While the April sky might be blue, it was bloody cold outside. The nearest window was open a crack to let out the smoke. The office where they sat was on the small side of cozy, with shelves jammed with books, a desk with stacks of pamphlets, papers, a two-day-old Times, and a Bible. A trunk with broken trim sat underneath the window. An oak highboy painted red took up half the wall across from the fireplace. The table behind them, close enough for them to use it, was covered with paper. Magnus’s doing, that riot of thick, odd-sized sheets of paper.
Charcoal and gum rubber littered the surface, and Crispin had flicked away a pencil that rolled underneath the cigar box. Several of the pages were sketches of the view from various windows of the house or of everyday items: a cup, an apple, a Bible seen from the page edges. Some were of furniture, a view of a window, and more recently, the church in Aubry Sock where Magnus, naturally, had spent a great deal of time before he had the living in West Aubry. There were a few sketches of him and several of the men and women who lived near Up Aubry. He had a knack for taking a likeness.
Magnus lifted his mug, recently filled from the contents of the earthenware jug he’d brought back from Up Aubry earlier in the day. The tavern there was half the size of this room and comfortably held the entire male population of the village, counting the proprietor and including Crispin. They served a dark and bitter beer that had to be the finest anywhere in England. “To good friends.” He winked. He took a long draw on his beer and when he was done, let out a sigh. “Light the bloody thing.”
“Impatient sod.” He leaned over with a candle for Magnus to use to light his cigar. He lit his when Magnus blew the first puff of smoke in the direction of the open window.
“If the subject should happen to come up, don’t mention the cigars to Eleanor.”
“Why not?”
Magnus contorted in order to tap the top of the cigar box. “She’ll have my head if she finds out about these. Thinks smoking is vile. Ungodly for a man of God.”
Crispin didn’t reply right away “Are you telling me you aren’t permitted to smoke a fine cigar in your own house?”
“Not just my house now.” He let out a stream of smoke. “There’s always the vicarage in West Aubry, but it’s smaller than here. Lovely, make no mistake, but she’s taken a fancy to the Grange, Eleanor has. It’s here she wants to live.”
“If she complains, tell her it was me, and that you tried to dissuade me.” He drew on his cigar. When he’d let out the smoke, he said, “Tell her I said I am the bloody Viscount Northword, and I can smoke a cigar anywhere I damned please.”
Magnus laughed. “Perhaps I’ll not say precisely that. But she’ll agree with the sentiment, I tell you that.”
“Tell her I refused to save my soul, but that yours remains unsullied.”
“That I will.” They sat for a bit, contemplating the fire and the warmth and the hint of chill at their backs. “Did Lady Northword mind you smoking?”
“Never. Though to be fair, I never did around her. The way you won’t around your wife.” He tried for a smoke ring and muffed it. “I don’t think less of you for that.”
“Your bloody house is big enough you could have a dozen men smoking and no one at the other end would know.” Magnus exhaled, then sank a little lower on his chair. “Put another bit of coal on the fire, won’t you?”
“Why should I when you’re nearer?”
“Because I’m more comfortable than you. Because I’m an old married man now. I need my strength.” He put his finger in the stream of smoke leaving his mouth and traced it upward as far as his arm could reach. When he’d settled again on his chair, he examined his cigar. “The last cigar to be smoked at the Grange. What would Doyle say if he were still alive?”
“Arf. Arf.”
Magnus’s belly shook. “The poor dog froze to death, I hear. For lack of coal on the fire.”
“God help us all if the Grange must be renamed ‘Doyle and Magnus’s Grange.’”
“I’ll carve it on my headstone. ‘Doyle was a fine dog but Magnus was the better man.’”
“Amen, my friend. Amen.” They laughed at that together, and when Crispin was back on his chair, having added half a scuttle of coal to the fire, they smoked in companionable silence. He stretched his legs as close to the grate as he dared. The wind rattled the shutters harder, then died away. “Will it rain soon, do you think?”
Magnus nodded. “They’ll be home early, I expect, Portia and Eleanor and the others. Oh, damn.” He shot to his feet, wiping at his waistcoat.
“Have you burnt it?” Crispin asked.
“Devil take me if I have. I think so.”
“It’s good you’re a married man.” He laughed. “You need looking after.”
“So do you.” Magnus stared at the spot where hot cigar ash had eaten a hole in the fabric. “Eleanor will have my head.” He brushed at his waistcoat before he sat again. “Portia will mend it for me, and not tell Eleanor, either. Solid as a rock, that girl. But then you know that.”
“I do.”
After several minutes more silence, Crispin put down his cigar and reached for a stack of the papers on the table. He went through them slowly, with the reverence due the pages. As always, he was in awe of Magnus’s talent. His art. Magnus Temple was a bloody genius, and here he was, the vicar of West Aubry when he ought to be in London painting for the Royal Academy. What a waste. What a bloody crime. Portia blamed herself for that, when really the blame belonged to his father. And to him. For not foreseeing that his father would threaten not Portia directly but the people she loved. “Why are all these out?”
“Organizing things.” Magnus shrugged. “Clearing out the old now that Eleanor’s here. I try to do some every few days.”
There were several drawings of Eleanor, including one in which she was clearly the inspiration for a Madonna. Crispin came to a portrait of Portia, done a few years ago. So young. His heart hurt to see her. She’d never been a conventional beauty, but he doubted any man would deny her appeal. Spend five minutes with her, and you’d soon be convinced you’d never met a finer woman. In the portrait, done in pen and ink, her head was bowed in concentration. Magnus had drawn just the tops of her hands, enough to show she held a needle. Behind her was the suggestion of the parlor fireplace. One expected she might at any moment lift her head and smile. A wave of lust hit him, pulling him under. He lay the stack of sketches on his lap, the portrait of Portia on top.
She still thought about the baby they’d made, when all these years he’d convinced himself she didn’t. How could he blame her for what she’d done as a sixteen year old girl in a desperate situation? His father had all but guaranteed she would carry that burden alone. There were women in her situation who died, and that knowledge chilled him to the marrow. She might have died, and a world without her would have been a barren place.
“My wife’s been gone more than a year, now. Nearly two.”
“We were sorry to hear that news, Portia and I.”
“I was a better man after I was married.” Marriage had agreed with him, that was true. Not a perfect union, but not a bad one either. He’d been happy in a calmer way. His wife had been a fine and admirable woman, and he had always hated himself for not loving her as she deserved.
“You’ll marry again.” Magnus nodded to himself. “You must. Unnatural if you don’t.”
“That’s so.” He did not have a son yet, and that must be remedied.
“Have you met anyone who will do?”
He shook his head, but Jesus, the lie of his denial spread ashes across his soul.
“Pity.”
“I don’t like Stewart.”
Magnus took another pull of his beer. “He writes verses. Did he tell you that? No? I expect that’s why Portia’s set herself on marrying him. The poetry did her in, that’s what I think. Lord knows she’s never paid any attention to other men, and they’ve come calling. I know you don’t see her like that, but there’s a good many men who’ve wanted to marry her.
”
He did not move for fear of Magnus seeing more than he ought, but then he wondered if that wasn’t a worse way to lie to his best friend than if he plastered on a disbelieving grin. “Is that so?”
“He’s not bad, you know. Stewart.”
Crispin snorted.
“As a poet.” Magnus slunk lower on his chair. “Goes on about cliffs and bluebells flashing with dew. But there’s one about a stag I like. Noble antlers and beams of sunrise.”
“He’s an architect, I thought.”
Magnus reached over and tapped the underside of the sketches on Crispin’s lap hard enough to make the paper jump. “Only one of his occupations puts money in his pocket.”
He slumped on his chair. A poet? The man was a damned poet? “God save us from poets.”
“The Lord will strike you dead for that.” Magnus grinned and the lines of his face deepened, and it seemed to Crispin there were more now than there had been the last time he’d seen Magnus. “Might take fifty years, though.”
He picked up Magnus’s portrait of Portia, and something tugged at him as he studied the smiling woman on the page. She was unhappy now, and she did not deserve to be. Not then, and not now. He glanced at Magnus.
The words that came to his lips felt odd and foreign and right. They shook loose from wherever they’d been lodged and flew into the air. “I want to marry Portia.”
Magnus choked on his laughter.
He waited until there was silence again and then said, “I will marry Portia.”
A furrow appeared in Magnus’s forehead. “You mean that.”
“With your permission. Of course.” He wanted this. He did. No more deception.
Magnus looked at him with his artist’s eye, seeing what was there. And what was not. “What makes you say a thing like that?”
He worked through what Magnus had said and the careful way he’d said it and he felt as sick at heart and just as defiant as he had been when he’d said the words to his father. “You won’t agree to my marrying her?”
“You’re like a brother to me. You know that.”
He pushed out of his slouch. He was…affronted. Magnus owed him this. He bloody owed Portia the life she ought to have had. “I feel the same. But that doesn’t make Portia my sister.”
All trace of Magnus’s usual good humor vanished. He leaned forward and set his cigar against the ashtray. “No one could ask for a better friend than you.”
He sat up the rest of the way. Magnus was telling him no? The insult pricked him. Dented his pride. More, though, it scared the hell out of him. “Why not?”
“Is it wise?”
“Yes, damn it, it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”
Magnus shook his head.
The urge to spear him with a look of blue-blooded incredulity was impossible to resist. “I’d be a better husband to her than that doughty old poet she’s going to marry so you and Eleanor can make a life together.”
Magnus’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that what she told you?”
“Not in so many words, but it’s true. If she marries me, she’ll want for nothing, you know that. I should think you’d be pushing her my way. Most brothers with unmarried sisters do.”
It was Magnus’s turn to be insulted. “I’d never. You know that.”
“Yes. I do know that. Maybe you should have.”
“You and Portia?”
“Why not? Why the bloody hell not, I should like to know?”
“If she’ll have you.” He rested a hand on Crispin’s shoulder. “If she’ll have you, you’d have my blessing.”
“If she’ll have me?” The bottom dropped from his stomach. If Magnus didn’t think Portia would marry him, maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe he’d never change her mind. “Why do you think she wouldn’t if I asked her?”
“I shouldn’t say this, but I think she used to be in love with you. After you left, the joy went out of her.” He chewed on his lower lip. “I’ve watched her here, the two of you, and to be honest, whatever there was between you, one-sided as it was, it’s long dead. I don’t think you’re what she needs. Not any more.”
Chapter Thirteen
Four days later
HE DIDN’T LIKE THE SILENCE at all. In all the times he’d been at Doyle’s Grange, the house had never been this quiet, not when Portia was here. Jesus, what if he was too late? What if while he’d been giving her time, Portia had convinced that ridiculous poet to take her to Gretna Green?
Hob came into the entryway and bowed his head. He wasn’t wearing his livery. “Milord.” He straightened. “Didn’t expect to see thee here.”
Out of pure habit, he took off his hat, but rather than hand it over to Hob, he hung it from one of the pegs above the doorway that led to the servants’ quarters. “Where is everyone?”
“Gone. Or out.”
“I see. Who is out and who is gone?”
“Mr. Stewart. Mrs. Stewart. They’ve gone.”
“And Portia?”
“Out.”
“With the Stewarts?”
“With the tree.”
“Thank you. I’ll just go see her then. I’ll announce myself.”
“Milord.”
He left his hat on the peg and walked outside to the back of the house. She was sitting on the ground by the rowan tree, industriously doing something to the earth around the trunk. Her hands stilled when he had yet another five paces to cover.
“She’ll dig them up next spring, but I don’t care.” With both hands, she tamped down the dirt around the rowan sapling. “I’ve planted a hundred of them here, and next spring they’ll come up, and I’ll be the only one who knows it’s my name they’re saying.”
“The crocuses?”
She swiped a hand across her forehead and twisted a bit to look at him. There was a smear of dirt just at the part of her hair. “Yes. Why are you here?”
“Where is Mr. Stewart?”
Her hands fell to her lap. “I sent him away.”
“Did you?” He held out his hand, and she put her gloved hand in his and stood.
She glanced away, then back. “He’s a decent man, but you’re right. He doesn’t deserve a wife who will never love him.”
He pulled her close and brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek. “Don’t be unhappy. You know I can’t bear it.”
His bare hand against her warm skin, a touch so light he hardly felt it, except he did. He remembered his mouth over hers and the dizzying wonder of finding her in his embrace again. This contact plunged through his body in the same way. He continued downward, caressing along her jaw, her throat. “I’ve done nothing but think about you since I left. Every second since I arrived. Before Wordless. After Wordless.”
“I as well.”
“Every bloody moment of the last ten years and, God willing, every moment of the rest of my life.” He brought out his handkerchief and cleaned away the dirt on her forehead.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He removed her thick gardening gloves one at a time, and shoved them into his coat pocket. “Please. Hear me out. You’re right, too. All along you’ve been right. We can’t change the past, but we don’t need to. Everything we need to know about each other we discovered that day at Wordless. If you don’t believe me, I’ll prove it to you again.”
“Prove what?”
“That we are still in love. Despite what happened. Because of what happened. Will you let me show you?”
She tugged on her hand, and he tightened his fingers. “Here?”
“In private, if you don’t mind.” Her hand clasped in his, he dashed across the lawn to the back door. Inside, they caught their breath, and then headed upstairs, an urgent journey to his room.
Northword closed the door to his room as softly as he could. His fingers were tight around Portia’s hand, and he didn’t let go even after he turned the key in the lock. Arm straight down, he interlaced his fingers with hers. The palm of his other hand slapped on the wall ab
ove her shoulder, taking his weight while he leaned in and kissed her.
Eventually, they left off the frantic kissing and set themselves to an equally frantic removal of each other’s clothes. It took some time to remove the layers, to untie knots and unfasten buttons. But they were still young and healthy and far, far wiser about such things than they’d once been.
When she stood in just her shift, he touched her gently, from cheek, to throat, to her collar bone. Her breath hitched when his fingers reached the top swell of her breast. “You see?” he murmured. “That’s not changed. The way I react to you. Or you to me.”
His palm dropped down, too, touching her breast, curving over her, and with that, the world narrowed to him and Portia and that was precisely right. He allowed himself a smug smile. Again, he brushed just the tip of his finger over her. “Is that good?”
“Yes. Damn you, yes.”
“Think how it would feel if you were naked.” God, he loved to see her face when she was in passion.
“Beast.”
Her name was a sigh on his breath. He kissed her, one hand cupping the back of her neck, the other fully curved over her breast, molding her there so that he could push her breast higher. His tongue flicked out and followed the seam of her lips, and she opened her mouth and for him, it was like falling under her spell all over again.
He pulled away and cupped her face in his hands. She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, but that was all. They stayed like that, touching each other, settling into the familiarity of the contact and this time, there was a sense of the world coming right.
His torso pressed against her as he leaned in and kissed her ear. “I love you, Portia Temple.”
He wanted her now and afterward, and that was that. He wanted her in his life, this amazingly lovely creature who kissed with such delicate fever. Portia, who had inhabited his dreams for a decade. Portia, who had become a woman he admired and respected. He drew back before he completely lost control.
“How can you?”
“Because you are brave and strong and when I am with you, I want to see you laugh and smile. Because you would never, ever, ever put milk in my tea and tell me it’s good for my health.”