“When my sister is on my arm,” he said, “she is quite safe from the impertinences of rakes, Portia. And girls who are not yet out need fresh air and exercise just as desperately as young ladies who are.”
He was feeling irritated again, he thought. Dash it all, irritation was becoming almost habitual with him. Doubtless ninety-nine out of every one hundred ladies in London would agree with Portia.
Would Frances? He ruthlessly quelled the thought.
“Your fondness for your sisters is commendable,” Portia said. “But I am sure you would not wish to hurt Amy’s chances of taking well next year after her presentation.”
He stared at her blond curls and wondered if the years ahead were to be filled with such gentle reproofs for his every opinion and action. He would be willing to wager a fortune that they were. He would escape, he supposed, as most husbands did, by tramping about his lands, gun in hand and dog at heel, when in the country and by retreating to his clubs when in town.
“It was remarkably kind of you,” she continued, “to take her with you when you went to Bath. Her youthful presence must have been a great comfort to Lord Edgecombe.”
“I believe it was,” he said. “And I enjoyed it too.”
“But was it wise,” she asked him, “to allow her to attend a soiree?”
He raised his eyebrows, but she did not look up from her work.
“And an assembly at the Upper Rooms?” she continued. “Mama was shocked beyond words when Emily told us that, I do not mind telling you, Lucius.”
Her hair was parted neatly down the middle, he saw, though the parting extended for only a few inches above her brow before disappearing under her carefully arranged curls.
Not like someone else’s that he knew . . .
“At least,” she said, “you had the good sense to hire a schoolteacher to accompany her, but the woman really ought to have stopped her from dancing, Lucius.”
His eyes narrowed with fury, and he silently contemplated the pleasure it would give him to flatten even one of those perfect curls and throw the whole coiffure out of balance.
“Miss Allard was my grandfather’s particular guest,” he said. “Amy danced with my permission.”
“One can only hope,” she said, “that you have not done her irreparable harm, Lucius. I shall look forward to offering her guidance and countenance next year.”
As his wife and Amy’s sister-in-law, no doubt.
“Will you?” he said.
She looked up, and her needle remained suspended over her work.
“I have offended you,” she said. “You need not trouble yourself, Lucius. Ladies know better than gentlemen what is what and are quite prepared to restore and keep the proprieties while men go freely about their own business.”
“Of raking?” he said.
He looked for two spots of color in her cheeks, but he realized suddenly that Portia never blushed—or needed to, he supposed.
“I think we might maintain a silence on that subject, Lucius,” she said. “What gentlemen do in their own time is their business and of no concern whatsoever to well-bred ladies.”
Good Lord! Devil take it! Would her calm not be ruffled if he went raking through life from their wedding day to the day of his death? The answer, he suspected, was that indeed it would not.
“You came here this morning to call upon Papa?” she asked him.
“I did,” he admitted. “I will come back some other time.”
“Of course you will,” she said, looking steadily at him.
Did she have any feelings for him? he wondered. Any
“Portia,” he said as she resumed stitching, “do you have the feeling that we are being thrown together at every turn this spring, whether we wish it or not?”
Her needle paused, but she did not look up.
“Of course,” she said. “But why should we not wish for it?”
His heart sank.
“You wish for a connection with me, then?” he said.
“Of course,” she said.
“Of course?” He raised his eyebrows as she looked up.
“Men are so foolish.” For a moment the look she bent on him seemed almost maternal. “They avoid reality at every turn. But it cannot be avoided indefinitely, Lucius.”
“You
There—the word was out, and he could not recall it or pretend that they were talking of something else.
