Portia smiled, but didn’t feel any mirth. In her happiness, her sister was throwing darts at every insecurity Portia had and hitting them.
“I need to see Honey.” Portia turned the handle and slipped outside.
The moon was rising and the night air felt good on her skin. She did not like fighting with Minnie. But she also didn’t like her life very much right now.
Minnie would leave the house and someday have children with Oliver Tolliver, and Portia would have nothing.
Of course, she would be the doting aunt, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want somethingmoreout of life. Something of her own.
And just because she was older didn’t mean that she didn’t yearn in the way other, younger women did. Her head could be turned by Colonel Chattan, and it was. She wasn’t as sensible as everyone gave her credit for.
She stopped and looked up at the moon, remembering how the colonel had appeared that night by the Great Oak, remembering him on his knees in front of her, begging her to take his life for his brother’s. She’d never thought that a man, especially one such as he, for whom everything came his way, could be so noble. He’d meant those words. He would sacrifice himself for another.
And if there was anyone who understood sacrifice for a family, it was Portia.
Tears burned her eyes, born out of a longing for what she could not have.
Portia lifted her spectacles and swiped at her tears. She was being a goose. She’d come to terms with her fate a long time ago. She lived for Minnie and for their mother. That was it. Her purpose ... and there was no wishing it away.
Resolution, that was what she needed. She must not yearn for what she could not have.
Setting her glasses back on her nose, Portia marched into the barn, and almost said something ugly when she realized she had not finishedwith her chores that morning. Lady Emma had interrupted her and then the events of the day had taken over. Well, work healed the troubled soul.
She hung the lamp on a peg in a supporting beam and set to work.
Quickly, Portia brought in the pony and the goats. She picked up the pitchfork and, to the sound of the animals munching, she started jabbing at the straw with all her might. Work relieved frustration. Work put at bay desires a woman such as she should not have. Work was what life was about, wasn’t it?
“So at last I see the spectacles,” Colonel Chattan’s deep voice said from behind her.
Portia whirled around.
As if she had conjured him, Colonel Chattan stood in the door leading to Honey’s paddock. He wore his greatcoat. He was hatless and his face was devilishly pale in the shadows. His eyes were two hard shards of light. He was angry.
And for a second, her heart quit beating.
He walked toward her. “Hello,Fenella.”
Portia wanted to take a step back. To run.
She couldn’t move.
He moved into the circle of lamplight surrounding her, stopping when they were almost toe to toe. He placed his hands on her upper arms,squeezing, lifting her up until she stood on the tips of her toes. He stared into her eyes as if he could read her very soul.
She started shaking. He was too close, too powerful, too strong, too driven.
“Why?” he asked.
One word for which there was no easy answer.
“I’m not Fenella,” she whispered.
He shook his head in disbelief.
“I’m not her,” she insisted. “I wish I could help you but I can’t.”
“Thecat,” he said. “The cat isyours.”
Portia shook her head. She didn’t understand his meaning. “The cat? Owl?”
