He gave her a noncommittal shrug, not wanting to admit that he had, but also still wanting her to be pleased that he had at the same time. Because he was pathetic. “I knew how much it meant to you.”
“Oh Leo.” That came out as a sigh. “Thank you.” Then she frowned. “Are the contents still in it or has everything been confiscated?”
He shrugged again and focused on stroking the cat rather than lie to her hopeful face. “You’d have to check inside to see as it certainly wasn’t my place to.”How the blazes had she lied so effortlessly when just this tiny fib was making his buttocks clench?
She lifted the lid and a delighted bubble of laughter escaped.“They left all my papers!” Then she rummaged to the bottom and giggled as she pulled out an old friend. “And my poison pen!” She hugged the pen to her chest and gazed at him as if he were suddenly her hero. “Thank you. I cannot tell you how much this means to me.”
“You are very welcome.” Then, because he rather liked being her hero, he added, “You should also know that I did some digging and discovered that it wasn’t your fault that the authorities foundEquitas. It was actually Sir William who was followed.” He retrieved the watchman’s statement from the drawer in his desk that he had liberated from the official files and slid it over to her. “Nolley got a warrant to do so from Lord Corston.”
She quickly read it and a bit more of the sadness in her eyes dissipated. “That is a huge weight off my mind. I’ve barely slept worrying about this. I am surprised I haven’t kept you awake too with all my fevered pacing from dawn to dusk next door.”
He had heard her pacing while he had stared listlessly up at his ceiling endlessly mulling all his own worries. He’d lost count of how many times he had wanted to just fling open that flimsy door that connected their rooms to try to sort everything out between them. “You didn’t disturb me. I’ve slept like a log.” His buttocks clenched some more. “But you can rest easy now.” If only the causes of his insomnia could be banished with the arrival of a box! Hurt, lust, and unrequited love combined made deep sleep impossible.
She stared at the watchman’s statement some more. “Can we keep this between us, Leo?” Her eyes lifted to his sheepishly. “Only, William has always been particular about security and would be devastated to learn that he had compromised it with an uncharacteristic bit of carelessness.Equitasis his life.”
“As you wish.”
“And thank you again. For everything.” There was something different swirling in her expressive dark eyes now. Something tender and affectionate that filled his aching, wounded heart with hope. “You have been so—”
“Leo!” His mother’s shrill shout effectively spoiled what was promising to be another nice moment. “You’ve just received an express!” She burst through the door waving a letter. “From the king!”
“What?” He held out his hand in disbelief, convinced his mother had got it wrong, but the second he saw the enormous Royal Seal he realized that she hadn’t.
“Open it!” His mother bounced with excitement. “Open it this second!”
“I would, Mother, if you would actually give it to me.”
She handed it over and he cracked the wax. Then almost groaned aloud. “We’ve been summoned to London.”
“We?” All the delight on Portia’s pretty face had now melted into horror as his mother snatched the missive back. “Surely you mean you?”
“No, it clearly states the both of you.” His mother squealed with glee before she read. “His Majesty King George IV and her Royal Highness Princess Sophia request that the Duke of Debden present the new Duchess of Debden to the court of St. James’s on Wednesday the twenty-seventh day of June.” Then she frowned. “That is cutting it a bit fine! It gives us just ten days, half of which will be taken up with travel and preparation, and Portia’s new gowns aren’t even back from the modiste yet! But if I send her a message now with the good news, I am sure that she can rush some to us before you have to leave. And of course, she is going to have to make a court dress!” Then she clapped her hands. “Oh my goodness, this is so exciting!”
His mother hugged her, completely oblivious to the fact that Portia’s stunned expression was the exact opposite of excited. “I’ll also send for the hairdresser immediately. And get the staff to start making all the necessary arrangements and…” She squealed again. “There is so much to do and not enough hours left of today to do it all in!”
They both watched her practically sprint out before Portia finally spoke. “Can’t you politely decline?”
“I might well be a privileged duke, but I am nowhere near important enough to refuse the monarch. This is a summons, not an invitation.” He didn’t like it any more than she did, but a royal summons was a royal summons. “We are going to have to leave first thing on Sunday morning if we stand any chance of getting all the way to Mayfair in time.”
“But Leo…” Fear mixed with her panic. “We cannot pretend to be a happily married couple in front of the king if we aren’t likely to remain a couple for very long. Surely it would make getting an annulment so much more difficult?”
Clearly, he had pathetically misread her gratefulness as affection if she still preferred the idea of an annulment over staying married to him. “I cannot ignore the king’s summons and neither can you.”
She opened her mouth to argue but his mother came back. “When I said that there was a lot to do, Portia, I did not mean that only I had to do it. This is all about you, so come along, dear, and stop dawdling!”
Then she grabbed his reluctant wife’s arm and dragged her away.
Chapter
TWENTY-FIVE
Portia had gone from twiddling her thumbs with nothing to do to not having a single moment to herself. If she wasn’t being poked and tugged by the modiste while she endured fitting after fitting, she had to suffer what Letitia called “duchess training.”
Duchess training consisted of being accomplished in a series of nonsensical behaviors that were only apparently needed in a royal court. One of those things was a court curtsy, which was vastly different to the sorts she had been bobbing her entire life and basically involved contortionism at a veritable snail’s pace. Her weight on her right foot, she was supposed to gracefully circle the toes of her left foot to rest directly behind it, then somehow, without losing her precarious balance, dip all the way down until her left knee practically hit the floor. All without bending at the waist or using her hands, which had to hold a pointless fan just so, while the other subtly held her skirts to stop her falling over. Then, after a respectful incline of her head, she had to rise effortlessly “like steam,” according to the dowager, which was absolute torture on the thigh and calf muscles.
Yesterday, after a whole afternoon of relentless tutoring, Portia had thought that she had mastered it—but apparently not. Now that she had grasped the basics, she was having to learn it all again inthe makeshift court garments that the dowager had brought to the drawing room to torture her some more with this evening. Because the appropriate ladies’ court attire was even more ridiculous than the painful court curtsy, consisting of a long and heavy train (which presently was a blanket tied around her waist) and a headdress that consisted of at least seven tall, snow-white ostrich feathers, which made contorting herself into that curtsy practically impossible! Not that she was currently sporting ostrich feathers as all their court feathers lived in Mayfair. Instead, Letitia had strapped an arrangement of dried flowers to Portia’s head using several yards of ribbon and at least three million hairpins. This particular arrangement was chosen because it was filled with fluffy, waving meadow grasses that were, apparently, the exact right height. Which, frankly, beggared belief when they were well over a foot long.
“That’s almost it,” said her tormentor, as Portia dipped all the way down to the floor for the thousandth time. “But you are still sprinkling dried petals on the carpet, a sure sign that you are juddering on your descent. We want one fluid and graceful movement on the way down and one on the way up.” The dowager wafted her hand regally up and down in demonstration as if this impossible task was simple. “So gentle that all those petals stay on the stems.”
