He blinked. “What are you saying?”

Ignoring the dull ache throbbing just behind her breastbone, she drew a ragged breath and released it, saying, “I am receptive to your suit, Simon.”

He gazed at her a long moment before clarifying, “Are you saying you will become my wife?”

My wife. She cringed at his words, watching as all her dreams spun into oblivion. Oddly enough, it wasn’t her mother or the sun-kissed columns of the Parthenon she saw falling to the wayside. It was Heath.

“Yes,” she heard herself saying in a faraway voice, as if spoken by someone else. “I will marry you—” her voice broke and she swallowed, desperate for some relief from the noose tightening about her throat.

Chapter 26

Portia’s gaze landed on the wrinkled letter. And she felt nothing. No leap of her pulse at the sight of it, no surge of hope within her chest. Nothing. After all this time, she had finally ceased waiting, ceased clinging to a foolish child’s dream. Her mother was gone. Would never send for her. Would never return. Why rip open the letter as if it contained news to that affect?

Instead, she looked back at her reflection in the mirror. Light glinted off her inky dark hair swept up in an elegant coiffure that made her feel the utter fraud. She had never been the elegant lady, never felt she looked as Astrid did, natural among the glittering ladies of the ton. Yet to night she looked every bit the lady, every bit the way the daughter of a duke ought to look. Her grandmother would be pleased. Of that at least.

Portia reached for a bottle of perfume and dabbed it behind each ear with fresh determination.

The reminder of her grandmother lying insensible in her bed a few doors down, in need of proper medical care, the kind of care only money could buy, only hardened her resolve to follow through and marry Simon.

She set the bottle down and gazed at herself searchingly. Her hair gleamed but her eyes were dull. No light there. The eyes of a woman whose fate yawned grimly ahead.

Nettie appeared behind her in the mirror. Her eyes roamed approvingly over Portia. “You look lovely.” Her eyes strayed to the discarded letter. “Will you not open it?”

“Perhaps later.”

“Later?” Nettie looked back to Portia. The smooth skin of her forehead knitted in confusion.

“But it’s a letter from your mother.”

“I know.” Portia stood and gathered her shawl, draping it carefully around her exposed shoulders, her concentration already on the evening ahead. Simon waited.

She flicked the letter a last glance. “It can wait. I’m going to be late, and I detest missing the prelude.”

Heath studied Portia from where he sat in his box. She sat cool, regal as a queen, lovelier than he had ever seen and never once glancing his way even though he knew she had spotted him when they first took their seats, before the lights had dimmed and the audience fell hushed. Their eyes had locked, hers flaring wide in frustration. And something else. Something that gave him hope.

That hulk, Oliver, hovered beside her, eyes fixed on her as if she were some exotic bird that might take flight any moment. It wasn’t to be borne a moment longer. She was his wild bird. For him to pursue and catch. Yet how could he if she didn’t allow him within a foot of her? He had called on her yesterday. Twice. And that sour-faced butler of hers had turned him away each time.

Heath surged from his seat and strode from his box, the carpet deadening his swift steps. No more. He would not let another moment pass without seeing her. Without explaining why he had followed her to Town. As he should have done at Lady Hamilton’s ball. And if he could sort that out for himself in the next thirty seconds, it would be most convenient.

The lilting aria dwindled to an end and the ton, in all their glittering finery, poured from their boxes for the interlude. He darted among bodies, desperate for a glimpse of her, for a word, another shared look to give him encouragement.

Then he spotted her. For once her Goliath did not shadow her. Her dark hair gleamed blue-black under the lights, a raven’s wing captured in sunlight. The jade green of her gown lovingly cupped br**sts that his palms ached to feel again. She spoke to a lady beside her, her hands fluttering with speech. Guided by impulse, he stalked toward her and grabbed hold of one of those hands.

“Heath,” she gasped.

Without a word or greeting, he gave a nod to her gaping companion and dragged her behind him.

“What are you doing?” she demanded as he pulled her along the winding hallway, away from the din and press of heavily perfumed bodies. “Where are you dragging me?”

He marched forth, leaving the mad crush behind until only a distant thrum of voices floated down the corridor after them. Spying a door amid the wood-paneled wall to his right, he glanced up and down the hall’s length. Satisfied no one observed them, he yanked it open.

“Heath,” she scolded as he thrust her within, “I insist you—”

He silenced the rest of her words with the hot seal of his mouth, suddenly forgetting what it was he meant to tell her.

“What are you doing?” she hissed, tearing her lips from his and backing away several paces. Her temper burned bright—bright as the eyes glittering down at her in the dim room.

She pressed her fingertips to her mouth, still tasting him on her burning lips. Against her fingers, she raged, “How dare you drag me in here. I told you to stay away from me.”

Moonlight glowed through the single window high in the wall, the sole light in which to see his features, harsh and fierce with emotion as he charged, “And you think I would listen? We’ve much unfinished, you and I.”

She dropped her hand. “We have nothing to finish. Nothing at all. I’ve heard everything I ever want to hear from you.”

He stalked her, backing her against the wall. “You cannot mean to seriously consider another man’s suit. Not after what happened between us.”

“What I mean to do is no affair of yours,” she snapped, shaking her head, confused. Why was he here? Why would he imply that what happened between them held any significance when he himself had declared it a mistake.

He laughed, a dangerous, mirthless sound that made her skin tingle. Trapped in this closet, she was totally at his mercy.

She latched on to the single weapon available—her anger. Recalling his shabby treatment of her, his words: you’re no different than any other prostitute selling herself for the right price—her anger sprang to life. “You’ve said everything you had to say.”

“Matters have changed—”

“I don’t see how,” she replied, trying to step around him once again. “Let me pass.”

“Not until you hear me out,” he growled.

She pressed her lips shut and arched a brow, waiting.

He stared down at her for a long moment, as if testing whether she would remain truly silent.

Inhaling, he announced, “I still want to marry you.”

Still. He needn’t sound so blasted aggrieved.

“As I said, much has changed.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “There have been certain…discoveries. The madness cannot be passed. Not like I thought.”

She felt her brows draw together. “But your father, your brother—”

“Were sick,” he finished. “And showing all the symptoms of porphyria…as my grandmother wanted everyone to believe.”

“I don’t understand.” She pressed her fingers to her temples where a dull throb had begun.

“Grandmother wanted everyone to believe my father had porphyria.”

“He didn’t?”

“No,” he sighed, and she felt that sigh vibrate through her, stretch along her nerves. “My father had the pox.” His words fell hard as bricks in the dense still of the room. “He infected my mother while she carried my brother.” He paused as though searching for words less shocking than those he had just uttered. “He killed her. And my brother.”

“Syphilis?” Portia demanded, her head spinning. “Isn’t there treatment—”

“Either he didn’t realize it until it was too late, or he was in denial. The latter, I suspect. In any case, it killed him. And there was little to be done for my brother. A babe born with the pox has no chance.”

“I don’t understand. Why were you led to believe—”

“Grandmother,” he snapped, recalling his grandmother’s tearful excuses when he confronted her.

“She considered a king’s disease more acceptable than a whore’s disease.” He laughed bitterly.

Portia nodded. “Your grandmother chose the more dignified malady,” she mused, rather suspecting her grandmother would have done the same. Despite her anger—her desperate need to put distance between them—her heart ached for him. “I’m sorry, Heath. Sorry for the years you and your sisters suffered.”

“It’s done,” he said with a lift of his shoulder. “I’m concerned with now, this moment. For the first time in my life, I have a future to look forward to.” He grasped her by the arms, his eyes glowing with an unyielding light. “Do you know what this means, Portia? There’s no reason I shouldn’t marry.”

“No,” she said slowly, “There’s no reason you shouldn’t.”

“Considering I’ve already ruined you, you’re the best—”

“Ruined?” God, how she detested that word. “I’m not ruined. No one knows—”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m honor bound to marry you.”

“Stuff your obligation,” she cut in. “I release you from it.”

“You can’t release me. Obligation is simply that. No one can release someone from their duty.”

Duty. A word she had come to appreciate lately. She felt inappropriate laughter bubble up inside her. He offered her marriage. He could wed her, bed her, and beget children with her. All for duty. Not out of love, not out of need or desire for her, but out of what was expected of him. She pressed a hand to her belly, suddenly feeling ill.

And ironically enough, duty demanded she wed.

Yet not him. Not this arrogant, insufferable man who had already broken her heart once. Who couldn’t even manage a dignified proposal. She would not give him the power to hurt her again.

“I have my own obligations,” she said tightly, lifting her chin. “I’ve changed, too, you know.”

His gaze flickered over her face. “Is that so?”

“I no longer shirk my responsibilities.” She shook her head, feeling painfully foolish to ever have thought that she could, that she could have been that selfish, that she could have been so much like Bertram. Squaring her shoulders, she confessed, “My brother has left us, departed for foreign soil.”

“He abandoned you?” The astonishment in his voice rang clear and Portia smiled grimly. Heath would not be able to make sense of such a thing—a brother, an eldest son, fleeing duty, leaving his family to face trouble alone.

“Where has he gone?” he demanded in affronted tones, as if he himself would fetch her errant brother home.

She laughed dryly. “He did not exactly leave a forwarding address. It’s for the best, I suppose.

Scandal was imminent if he remained. Bertram became involved in certain activities.”

Heath stared at her for a long moment before nodding, accepting the little she had told him and not pressing for more.

“With Bertram gone,” her voice faded. “Well, suffice it to say things have become rather desperate.” Humiliation stung her cheeks, sharp as a Yorkshire wind. It scraped her pride to make such a confession, to reveal her brother’s abandonment, to disclose the weaknesses of her family—even if logic reminded her that his family had its fair share of flaws.