“It would be more helpful if you were less trying, dear,” said her mother with a roll of her eyes. And with that, the footman flung open the door and they sailed out into the Royal Crescent with their heads held high.
Now what?
“A letter arrived for you this morning, your grace,” said the footman awkwardly as he turned to her. She couldn’t blame him because up until yesterday they had been in the same boat.
“I am still just Portia to you, Adam.”
“That really wouldn’t be proper.” But his smile was much friendlier as he handed her the missive. “This came by messenger.”
She recognized William’s spidery handwriting straightaway and quickly took herself into her former office to read it in private. It was brief and to the point. Everyone was safe and they were all gathering atthe warehouse at noon to assess the damage and hatch a plan forward. He would be delighted to see her today, but perfectly understood if she wasn’t able to come.
She was glad he understood because not being able to go was a pain that was visceral. As painful as discovering that the authorities had taken away all her papers when they had ransacked her bedchamber. How on earth was she supposed to carry on and not be an integral part of the cause she had devoted the last eight years to?
But she owed it to Leo to behave in a manner more befitting the Duchess of Debden for as long as she was the duchess, after all he had sacrificed for her. Just as she owed him his freedom back. “Is his grace at home?”
“He’s in his study.” The footman pulled a face. “And still in the highest of dudgeons.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
Leo’s door was open as she approached and she could see him bent over a pile of papers, leaning heavily on one hand as he read them with the deepest furrow between his brows that she had ever seen. Rather than sail in like a duchess would undoubtedly do, she knocked.
He jumped, took one look at her, and hastily covered whatever it was that had absorbed his attention so with a ledger. Annulment papers? If they were, she couldn’t blame him. The quicker he applied, the more likely it was that one would be granted. “Portia.” He didn’t look the least bit happy to see her. “How can I help you?”
“By telling me what I am supposed to do, your… um… Leo.”
“About what?”
“About everything.” She gestured around her before she bent to acknowledge the dogs who were expecting their customary tickles. “I have no clue how to behave in a manner befitting the Duchess of Debden and would appreciate a steer.”
His golden brows furrowed afresh, anger positively shimmering in his deep blue eyes. “Do whatever you want, madam, for I certainly do not care.”
“I want to visitEquitastoday to see the full extent of the damage that I wreaked upon it and check that my friends are as all right as they claim, but I daresay you’d care about that.” In the spirit of gratefulness and honesty, she decided to rise above his petulant tone and tossed William’s missive onto his desk, noticing the merest dog-eared edge of a copy ofEquitaspoking out from under the ledger. She also recognized that now was probably not the time to ask why Leo was suddenly reading it even if she was itching to know. “In the absence of anything else to do, I would be grateful if you could suggest something that I can do to fill all my new free time instead as I am not the idle, embroidering sort and am used to being busy.”
As he glanced at the letter, a myriad of unfathomable emotions skittered across his handsome features before he lifted his wary gaze to her. “You can visit so long as I accompany you.”
Portia hadn’t expected him to say that in a month of Sundays and her expression doubtless screamed that because she had to haul her gaping jaw back up. “Really?”
“You are not the only one who would like to see the place that you lied so extensively to keep secret, madam.”
She didn’t know what to think about that and probably should have declined for the safety of her friends and to avoid any further trouble, or simply because she objected to the way he now kept referring to her as “madam,” but her gut told her not to. Leo might still be sulking, and frankly he had every right to, but he wasn’t the malicious sort. He could get the address easily enough from the authorities who had raided it and visit without her if he chose to, and everyone, barring Jim, had already been charged and couldn’t be recharged unless a second offense was committed. “Then I shall be ready to leave whenever is convenient.”Good grief but she hated this new formality between them.The gaping chasm that had opened up and killed the easiness they’d shared.
“There is no time like the present.” He stood and stalked past her. “I’ll send for the carriage.”
Twenty minutes later, he was sitting opposite her in it as they sped through town. His jaw tight. His lips flattened and his brows still resolutely furrowed deeper than a freshly plowed potato field, making her realize just how much she missed his dimples too. She hadn’t seen either of them since the morning she had handed in her notice, and his uncharacteristic silence was deafening.
“If Nolley has been as thorough at the warehouse as he was with my things, I doubt there will be much left to see.” Portia spoke her thoughts aloud to break the awkward tension he seemed so determined to maintain.
“What, precisely, did he take of yours?” His question was abrupt and his expression stony, letting her know in no uncertain terms that he resented the interruption.
“Only my words.” Which were everything. “Every single essay I have written since I was sixteen.” She tried to shrug as if it didn’t matter, but it did. “Every decent one at least.”
“If it’s evidence of sedition, then it is probably best gone.”
“I do not just write sedition, Leo—not that I see the necessary need to argue for reform as sedition. There was a great deal of personal correspondence to myself among all those stolen papers too.”
One golden brow broke rank and arched, spoiling the impenetrable mask of disappointed disinterest he had chosen to wear in her presence. “You write letters to yourself?”
“I write essays to myself, actually. Whenever I have a conundrum or a crisis or even if I am upset or out of sorts, I ask myself a question and debate it thoroughly on paper. It helps me organize my thoughts and find the right path forward. The sort that are so intensely personal and cringeworthy that I’d probably rather die than let anyone ever read. But now Nolley has.” And that made her feel queasy. “He’s stolen my little chest filled with eight years’ of mortifying soul-searching and youthful overdramatics as well as the bigger one containing all my life’s work. It is all gone. Every single thing that I have ever written.” Which felt like a piece of her was missing. “Heeven took my pens, for pity’s sake. Because clearly, if they are mine, they are poison pens that have no right existing. Although I do appreciate the irony of my particular old, overused nib being seen as such a powerful weapon when I have always believed that the pen is mightier than the sword.”
