and wondered if he was recalling his long-dead wife.
He’d seen the portrait of his mother—a full-length painting by no less than Gainsborough—his first day at Thurlstone. The portrait had been done only a few months after her marriage to the earl. She hung in the gallery, depicted in life-sized brilliance beside a portrait of the earl. Even at half a century Broughton had been a powerful, formidable man, his lips twisted into a cruel, confident smile, his cold gray eyes scorning the viewer.
The second Countess of Broughton had been fair and fragile with startling blue eyes—heartbreakingly lovely. Stacy was stunned by how extremely young she’d been: only seventeen.
And she’d married the monster who hung beside her, borne him two sons, and then died.
Stacy wondered if she ever knew she’d given birth to twin sons. He hoped for her sake that his demon eyes had not been the last thing she’d seen before dying.
He shook away the disturbing, pointless thought and looked over at his older brother, who rode beside him on an elegant bay hack. They were accompanying the ladies on a shopping trip to Plymouth. The women rode inside the Broughton coach, which rumbled along beside them.
“Let us go with them, Stacy,” Robert had said last night when the plan came up at dinner. “I know of a pub in Plymouth where they have remarkable homebrew. I will stand you a pint while I thrash you at darts.”
Stacy smiled now as he remembered his brother’s boastful threat. Darts were something he’d always enjoyed and played often with Hawkins and the grooms. They kept a board in the barn and had a game or two most weeks. Stacy rarely beat Hawkins, but then his stable master was a pub champion in their part of Cornwall and he’d taught Stacy well.
Pendleton was in for a surprise.
“You’ve got a mare in foal by your Geist?” Robert asked him, eyeing the big stallion enviously. Robert’s mount was a fine piece of horseflesh but could not compare to Geist.
“Yes, it will be her first.” Thinking of Snezana always made Stacy recall that night in the stables. He grimaced. The last thing he needed right now was to think of Portia and what had transpired between them that night—or any other time they’d made love. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could take the distance between them. Portia seemed to become more remote and resolute by the hour. He’d hoped she would have sought rapprochement by now, but he was beginning to believe it would have to be him—especially after the way he’d behaved in Plymouth. She’d been stubborn before, but his appalling behavior that night had served to make her doubly so.
Stacy knew he should not admire her ability to be more stubborn than he could be, but he did.
“Will you come to town for the Season?” Robert asked, interrupting Stacy’s unproductive musings.
“I’ve never gone in the past.”
“Then it is time you do come. Surely your wife would like to experience a London Season?”
Stacy had no idea what Portia wanted. Well, other than to make him suffer and eventually come begging.
“Portia enjoys the country.”
“But she’s lived most of her life in cities. She told me she’s been to fourteen European capitals.”
Stacy felt a stab of jealousy that she’d never shared that fact with him. He glanced through the carriage window and saw her laughing about something. The sight made his temples ache. What the devil were they doing? They’d already wasted an entire month of their lives engaging in a pointless argument.
“I believe she has things to hold her at Whitethorn,” Stacy said. “She has made friends in the area and is also very close with my old nurse. I doubt Portia would want to leave her life in Bude.”
“Your nurse lives with you?”
“In a cottage on my land. She came from around here, I believe. I don’t know her maiden name but she married a man named Kemble.” Thinking about Nanny made him recall how she’d cried with joy when he told her he knew the truth behind his birth. It seemed to have knocked ten years off the old woman’s age. She’d never wanted the deception but as an employee had had no choice but to lie. Not like Frances. Stacy’s jaw tightened at the thought of his duplicitous sister.
“Hm, Kemble? No, I’ve not heard that name.” Robert sounded uninterested in the provenance of Stacy’s nurse and the conversation moved to the topic of Plymouth, each of them apologizing in advance for annihilating the other at darts.
A few days after their arrival in Plymouth—where Portia found a particularly lovely mauve silk for her first ball gown—she finally gave in to one of Lady Rowena’s many offers to go riding. At first, Portia had begged off going with Rowena, an excellent horsewoman, but she couldn’t continue to do so after the viscountess caug
ht her talking about going riding with Frances.
She took a last look in her mirror as Daisy placed the high-crowned riding hat on her head. Her habit, if not her riding skills, was flawless. Stacy had presented her with three outfits when he’d given her Dainty.
The stark black was only relieved by a burgundy cravat that matched the feather in her hat. Portia believed she looked better in her riding habit than any other clothing but that might be because Stacy had selected it for her. It aroused her to think of him taking the time and effort to choose things that would touch her body, even if he no longer wanted to do so.
She’d just shut the door to her chambers when she encountered the man who was never far from her thoughts. He must have just returned from his own ride. When he saw her, he stopped in front of his door and looked her up and down, tapping his crop absently against his boot as he did so. Something about his cool inspection set her back up.
“You are going riding?” he asked, his eyebrows arched.
“As you see.”
“With whom?”
She resented his tone but refused to let him see her irritation. “Lady Rowena.” She turned to go but his voice stopped her.
“The viscountess is a bruising rider, Portia. Make sure you don’t let her lead you in above your head.”
She swung around. “I appreciate your concern for my welfare, Stacy, not to mention your confidence in my riding skill and overall intelligence.”
His mouth tightened and the crop stilled. “Must I remind you that it is not only your welfare I am concerned with?”
“I believe you just did,” she snapped, furious at his impassivity, his superior attitude, and the nearly overwhelming desire she felt for him no matter how much she hated him.
He closed the gap between them with two long strides, until their bodies were mere inches apart. She swallowed and took a deep breath, refusing to step back or look away. He smelled of horse, sweat, and leather and it brought to mind vivid memories of their first coupling.
The Music of Love Page 23
