Pleasuring the Lady (The Pleasure Wars) (29 page)

“Oh dear, yes, the milliner.” Portia smiled. “I cannot wait to see what they have concocted in the hat arena. If I am not immediately available when Potts returns, do have her fetch me for a demonstration.”

Armstrong swallowed, his face very pale, and Portia tilted her head. “Good Lord, man, you are very out of sorts. Is there something amiss?”

He took a deep breath. “No, my lady. It is just that…”

She raised her eyebrows to encourage him when he trailed off in discomfort. “That…?”

“Your brother is here.”

Portia froze and her head began to pound even harder than it had been all day. She didn’t speak, but rubbed a hand over her face. “He is, is he?”

“He arrived half an hour ago and demanded he be allowed into a parlor to wait. He seemed intoxicated, despite the early hour.” The butler smoothed his jacket. “I wasn’t certain how to proceed, so I placed him in the green tea room.”

Portia swallowed hard.

“I could have him removed, if that is what you would like,” Armstrong continued.
 

Portia thought about that. It was exactly what she would like, but that would be the cowardly way to deal with a most unpleasant circumstance. If she was willing to be direct with her husband, perhaps it was time to be the same with her brother.

“No, I will see him. Though it might be best if you keep a few footmen at notice just in case he becomes unruly.”

“Absolutely, my lady.” The butler tilted his head. “They will be there to wait in moments.”

“Thank you.” She squeezed the other man’s arm gently and then walked down the hallway toward the little tea room. Outside, she drew a long breath and then entered the chamber.

Her brother was not seated, but stood at the fireplace, hands clenched. When the door opened, he turned toward it, and she shook her head. He looked terrible. His face was puffy with drink and lack of sleep, his eyes dull and rimmed with red.
 

“Great God, Hammond,” she said, pulling the door almost fully shut behind her, but not quite. “You look a sight.”

He glared at her. “Impertinent chit.”

She ignored the nasty tone and words. “You didn’t send word you would be visiting today.”

He shrugged. “I felt like coming, and you need me now more than ever, don’t you?”

She wrinkled her brow as she slowly took a seat and stared up at him. “Need you?”

“Your husband has run off,” he sneered, pleasure lighting up his gaze. “It’s the talk of London.”

Of course it was. Portia barely bit back a sob. “I don’t know what my marital circumstances have to do with you, Hammond.”

“When he puts you out, you and Mother will need a place to go, won’t you? If you make certain he settles you well, if you make sure he gives me more blunt, I can ensure that place will be provided.”

She barely held back a humorless bark of laughter. “I don’t think I like the kinds of hell holes you pick out, Hammond.”

He glared at her even more darkly, though he seemed to be having trouble focusing.

“How long did it take you to gamble away every penny he paid you to protect our mother?” she whispered. “You’ve had the money so short a time, but the desperation I see on your face tells me it must be gone already.”

He flinched. “Shut your mouth, you stupid girl. We aren’t talking about my failings, but yours. You’ll need someone to take responsibility for you once he puts you on the street, so you’d best be nice.”

Portia considered that charge. She might have believed it once, but now…

“You are so convinced that every person is as cold and cruel as you are,” she said with a sad shake of her head. “But you don’t know Miles. You don’t even know me.”

“I knew no man would want to keep you around more than a month, and I was right,” he barked.

She didn’t react, even though his words cut her more deeply than she would have liked.
 

“Miles may not love me,” she began, the words sticking in her throat. “He may not even want me anymore, but he is a good man. A decent man. He would never leave me to your devices. He would never abandon me or our mother, even if he hated me. So I don’t
need
you, Hammond.”

His face darkened with anger and he moved on her a step. Now she did flinch and pushed to her feet to avoid any attack he might make in his drunken rage.

“You owe me!” he growled. “And by God, you will pay or I’ll make sure you suffer for it.”

She stared at him, this empty shell of a man who had been trained to hate by their equally empty shell of a father. She no longer feared him—she only pitied him. But she had no intention of ever allowing him to control her again.

“You have no power anymore,” she said, surprised by how strong her voice sounded, even though it was quiet. “I have a higher title, I have far more money and I have people willing to put you out on your ass in the gutter if I so much as glance toward that door. So you may threaten, Hammond. You may bluster. But you will never hurt me or our mother again. And if you try, I will bring down the full force of my new resources upon you, is that clear?”

He stared at her, blank-faced and seemingly confused. “But you…but I…”

“You will leave here,” she continued. “And you will never darken my door again. Never. Do that and I will consider making some kind of arrangement for a
small
stipend for your living expenses.”

His lips pursed. “You would do this to your brother, your own flesh and blood?”

She shook her head. “The only reason I consider giving you anything is because you
are
my flesh and blood. Otherwise, you would have
nothing
.” She motioned to the door. “Now get out. If you don’t, my men will come and assist you in leaving.”

Hammond gaped. “Portia—”

She pointed to the exit more strenously. “Good day.”

He swallowed, then all but ran past her and out into the hall. Portia stared at the spot by the fire where he had stood as she heard him exit the front door without so much as a word for Armstrong.
 

“That must have felt very good.”

She spun around to face the door, to face the voice she knew so well. There, standing in the entryway, smiling at her, was Miles.

How could he be so handsome, even more handsome than she remembered? He hadn’t been shaving, apparently, so his face was scruffy with whiskers that gave him a rough, powerful look. His eyes were dark and bright with high emotions as they locked onto her and did not move.
 

“I—” she began, staring at him, drinking in the vision of him back in their home. Feeling such love for him that it hurt her chest.

“Portia,” he murmured.

She swallowed hard and did her best to maintain a little dignity and control. “Miles, I-I didn’t expect you home.”

He frowned. “I’m sorry to have been gone for so long. I had a great deal to think about. I didn’t expect to find your brother here. He hasn’t troubled you while I’ve been absent, has he?”

She fought for breath enough to answer. “No, no, this was the first day he arrived. How long were you standing there?”

He smiled again as he entered the parlor and drew the door fully shut behind him. “Long enough to hear you stand up for yourself. Long enough to be so very proud of you.”

Her heart swelled. “I thought that if I had decided to live my life with honesty, it had to extend to everyone, even my bastard of a brother.”

Miles’ smile fell ever so slightly at her mention of honesty. There was no doubt he was thinking about her unwanted confession of love for him.
 

“My favorite part was when you told him you would bring down the full force of your title and money on him if he troubled you again.”

She blinked. Dear God, she had said that. “I hope you didn’t think I overstepped, as it is your money and title I referred to.”

“You may have both to bring Hammond down to size any time you need them.”

Portia swallowed hard. They were talking so naturally when a wall was between them, so high she knew it couldn’t be breeched. He shifted slightly and she knew he felt the same. He had come home for a reason. And she could see he had something to say.
 

She could only hope her face was calm and not reflecting the screaming fear and pain that lived inside of her as she anticipated what words would next fall from his mouth. She feared she already knew them.
 

He would tell her that he couldn’t live with her if she loved him. That she would have to go away to another property and live as his wife in name alone. He might even say that he pitied her for her foolishness.
 

That would be the worst thing she could think of.

“Please sit,” Portia said, motioning to a place before the fire and moving to the opposite seat. “We might as well be comfortable in body if we cannot be in spirit.”

A ghost of a smile turned up his lips and he did what she asked. For a moment, they merely sat together, and Portia shifted in discomfort as he kept his stare focused intently on her.

“I want to talk to you about what you told me a few nights ago,” he finally began.

“I understand.” Her voice sounded so far away and funny, as if it belonged to someone else.

He took a deep breath. “Are your feelings the same now that we have had distance between us? Or have you reconsidered what you told me in what was, perhaps, the heat of the moment?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. He was giving her an opportunity and it would be so easy to play off what she had said and perhaps save some version of their arrangement. Instead, she nodded.
 

“Miles, my feelings are the same. I love you,” she whispered, her voice breaking just a little.

He released his breath slowly, as if he had been holding it. “Then you and I need to discuss some new terms to our understanding.”

“Our marriage, you mean,” she whispered, bowing her head at his choice of words.
 

He nodded. “Yes, our marriage. Portia, you know my past.”

She jerked her gaze up in surprise, for that was not the topic she had thought they would discuss. “Y-Yes.”

His gaze grew distant. “You are the only person who knows it outside of my own sister. You have been exceedingly kind and understanding about my history, but you cannot be blind to the fact that it informs my future in many ways.”

Portia was still confused about this line of discussion, but she nodded regardless, happy for the intimacy of this subject if nothing else.

“Of course it would,” she said. “Our pasts shape us.”

He flinched. “Well, my past makes it impossible for me to promise you that I know how to…how to be a good husband or friend to you, or even a good father to our children.”

She drew back. “You have already been a good husband and friend to me.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, trying to make you take two men as lovers, putting you into a carriage when you refused and ignoring you for three days is stellar behavior in a friend, you are correct.”

She smiled gently, despite the sensitivity of the subject. “It might not have been your finest hour, but I never thought you did any of that out of cruelty, Miles.”

His brow wrinkled. “Why
do
you think I did it?”

Her lips parted and she struggled to find the right words. “I-I believe you were taken aback by my admission of my feelings. I believe that since you do not feel anything like that for me that you were uncomfortable, not only because I violated a rule of our original arrangement, but also because you hesitated to strike down my hopes by telling me you will not and cannot ever feel the same way for me. Which is a noble thing in its own way.”

“That’s not why,” he whispered, his expression gentling as he reached out to take her hand.

It was the first time he had touched her since that night they parted and Portia had a hard time not sighing with pleasure, with relief.
 

“Then why?” she managed to choke out.

“I left because I’m a coward.” He dropped her hand and got to his feet to pace the room. “Because when you told me you loved me, it frightened me.”

“Frightened?” she repeated in surprise. That was the last descriptor she ever would have thought he would use.

He nodded and when he spoke again, his tone was choked. “I don’t want to be my father, who abused his family with his fists and his harsh words and his utter lack of compassion. But I don’t know how to be better. I’m afraid I would let you down, Portia. I’m afraid I won’t know what to do to make your life as beautiful as you deserve if you sank so low as to love me.”
 

He bent his head in what seemed like defeat.

“I’m afraid I will regularly fail and disappoint you. And that one day you will look at me and regret you told me you loved me because your feelings have changed.”

Portia blinked. This could not be happening. This confession wasn’t the gentle dismissal she had been expecting. It was something else.
 

Something that gave her a thin reed of hope to cling to as she got to her feet and moved toward Miles slowly.