“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Abigail.”
“Here are today’s invitations, your grace.” It was cowardly, but in the three days since she had handed in her notice, Portia had done her best to avoid the duke and so had begun to hand over her day’s work to his mother at six o’clock instead. Although today, because William had expressly instructed it, she had made sure to work late so it was now closer to seven. Nobody was to go anywhere near the newspaper today. Or the center of Bath. If trouble did erupt on the back of Matthew Reynolds’s hastily relocated trial, then everyone involved inEquitashad to be as distanced from it as possible. Preferably ensuring they were around enough independent witnesses that they had a rock-solid alibi. “It has been a quiet day.” And long may that continue.
“It has indeed been a blessedly quietafternoon, Miss Kendall.” The duchess smiled wryly. “The least said about all this morning’s dreadful commotion, the better.”
Portia gave a sympathetic nod because the whole of the Crescent must have heard the argument between the duke and his sister just after breakfast. Both had stormed off in different directions at the end of it with him slamming out of the front door and Lady Abigail stomping up the stairs.
She felt for him because his sister had completely the wrong end of the stick when it came to Matthew Reynolds. Something she almost ventured up to Lady Abigail’s room to tell her earlier but had resisted. Even if she had, she suspected any well-meant interference would have fallen on deaf ears. Since the fateful night Portia had discovered the younger woman’s secret engagement to Percy, Lady Abigail had avoided her like the plague. She hadn’t left the house during daylight hours since, and if they happened to collide in the hallway, she glared at Portia with hostility and outright suspicion.
Perhaps that was because Portia could expose her secret, but she got the distinct impression it was more out of Lady Abigail’s loyalty to her brother. She now knew that Portia had lied to him repeatedly about what she got up to in her spare time and she plainly did not like it. An irony that wasn’t lost on her when his hypocritical sister had been barefaced lying to him too.
“Tell me about yourself, Miss Kendall.” The duchess motioned for Portia to sit, then immediately set about pouring her a cup of tea too. Something Portia would have rather avoided despite needing an alibi, but what could she do? If a duchess tells a servant to sit, then sit they must.
“There is really not much to tell, your grace. I grew up close to here but left at sixteen to train at Miss Prentice’s School for Young Ladies in Mayfair and I have been a governess ever since.”
“And who are your family?”
“My father was a gamekeeper.”
“Was?”
“He died. A long time ago.” Anticipating further questions on that score, Portia gave the abridged version. “In an accident. It took my mother and I quite by surprise. Her more than me, I suspect, as I was too young to really understand how final death actually is.”
The duchess frowned. “Oh I am sorry. It is especially hard to lose someone before their time.” She glanced wistfully up at the portrait of her husband, the former duke, with obvious affection in hereyes. A portrait that was so staggering in its likeness to Leo that Portia couldn’t look at it without regret. “We lost Rafe far too soon too. One day he was as fit as a fiddle and the next, he was gone.”
She tapped her chest. “The doctor said it was his heart that gave in and perhaps it did. It was such a big heart and he probably overworked it. Rafe was all about family. Loved us all to distraction with every fiber of his being and always tried to do what was right by those he cared about. Both Leo and Abigail follow him in that, albeit from very different angles. My son does it by taking on a misguided responsibility for everything and everyone near and dear to him. That can, on occasion, become suffocating when he is being particularly zealous. Which he has been for weeks now. While my eldest daughter has taken to marching and putting herself in danger in a frequently misguided knee-jerk way to save the rest of the world. So obviously, they clash, and I frequently fight the overwhelming urge to knock their heads together.” The duchess huffed. “Do you have siblings that you drive your poor mother to distraction with, Miss Kendall?”
“Sadly not. I am an only child. But I do have good friends with whom I frequently fall out when I am being annoyingly overzealous, so I appreciate how frustrating you must find it.”
“I do not think anyone can fully appreciate a parent’s frustrations until they become a parent themselves.” The duchess sipped her tea, so Portia did the same and almost spat it out when she said, “How many children would you like to have, Miss Kendall?”
“Er… none, your grace.”
“None?” The older woman’s teacup clattered in her saucer. “Whyever not?”
“Because to have children, society dictates that I would need a husband, and I have never wanted one of those.”
“None of us do, dear, until love rears its head.” The duchess smiled as she wiggled her brows. “Then all good sense and past resolutions evaporate like steam.”
“Mine won’t. I like my independence too much to ever relinquish it.”
“Poppycock.” The duchess laughed at her certainty. “You will change your mind once you meet the right man and decide that you cannot possibly live without him. Or perhaps you have met him already and just haven’t realized it yet?” She pinned Portia with a knowing stare. “Is there someone who inexplicably unsettles you? Or vexes you or confuses you? As that is usually the first sign.”
Portia gulped because this woman’s son did all of those things. “Of course not.”
“And outright denial is usually the second, Miss Kendall. But the eyes never lie. Even when we deny the truth to ourselves, the yearning and indecision always thrive there for all to see.” The duchess’s gaze flicked to the portrait. “He is so like Leo, isn’t he?”
Before Portia could respond, Lady Emilia wandered in frowning. “Have either of you seen Abigail? Only she’s not in her room.”
“She can’t have gone far,” said her mother with an impatient flick of her wrist because she did not want any distraction from her inquisition. “Knowing Abigail, she is reading something dull in the library.”
“I’ve checked the library, Mama. And the dining room, Leo’s study, and now here.” The furrow between the younger daughter’s brows deepened. “The last I saw her was after luncheon when she asked if she could borrow my paints.”
“Since when has Abigail painted anything but placards?” The duchess’s flippant comment set alarm bells ringing in Portia’s mind. “She is an atrocious artist.”
“Perhaps she was bored,” said Lady Emilia. “But she did not look bored when she stalked into my room. She looked ready to have someone’s guts for garters.” Then she pulled a face. “You won’t need three guesses to work out who that someone was.”
“Did she say anything else when she borrowed the paints?” Because Portia’s unease was growing. “Like what she wanted them for.”
