Just One Season in London (26 page)

Just then the door swung wide, and suddenly the room seemed to fill with people. But there were really just a few—Lady Stone and Lady Brindle, with Lord Randall trailing behind.

Shock ricocheted through the room.

Lady Stone lit a candle and held it up. The wavering yellow light fell across Portia, showing her hair falling down and her bodice still askew. Hastily, Lady Stone moved the light aside. “Who did this, Portia?” she asked sternly. “Tell me. He must make things right.”

Her voice sounded like doom. Rye had no doubt she would do it too; as soon as Portia whispered Swindon's name, Lady Stone would drag him back and insist that he restore Portia's honor by giving her his name. By marrying the woman he had tried to violate…

“I should think it's obvious who's responsible,” Lady Brindle said. “I never thought it of Miranda, but there's bad blood somewhere in that family, for the daughter's a hoyden and the son's a cad.”

Just behind Lady Brindle, Sophie had suddenly appeared—her eyes wide and horrified. Lord Randall looked as if he wished he were anywhere else. Lady Stone's gaze skidded from Portia to Rye.

There was only one thing he could do.

Rye shrugged out of his coat and draped it around Portia's shoulders. “Sorry to have gotten carried away like that, my sweet. I know it's not the way you wanted to announce it, but it's done now, and we have to face the music. Lady Stone”—he faced her squarely—“I have just asked Miss Langford to be my wife.”

Their waltz had flown by as Sophie planne
d Wellingham's picnic, and long before she had run out of ideas, the music ended. “I don't see your mother,” he said as they left the floor.

And of course he would be looking for Lady Ryecroft. All Sophie's joyful anticipation of the picnic suddenly fled.

“I don't see Miss Langford either. Would you care to sit with Lady Stone while I get you a cold drink?”

“How kind of you, sir. But you must not trouble yourself.”

Preoccupied with her aggravation, Sophie was only feet from Lady Stone when she realized she'd walked into a low-voiced argument. “Then by all means go and look for her,” Lady Stone said. “She can't have gone far; she was here for the last set.”

“I merely asked if you had seen her go,” Lady Brindle said haughtily. “And though perhaps
you
wouldn't hesitate to go poking around in a private home, I would! However, we shall take your refusal to help as permission to look behind closed doors. Come, Lord Randall.”

She actually calls her son
Lord Randall? Sophie wasted a moment remembering how foolish she'd been to think of Lord Randall as a potential mate. It was a note in Carrisbrooke's favor that his only family was an uncle whom she found both witty and wise.

“If you're looking for my mama,” Sophie said, “I'm sure she'll be returning at any moment.”

Lady Brindle stared at Sophie through her quizzing glass. “Why would we be seeking Miranda? It's Lady Flavia who has gone missing.”

“Mama.” Lord Randall looked around, as if checking for spies. “Keep your voice down, I beg you.”

“She's missing too?” Wellingham murmured. “There seems to be a lot of that going on tonight.”

Lady Brindle dismissed him with a glance and laid a hand on her son's arm.

Lady Stone gave a little snort. “Oh, very well, I'll come and help you look. Though I think it would be wiser for you to merely blink and let the young woman have her fun. There'll be little enough of it in her future.” She stalked off after the other two.

“If you would care for that cold drink after all,” Wellingham said, “we could go down together. The ballroom feels stuffy.”

“It's less so after those two left,” Sophie said frankly.

They were at the head of the stairs when Lady Stone opened the door of her music room, and the sudden and dramatic silence drew Sophie like a magnet. She arrived in the doorway just as Lady Brindle's opinion of her and Rye rang out—and then Rye spoke, and Sophie stared at him in disbelief. Surely he couldn't have done this—not to Portia! She turned to flee, and Wellingham took her by the shoulders. “Stop and think, Sophie, before you make this worse.”

“I'm trying to make it better.” She stared up at him. “Help me find Mama. Maybe she can fix this.”

Lady Ryecroft's bedroom was only the second place they checked. Sophie felt her heart lift when she saw movement on the chaise longue by the fire, for Mary wouldn't sit there in the dark. “We need you, Mama,” Sophie said, and when Lady Ryecroft answered, she went running across the room to throw herself into her mother's arms. Then she sniffed, and her eyes went wide as she smelled cologne. “Mama! Do you have a
man
in here?”

***

The entire episode felt like a nightmare, but P
ortia was all too aware that there would be no waking up. It wasn't what Swindon had done that made her feel like casting up her accounts; the worst part was realizing that her idiocy had trapped Rye.

She was betrothed to a man who had been given no choice in the matter. If he didn't offer for her, his reputation would be ruined; five minutes of Lady Brindle's tongue running loose and he'd be forever known as the man who had destroyed a lady and then refused to marry her. It was incredibly unfair. All Rye had done was rescue her, but this was his reward.

She could have cried—except that she was far beyond the point where tears would do any good.

For Portia, the saddest part of the entire episode had been when Rye had made one last desperate effort to escape his fate by begging the witnesses not to talk. He'd done it in a gentlemanly manner, of course—she expected nothing else from him. He'd said that since announcing the betrothal right away would only call attention to Portia's disarray, he hoped that they would all keep the secret until tomorrow.

Lady Brindle had looked mutinous, but at that moment Lady Ryecroft had arrived, summed up the situation with a glance, and swept Portia and Sophie up to her bedroom before either of them could say another word. It took both Portia's maid and Lady Ryecroft's Mary to put her back together enough to reappear in the ballroom just as the supper dance was ending.

Rye didn't come near her for the remainder of the evening, but that was no surprise. He would hardly want to conduct the first conversation of their betrothal in a public place, especially after she'd so efficiently snared him…

Portia watched him across the room, however, dancing with one of the minor heiresses. That reminded her of Juliana Farling, and her heart sank.

The moment the ball was finished, Portia pleaded a headache. She was silent as her maid brushed her hair and braided it and helped her into a nightgown. Then she sent the maid away and sank down by the fire to wait. Once the house was quiet, she tightened the belt of her wrapper as if it were armor and tiptoed down the hall to knock timidly at Rye's bedroom door.

Rye had taken off his coat and his neckcloth, and he was holding a brandy glass when he opened the door. “Do come in, my dear. I was wondering when you'd be along.”

“Are you foxed?” Portia asked.

“Not yet.”

She winced. “I came to tell you that, of course, this can't be allowed to stand.”

“What do you propose to do about it?”

“I don't know. But you obviously can't marry me. What about Juliana Farling? If you offered for her tonight…” Maybe that was why he'd pleaded so eloquently for silence—to give him time to make some kind of excuse to the woman he'd actually
asked
to marry him.

“I didn't. Then this little wrinkle got in the way.” He didn't meet her gaze.

So Lady Stone had been right after all in betting on that particular match. The reminder of the wager only made Portia feel worse.

“What the hell were you thinking of, putting yourself in danger like that?”

Portia reminded, “You said once that you wouldn't swear at me.”

“Well, that was when I still believed you'd never do anything so flea-brained as to go in a room alone with that cad!”

Portia looked down at her clasped hands. “I've really dumped us in the sauce, haven't I? I'm sorry, Rye. Truly. But can we just figure out how to get ourselves out of this? You don't want to marry me; I don't want to marry you…”

He grunted and went to refill his goblet, then held it out to her. “Have a sip—or several. I've found it helps.”

She took a gulp. He was right; the liquid burned all the way down, but it distracted her for a moment. “Lady Stone could stop this disaster; I'm sure of it. I shall ask her, in the morning.”

“Ask her to do what? Make Swindon marry you? If you still want him after all that, then why on earth didn't you just tell me to go away a couple of hours ago?”

“Are you fool enough to think I'd want to marry him?”

The anger in his face died. “Portia, you were found in a room alone with a man, with no hope of an innocent explanation. You have to marry someone.”

“And so you're caught in a trap, simply because you rescued me.”

His mouth quirked into a reluctant grin. “Well… you rescued me first, from Miss Mickelthorpe. So we're even.”

“Hardly. That was a different thing.”

“And tonight you rescued me from Miss Farling, and a lucky escape that was too.” In the fireplace, a coal cracked and settled. “I know this isn't what you want, Portia. It's a bad situation. But we'll have to make the best of it—as people have always done.”

Make the best of it.
It was hardly what she wanted from a marriage… and now that it was too late to change what she'd done, she realized how much she had longed for the very thing that had happened tonight. But she hadn't wanted it to come about like this. She wanted Rye, yes, but she had wanted a husband, a lover… not a man who had been backed into a corner.

Yesterday, when he'd kissed her, she'd dared for just a moment to hope that the young Lord Ryecroft might look beyond money to seek a woman he could grow to love, and see Portia. But tonight she'd ruined any possibility that he might ever look at her with anything other than disdain. Every time he saw her, he would remember exactly why she was his wife—and recall it was her foolishness that had destroyed his plans.

A soft tap sounded on the bedroom door. Portia looked wildly around for an escape. It would be just too ironic to be caught in Rye's bedroom barely two hours after the debacle downstairs.

“Draw the bed curtains,” Rye whispered. He opened the door an inch, blocking the view with his body, while Portia scrambled onto his four-poster and pulled the blue velvet hangings at the foot.

“Rye?” Sophie said. “Oh good, you're still dressed. Well, almost dressed. Do you have Portia in here?”

“Why would you ask such a thing?” Rye sounded nearly as pompous as Lord Randall. Under other circumstances, Portia would have wanted to laugh.

“Because she doesn't seem to be anywhere else. I just checked her room, and she's not there, but her ball dress is. And she's not downstairs either, or with Mama. Speaking of Mama, you should know that I'm nearly certain I smelled a man's cologne in her room tonight.”

Portia had no trouble visualizing the way Rye rolled his eyes. “
Nearly
certain? There are scents aplenty at a ball. You probably got cologne on your gloves while you were dancing, and that's what you smelled. Go to bed, Sophie—and take your imagination with you.”

“You don't think she's run away, do you? Not Mama, of course; I mean Portia. To avoid the disgrace of having to marry you.”

“I'm certain she has not.”

“That's a relief. Night, Rye.” She gave him a noisy, childlike smack of a kiss on the cheek and called, “Night, Portia!”

“Good…” Portia clapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late.

Sophie gave a gleeful little laugh. “Next time, Rye, make sure the bed curtains aren't still swinging,” she advised, and the door closed behind her with a click.

Portia buried her face in her hands. The blue velvet hangings whooshed open, the rings rattling above her head. She didn't look up.

“You do have a gift for this sort of thing.” Rye sounded almost grim. “What do you think now? A little too late to ask Lady Stone to fix it?”

***

There was no justice in the world, Miranda thou
ght as Mary brushed her hair. She'd spent the better part of the last two weeks carrying on a torrid affair, but the one time that she
wasn't
doing anything disreputable—well, aside from the obvious misstep of having a gentleman present in her bedroom—she had been caught.

She'd have to talk to Sophie in the morning and explain. Of course, it would have been better to say something immediately—something casual or funny. Tomorrow, when she brought the subject up again, it would assume even more importance in Sophie's mind, but that was the best she could do.

She must have heaved a heavy sigh, for Mary clucked sympathetically and said, “You'll feel better soon, ma'am. It never lasts more than a few weeks.”

“What never lasts?”

“The tiredness. Remember? You never had morning sickness with the others either, but practically the minute you were
enceinte
, you'd start nodding off at dinner or in the middle of a conversation. It'll only last a few weeks, and then you'll have your usual energy back.”

Miranda gulped. The floor seemed to shake under her.

“Ma'am?” Mary turned pale. “I'm sorry. You didn't realize…?”

The possibility had not occurred to Miranda. If she'd given it a thought at all, she would have assumed she was too old to fall pregnant. But now that Mary had pointed out the obvious, she could no longer deny the facts.

It appeared she was going to have a baby. Marcus Winston's baby. An illegitimate half brother or half sister for Rye and Sophie…

And she'd thought explaining the scent of a man's cologne in her bedroom would be difficult!

***

Portia looked absolutely disconsolate. Not the
look a man wanted to see from his promised bride, Rye thought.

“Where would you like to be married?” he asked in the hope that planning a ceremony would distract her.

She shook her head. She was still kneeling on his bed. She must not have realized that the belt of her wrapper had come loose, allowing the shadows cast by the candlelight to caress the hollow at the base of her throat and the cleavage below. Her nightgown was made of fine lawn, and the finicky little vertical tucks and stitches on the bodice only encouraged his gaze to drop a few inches more, to where her breasts swelled enticingly under the sheer fabric, reminding him of the nipple he'd glimpsed downstairs. Resolutely he looked away, but that didn't help either, for his gaze only slid down to the outline of her legs and the interesting little crevice between them…

Rye thought it would be a good idea for him to sit down before she noticed evidence of the direction his thoughts were taking. She was already flighty enough without his reminding her that this marriage would have a physical side.

He could have used a nice solid chair right now—big enough to hold Portia on his lap and cuddle her. Or a chaise longue wide enough for two to recline and explore each other's bodies…

And there he went, posting off into dangerous territory again. He really couldn't continue to stand at attention, so to speak; if she saw how aroused he was, she'd probably scream and flee. And since the only chair in the room was a spindly little thing he didn't trust to hold him, the bed would have to do.