To begin with, foolishly, she had so hoped that he would too. But then, she’d had hours to think and to ruminate before she had come to the sad but inevitable conclusion that this was for the best. Expecting her never to write again was like expecting her not to breathe and so she was glad that he had shown his true colors to her before it was too late.
“I am going to catch the morning post back to Bath and get on with my life.”
“He might not allow you to do that,” said Miss Prentice. “You need to be prepared for that too. Whether you want to be or not, you are his wife still and the law is on his side.”
“If I have to change my name and go into hiding to escape him, I will. The only way I will ever abide by his dictatorial rules is if he imprisons me and chains me to the bedpost, and even if he does, I shan’t stop plotting a way out.” She was speaking about Leo now as if he were a monster, which he wasn’t—usually—and that broke her heart some more. Because either she had been a complete, irrational, lovesick fool or he hadn’t been at all what she had believed him to be from the outset, and neither option was palatable.
“He’s going to fix this, Portia, I promise.” The hopelessly romantic Kitty seemed determined to cling to that, irrespective of the evidence. “So try not to harden your heart against him too much now to give him a chance.”
“I disagree.” Always the pragmatic voice of reason, Miss P sighed. “The sooner Portia hardens her heart, the sooner it will mend.” Cynical advice that Portia would have normally welcomed, except today it just felt like another blow. “And it will mend, dear, I promise. Especially if you bury yourself in work.”
There was a light tap on the parlor door before one of the current students of Miss Prentice’s School for Young Ladies entered. “This just arrived, Miss P.” She held out a letter. “It is for the duchess.”
The duchess!What a laughable title to still possess when she had already lost her duke.
Portia took it and then just stared at it because she recognized Leo’s handwriting.
“It is from him, isn’t it?” Typically, Kitty was beside herself with joy. “Read it.”
Portia shook her head and slipped the missive under her legs where she didn’t have to see it. “Whatever it says, it changes nothing, so I shall read it on the post later.”
“Oh for goodness’ sake!” Before Portia could brace herself, Kitty pushed her sideways and grabbed it, then dashed to the other side of the room so that she could rip it open.
“Give that back!” Portia went to snatch it and her friend lunged for the fire poker and wielded it between them like a weapon.
“He saved you from a prison hulk bound for Botany Bay, so the least you can do is hear what he has to say.”
“She’s right, dear,” said Miss P. “Whatever it says, you have to hear it, even if it does change nothing.”
“Fine.” Portia folded her arms and hardened her heart. “But I can assure you that my mind is made up.”
Still wielding the poker, Kitty cracked the seal one-handed and shook the letter open. “My darling Portia…Well, that’s a promising and romantic start.”
“Just get it over with, Kitty—without any additional commentary.”
“My darling Portia.” Kitty could not resist sighing at that. “I think we can both agree that what happened last night was an epic disaster and I know that saying sorry again—whether in person or via letter—doesn’t even come close to fixing the damage that I have foolishly done. Therefore, as I know how much stock you put in them especially when it involves a conundrum, I thought it best to write you an essay instead. Please read it. Leo.”
“That’s it?” It was hardly the groveling, on-bended-knee apology that Portia had secretly hoped for.
Kitty frowned as she turned the page. “No. It appears that he has indeed written an essay.” She held the page up for Portia to see.
Should the Duchess of Debden give the idiotic Duke of Debden a second chance?
Portia snatched it from Kitty’s hand and began to read.
I think that there can be no doubt that I behaved like the worst sort of idiot last night, and while there is no excuse for my dreadful behavior, I have done a great deal of soul-searching since my extraordinary wife left me. And, perhaps foolishly, I still hope that she can find it in her heart to come back to me. Sadly, I do not have her wonderful way with words, but here are my reasons why I think that she should.
It goes without saying that I love her but I will say it again anyway. From the first moment I met Portia, and despite all her glowering disapproval that day, she called to my soul. She felt like the missing piece of a puzzle. My other half. The thing that I hadn’t realized I needed but had to have once I did. That is why I kept her by my side when she first wanted to leave me and why I insisted that she marry me when it looked like the law was going to take her away. I could pretend to both of us that it was the only way to keep her safe, and perhaps it was at the time, or that I felt beholden to her for pushing her into accepting that first conviction, but neither of those things were my true motivation for making Portia Kendall my wife. Nor, in case anyone was wondering, did I marry her before I knew what she had done.
I knew she wrote sedition when we took those vows and I didn’t care.
In truth, I don’t care now.
I love the way my clever wife writes. I love the way her brilliant mind works. I love the questions that she poses. I love the way she constructs an argument, backs it with irrefutable evidence, and comes to a reasoned conclusion. I especially love her pithy turn of phrase, which I like to think I am a bit of an expert on now that I have read every single published essay that she has ever written. My wife is a woman of strong convictions who never shies away from them. I have no right to ask her to compromise them in any way like I did last night.
Which I suppose brings me to last night and why I so spectacularly overreacted. Something my pride would rather not do as I want the woman I love to think that I am her strong and steadfast knight in shining armor, not a hero with feet of clay. But as dignity is overrated, especially where love is concerned, I need to confess how I instead became more of a duke in distress than the man she deserves.
But to do that, I need to first go back a month or so to a time before we’d met. To the day when my sister’s fiancé carried her bleeding body back into my house after she had been injured at a protest. A day that turned out to be profound for all the wrong reasons because it affected me in a way that has plagued me ever since.
