Pleasuring the Lady (The Pleasure Wars) (10 page)

Portia squeezed her eyes shut in pain. Her brother had excluded their mother from his wedding just as he almost always excluded them both from his life.

Portia looked at Miles. He moved forward another step.
 

“Of course you will be, my lady. No one would deprive you of seeing your only daughter wed.”

Portia smiled at Miles through her tears as her mother’s face relaxed. “Very good. I’m so pleased, Portia.” She blinked a few times. “What about your father?”

Portia tensed. She hadn’t realized her mother’s dream world had come to include her father again. She hadn’t mentioned him as though he still lived for a long time.

“Mama, you remember, don’t you?” she whispered, pressing a hand to her mother’s shoulder. “Papa is dead.”

Her mother stiffened and stared up at her. “Dead.”

“Yes, eight years ago. Do you remember?”

Her mother shuddered. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, Mama,” Portia whispered as she leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead.

“Lady Portia?”
 

Portia turned to find Potts standing in the doorway. “I’ll stay with her.”

Portia nodded her thanks. “I’ll come speak to you again in a little while, Mama. I have a few things to discuss with Miles.”

Her mother blinked a few times again and then nodded. “Very well, dear.”

She squeezed her mother’s hand and then turned to Miles without meeting his eyes. “Shall we step out?”

He ignored her and instead bent to take her mother’s hand. “Lady Cosslow, I shall look forward to seeing you at the wedding. Good day.”

Her mother smiled and this time the expression was reminiscent of who she had been years ago. But as Miles led the way out of her mother’s chamber and Portia shut the door, she heard her mother ask Potts, “Is Oliver truly dead, Potts?”

She leaned against the door as exhaustion overwhelmed her.
 

“There you have it, Miles,” she said, trying to keep her focus on the wooden floor beneath her feet.

“Yes,” he said, softly, gently. “Why don’t you come back downstairs and we can discuss this more thoroughly?”

She nodded and followed him back to the dingy parlor. She made no offer to pour more tea, she simply sank into the settee and then looked at him.
 

“I hope you do not feel doubly lied to after seeing the state my mother has degenerated to.”

He held her gaze. “I feel nothing but shock and sadness at the condition of your mother, Portia. It has been a long time since I was in your home, but I remember her far differently. How long has it been so dire?”

She hesitated. Her natural inclination was to play down her mother’s woes. But she had to be honest with Miles.

She shivered. “It started when I was eight or nine, her episodes. But her problems progressed for years. I would say when my father died and my brother took over as Marquis that it truly hit a peak.”

“So for eight years you have endured this,” he murmured.
 

“No, my
brother
endures it. I simply grieve what should have been.” She rubbed her eyes. “You know some of it, I’m certain. Her outbursts have occasionally been very public. It is why my brother hid us away in this hovel, though she escapes from time to time even today and roams the streets making what Hammond calls a spectacle.” She frowned. “As if she could control it.”

“I am sorry,” Miles said, his tone gentle.
 

She shook her head. “Don’t be sorry. Not when you could help me.”

He took a small step away. “Yes, you asked for my help before we met with your mother. What is it you think I can do?”
 

Portia drew a breath. “My brother wants to have her committed to Townshend House. He has wished to do so for some time, but I believe he will follow through when I am no longer in this home to watch over our mother.”

“He would put his own mother in such a place?” Miles breathed.

She nodded. “Both to rid himself of her and to punish me for humiliating him thanks to the circumstances of our engagement.”

Miles’ lips pressed hard together. “
This
is exactly why I am no longer friendly with him.”

Portia drew back, uncertain what he meant by that comment. But at present she had more important matters to attend to.

“I cannot see her put in such a place, Miles. It would kill her. And it would break me.”
 

He looked as though he intended to speak, but she rushed to keep him from denying her without hearing her out fully.
 

“I understand you likely do not want to claim responsibility for someone with her difficulties, but I would not ask you to do something without offering you something in return.”

He hesitated. “Something in return?”

She nodded. Her cheeks felt hot and her hands shook as she continued, “Miles, there is something between us. A physical draw. And my understanding is that many wives of our sphere do not allow their husbands to take liberties beyond the barest requirement for producing a child.”

His eyes went wide. “A-and?”

“Wh-whatever you wanted me to do…whenever you wanted me to do it…I would not argue. I would not disagree.” She swallowed hard past a suddenly thick tongue. “Miles, I would give myself to you entirely.”

Chapter Seven

Miles could hardly speak as he stared at Portia. She sat primly on the edge of the settee, for all the world a lady, but offered him the pleasures of her body in any and every wicked way he could imagine.

“Are you bargaining for the safety of your mother with your body?” he asked, knowing full well that was what she had done, but somehow needing to hear it again.

She shifted. “Yes. I realize it is small payment for what I ask, but I hope you would find it a worthwhile-enough temptation that you would say yes.”

Miles turned away from her and paced to the window. What she must think of him to believe she had to offer herself in order to gain his assistance. He thought of Lady Cosslow in that horrible room, so lost to the world, and his heart ached for everything Portia had been through. He would no more see his future mother-in-law sent to a horrible place like Townshend House than he would see his own beloved sister placed there. That Hammond would even consider such a thing made his stomach turn.

He glanced at Portia. She was worrying her hands together in her lap as she awaited his decision. She had shattered in pleasure in the carriage. What else he could do to her…

And she had no idea that he would help her mother without asking for anything in return.

So why not take advantage of her…well, desperation when he was honest with himself. It wasn’t gentlemanly, but it was oh, so very tempting, wasn’t it?
 

He cleared his throat. “Do you know what you are offering me?”

She hesitated. “I have heard a little, looked at a few pictures and I have…I have touched myself sometimes in the dark of my bed.”

He groaned as images of such a thing bombarded him. “I am a man of certain appetites, Portia. If you tell me I can do with you what I wish, I will take full advantage of that offer. I will do things to you, with you, that you have never dreamed of. Would you really be ready for that?”

Her eyes were wide and glassy as she nodded. “I keep my word. If I say I will do what you wish, I will. Even if it hurts.”

“It won’t hurt,” he reassured her. “I will make sure of that. What you felt in the carriage, did that hurt?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“That is only the beginning. I will make you feel so much better.” He moved toward her and she gasped as he sank onto the settee next to her. “I will make you beg me for more. I will make you weak with pleasure. But I cannot promise that you won’t fear what I want. That you won’t be changed by it.”

Her breath came heavy for a charged moment, and then she nodded. “If you help me, I will do anything you desire, Miles. Anything.”

He drove his fingers into her silky blond hair and tilted her face toward his. His mouth collided with hers and he kissed her, pouring passion into her with his lips the same way he would soon with his fingers, his tongue, his cock. Oh, the ways he would debauch her.

He pulled back. “I take your offer, Portia. Your brother, greedy bastard that he is, will easily fold under my demands to remove your mother from his care.”

“Are you sure?” Portia shook her head. “If he feels he can gain something from refusal, he will do it.”

Miles scowled. “If he doesn’t, I will make certain he changes his mind. You will not have to worry about your mother’s future.”

Portia went limp in his arms as she buried her face into his shoulder.
 

“Thank you,” she murmured, and her voice cracked as she trembled in his arms. He stared down at her, smelling the freshness of her hair, feeling the warmth in her quivering limbs. Slowly, he wrapped his arms around her and held her. A powerful shot of protectiveness rocked him as he did so. Now that he had seen the full power of what she had endured, he wanted to help her. To make her smile. To give back a tiny bit of what circumstance and selfish men had taken from her.

Couldn’t he do that? Couldn’t he shower her with kindness and joy without entangling emotions? Since they were to be married either way, it seemed like he could give her that.

She pulled away and looked up at him with a shake of her head. “I’m sorry.”

He stood and smoothed his jacket. “Don’t trouble yourself, Portia. I wasn’t offended by your emotion. I would be more offended if you were like your brother and felt nothing toward your mother. Now I have some arrangements to be made with him about this, since I fear he will act swiftly if I don’t intercept him.”

Portia got to her feet and followed him into the foyer. “Thank you.”

He turned and looked her up and down in her cheap garment and her dim and ugly hall. “Portia, my sister’s dressmaker will call tomorrow for you and for your mother.”

“Oh no—” she began, cheeks flushing just as they had at his sister’s earlier in the day.
 

“Hush. I will pay for it and I will brook no refusals,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You are to be my wife, no matter what circumstances brought us to this. I will not see you treated as anything else from now on.”

Portia nodded after another moment’s hesitation. “Very well.”

“Good day,” he said as he exited the house. But as he walked to his horse, he smiled. Indeed, he had much to plan. Both for Portia’s new life, and for the pleasures he would shower over her as soon as she was his, body and soul.

By the next morning, Portia had spent hours making a list. A list of everything she would have to do to ready for a wedding in a few days’ time. It was very long and so overwhelming that she feared she might weep.

She rested her head on the edge of the flimsy dressing table in her chamber and sighed heavily. She was about to lift it again and return to her work when she heard the bell downstairs ringing to indicate a guest.

She paused and listened as Potts answered it and let someone inside, a woman judging by the lilting tones floating through the thin walls to Portia’s room. She stood up and turned toward the door, ready when Potts knocked, then entered a moment later.

“There are two ladies to see you,” Potts said softly, but there was a twitching to her lips that seemed to indicate pleasure. “A Miss King and Lord Weatherfield’s sister, Lady Brinforth.”

Portia’s lips parted. “Have you already shown them the parlor?” she asked.

Potts nodded. “Where there is a roaring fire and a pot of tea, Lady Portia.”

“Well, at least there is that,” Portia sighed.

Potts smiled. “There will be more than that very soon. Lord Weatherfield sent a man here this morning to deliver a full larder of food, wood for the fires. He also told me there would be furniture arriving this afternoon for the parlor and our chambers.”

Portia blinked, unsure if what she was hearing had been brought on by a sleep-deprived delusion. “I don’t understand.”

“It seems the man is intent on ensuring your comfort, my lady,” Potts said with a wink. “Even if you will only live here a few days longer. Now I’ll go down and tell the ladies you’ll be joining them shortly.”

Her servant turned and departed the room, leaving Portia blinking after her in continued shock. Miles didn’t want to marry her, yet he did desire her and seemed to be driven to take care of her needs. What did it all mean?

She smoothed her gown and slipped downstairs. Outside the parlor, she took a deep breath. The women inside must judge her terribly on the current state of her home, but she had to keep her head high.
 

It was all she could do.

She opened the door and stepped inside with a forced smile. She found Tennille standing beside her fire and another woman spreading out fabric and other items on the little table beside the window. They both looked up as she entered, and Tennille’s face lit up with a grin.

“Dearest Portia, how glad I am to see you!” her future sister-in-law laughed as she crossed the room and embraced her. “When my brother told me you were open to having my seamstress call after all, it was a happy day indeed. I hope you don’t mind that I tagged along.”