Tall, Dark and Disreputable (12 page)

‘Ah,’ Portia said suddenly. ‘The comfrey!’

‘Yes, that was a component. We kept her on a special
diet of my design. And she looked so damned healthy! Sound and strong—and fast, too. I thought we’d struck upon something big. We entered her in the Oxford races. My friend and I both bet heavy on her.’

‘What happened?’ asked Mateo, although the answer seemed obvious.

‘She nearly did it, nearly won. They were turning into the last stretch and she started to pull away from the pack. Another jockey saw her making to leave them, and he jostled her—set his mount against her hard and deliberate.’

‘Oh, no.’ Portia’s face fell.

‘Aye. She went down in a tumble. Shattered a front leg and a back. Had to be put down right there on the track. Another colt was caught up in it, too. They tried to save him, but after a day or two, had to give it up.’ He shook his head, closed his eyes and drank again. ‘Worst day of my life.’

‘But what does Bright Early Morning have to do with Stenbrooke?’ asked Portia.

‘My friend, the breeder, he lost his most promising filly. He lost a fortune. And he lost a good bit of his reputation, as well.’ He turned pleading eyes to Mateo. ‘You see, don’t you? I owed him. Money, but more, too. It was a debt of honour.’ He looked again to Mateo for understanding.

And Mateo knew what he meant. ‘So he asked this of you? That you deliver the deed to Stenbrooke?’

‘Among other things, but, yes. He sent the paperwork by courier. But at the time we were having major
drainage problems in an important field. So I sent the fellow on to Rankin so he could handle it for me.’

‘And it was not Averardo who asked this of you?’

‘No, it was Dowland—Lord Dowland, I should say.’

Mateo knew him. Had met the baron, in fact, when he had attended the festivities of his cousin Sophie’s wedding to Lord Dayle. Near to Mateo’s age, Dowland was full of enthusiasm for racing, and for Parliamentary reform. And he was something of a kindred spirit. Together they had cut a swathe through Dorset, mourning Charles’s loss of freedom and celebrating their own.

‘Who is Averardo to him, though?’ Portia asked.

‘I don’t know. I barely looked the papers over, just sent the courier on to Rankin.’ He paused. ‘It was the courier’s idea, now that I think back on it. He said he could see how busy I was, and suggested that the matter was straightforward, and something that could be handled by a subordinate.’

Mateo snorted. ‘I’ve never heard of a less straight-forward matter of business in my life.’ He stilled. ‘Nor a more inventive courier.’ He fixed Riggs with a hard stare. ‘All copies of that conveyance have gone missing, sir. Rankin thought it likely that this courier had brought them back to you.’

‘The hell you say!’ He bit his lip and shot an apologetic glance at Portia. ‘Sorry, my lady, but, no, I got a note from Rankin stating the matter was done, and I’ve neither seen nor heard another word on the matter since.’ He added with irony, ‘Until today.’

‘And would you perhaps recall the name of the courier?’ Portia asked.

Mateo nodded. In a situation abounding with odd circumstances and unusual practices, this courier appeared to be the only common thread.

‘No, that’s not something I would…’ He paused. ‘Wait.’

He ran a hand over his brow, leaving a streak of dirt behind. Mateo declined to inform him of it and enjoyed a petty surge of satisfaction.

‘I do recall something. It was an Italian name, Lawrence—no. Lorenzo or something like. I only thought twice of it because the man was so damned pretty. He looked like he’d stepped straight out of a painting from one of the Renaissance masters.’

‘Is there anything else you might remember? Anything that might help us?’ Portia asked.

Riggs just shook his head.

‘We put a scare into your man Rankin. He’s likely trying to track those deeds, as well. I doubt he’ll bestir himself too far…’ Mateo noted that Riggs had the grace to flush ‘…but if he finds a copy and files it with the courts before we can track this Averardo down, then our situation becomes more complicated.’

‘I was little more than a go-between in this damnable situation,’ Riggs said bitterly. ‘And now I regret even that much.’

He could not regret it as much as Mateo mourned the thought of another delay. ‘We’ll need to speak to Lord Dowland next, it would seem. Parliament’s out, so he
could be anywhere—at his seat or anywhere on the racing circuit. You wouldn’t happen to have an idea just where we could find him, would you?’ Try as he might to stop it, still bitterness leaked into the words as they left his mouth.

‘He has a fine stud in Lambourn. He spends most of his time there, these days. You’ll find him there,’ Riggs said with assurance. ‘We’re trying the special diet again, and this time we are starting while the animal is young. He’s looking over the likely candidates.’

Portia rose from her rustic seat. ‘Thank you for telling us what you know.’

‘You won’t write to my mother?’ He shuddered and climbed to his feet, as well.

She smiled. ‘No.’ Her head nodded towards the men behind him, hitching up the plough. ‘Good luck with your field.’

‘I’ll call Rankin off if I can,’ he promised.

‘Thank you.’

Mateo flinched when she bent and kissed the man’s grimy cheek. He took her arm and they started back on the long walk to the house. Portia strode along in earnest silence, for which he was grateful. In his mind he began to calculate distance, money and, above all, time. Precious days ran like water through his fingers. The harder he gripped, the more slipped away and each drip of a lost second echoed a mournful death knell for his future.

P
ortia watched Mateo’s frown grow as they made their way back to Mr Riggs’s run-down house. By unspoken consent the three of them politely declined Mrs. Pickens’s gruff offer of a room for the night. Thankfully, Dorrie had only a short time to fuss over Portia’s muddied hem before the landau was brought around. Her companion gazed back on the place thoughtfully as they pulled away.

‘Do you know, I think we’ve discounted Mr Riggs’s possibilities too quickly,’ she mused.

Portia rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, hush, Dorrie.’

The shadows lengthened as they headed towards Marlborough and the glower on Mateo’s face kept apace. Guilt churned in Portia’s stomach. She knew he was concerned over lost time and his need to be gone. She sighed in relief as they drove into town just as the last light slipped from the sky.

Stacks of carriages, post-chaises and coaches lined up
outside the Castle Inn, but there were still rooms to be had. No private parlours were available, however, so the three of them ate a simple meal in the public dining room. Still and silent, Mateo picked at his food. Portia watched, the knot of anxiety in her stomach growing with each monosyllabic sentence he uttered. Guilt stabbed her. It was just so
wrong
to see his rest less energy frozen, his ever-changing expression immobilised into one haunted expression. She could take no more.

‘Excuse me, please.’ She stood. ‘I need to speak to the landlady.’

She pushed her way through the busy room, wishing fervently that she had never kissed Mateo Cardea. The signs were plain upon his face. She’d been in his shoes, could nearly feel his misery and increasing panic as if it were her own. He was trapped, just as firmly as she. Every time they caught a glimpse of light, the tunnel stretched out longer.

She made her way towards the back of the inn. Itwas quieter here, with the bustle and hum of the common rooms replaced by only the occasional tread on the stair. Portia found her way to a dark corner and covered her face with her hands. Somehow the fact that she’d kissed Mateo—propositioned him, practically—made it all that much worse. It added an element of awkwardness for him and a sense of anguished hopelessness for her.

For as stupid and futile as it might be, she still wanted him.

He’d refused her advances, made it clear that he valued his agenda over hers; he’d even ticked off to Mr
Riggs all the reasons why she was unmarriageable, as if it were nothing more than a market list.

But he’d also let her shine today, in a way that her husband, her brothers, even her father would not have allowed. It had been she who had won Riggs over, because Mateo had not pushed her aside or felt threatened by her expertise. Even when her plan hadn’t gone as she’d expected, together they had made it work. And she’d used her title again, she marvelled. She hadn’t planned on it, it had just slipped out—and she hadn’t even flinched. It had felt good. Almost, for a moment, as if she was whole again.

She’d been riding high as they left that field. He hadn’t once made her feel awkward, or out of place. Instead she’d been buoyed by a feeling of success and self-worth—until she’d seen Mateo’s face and realised what it had cost him.

She rubbed her brow repeatedly with her fingertips. Now all she could feel was exhausted by the emotional extremes of the day. For so long she’d kept herself insulated from exactly this sort of emotional tumult. It was safer to wrap her passion up into her gardens.

But it was also lonely. She’d managed to hide from that consequence for a long time. She’d brushed it aside and told herself that it was more than a fair trade. Until she’d burst into that inn in the middle of the night and found Mateo Cardea again.

Now all she wanted was to burrow into his arms and allow his kiss and the touch of his hands to chase the sadness, the awful, intense
aloneness
, away. Only he
could do it, bring her back from that lonely edge, connect her solidly to the world once more.

But she couldn’t ask it of him. So she determined to do what she could for him instead.

She brought her hands away from her face and pushed away from the wall. And froze. A gentleman stood just a few feet away, staring at her with a furrowed brow. Her heart started to pound. It was dark this far back inside the inn, and quiet.

‘Are you all right, ma’am?’ The stranger stepped closer. He wore a look of concern.

‘Yes, of course. Thank you.’ Portia stepped away, nervous. Long, dark locks framed his face, caught back in a queue. She’d seen plenty of men around the docks with hair like that, but never a man in the garb of a gentleman. The combination was incongruous.

She jumped as a bang, then a curse, sounded down the hall. The harried landlady emerged from a room, burdened with a load of dirty linen.

‘Let me help you with that, Mrs White.’ Portia hurried to the woman’s side. She didn’t look back at the stranger. ‘I was wondering if you could answer a few questions for me.’

Mateo left the stables, his feet dragging as he headed back inside the inn. Tonight he missed the sea, with an intensity that only another sailor could understand.
Dio
, but he longed for the vast, empty ocean about him and a clean wind at his back. The sea challenged a man, it was true. Constantly she tested his skills and endurance,
but she also gave him the sense that he was master of his own destiny. Prove yourself worthy, and she gifted you with the certain knowledge that the world was yours for the taking.

But here? Here nothing was certain, and his destination was complicated by the needs of others, and clouded by deceit. The opportunity for a simple trade with Portia had long since disappeared. Worse, his suspicion that someone was working to manipulate this unlikely chain of events only solidified as time passed and complications arose. But who would enact such an elaborate play? For truly, he began to feel as if he’d been playing a part prescribed to him by some unknown author—and he didn’t even know the full cast of characters, let alone understand the plot.

Mateo had neither the time nor patience to play a pivotal role in someone else’s drama. He was captain of a merchant ship, not a damned green-room dandy, and he knew what to do when a headwind tried to force him in a direction he did not want to go. He was prepared to beat an upwind course. Now he just had to inform his crew.

He wound his way through the sprawling inn, making for the back stairs. He’d just started up when he heard a door slam, somewhere deeper in the bowls of the place. A moment later he heard his name called.

‘Mateo, wait!’ Portia rushed from the shadows to join him on the stairs. ‘I wish to speak to you!’

And was this not just what every seaman sent ashore dreams of—a beautiful girl waiting for him, eager for his company? Her skin glowed in the faint light, flushed
with eagerness or exertion, and her eyes sparkled. She’d changed her gown, and although this one carried no field dirt about the hems, its deep v-shaped neckline tempted Mateo’s thoughts in a very earthy direction.

‘Will you come up to our room?’ she asked.

‘I will, if you agree to play chaperon. Miss Tofton appears to be growing dangerously marriage-minded. I don’t want to be caught in a compromising position.’

‘Oh, stop.’ She sounded perversely irritated. And that led him to feel perversely amused.

‘I was just on my way there,’ he said. ‘I have something to discuss with you and Miss Tofton, as well.’

He gestured for her to proceed ahead of him, and then spent the rest of the two flights of steep stairs regretting that bit of chivalry. Her rump swayed above him, at nearly eye level and just out of his reach. His pulse quickened, his body stirred and he congratulated himself on the plan he meant to propose—one that would grant him a timely reprieve from Portia’s tempting presence.

They’d nearly reached the second-floor landing when they met a couple of men coming down, carrying between them a wide, unwieldy trunk. The sweat and strain of their faces was testimony to the weight of the thing, their speed as they rounded the landing indicated their eagerness to be relieved of it. Portia pressed up against the stairwell wall to let them pass, but the damned thing shifted and swayed in her direction as the first man started backwards down the stairs.

Instinctively, Mateo reached out for her. He pulled
her close, pressed her tight against the wall and shielded her body with his. The trunk thumped into him, scraping heavily across his back as the men cursed and struggled to regain their grips.

‘Sorry, guv!’ one of them called as they continued their descent.

He didn’t respond. He was pressed full length into Portia Tofton—and he had no inclination to pull away.

Ever so slowly, she lifted her head. Their gazes met. And the world shrank, contracting mightily until nothing existed save for the two of them, and the retreating clatter of the men and their burden. Her eyes darkened, even as all the tension ebbed from her body. Desperately, Mateo wished he could close his eyes and savour this delicious sensation; her gradual moulding to the front of him.

Was this—this heart-pounding, breath-stealing moment—the reason his father had left the family legacy to Portia? Had he been so convinced that throwing them together would lead inevitably to this tortuous, physical longing? For the first time in his life, Mateo was tempted to do exactly as his father wished.

He stepped back instead, but her gaze remained locked with his, and he was damned if he could look away. The air between them had come alive. It pulsed with awareness, and pure, undeniable need.

There was no denying it. He had to kiss her. He might expire on the spot if he didn’t. He reached for her, already anticipating the yield of her mouth against his, the feel of her exquisite curves filling his hands. His
hands closed around her waist, cradled the generous swell of her hips. She reached up…and the slam of a door sounded above, followed by the fast approach of a set of footsteps.

Her arms dropped. He released her. They turned away from each other just as a gentleman reached the landing above.

‘Good evening,’ the man said with a tip of his hat. Judging by the hint of a smile on his damned pretty face, he had an idea of what he’d interrupted.

Mateo murmured an indistinct reply. He’d just indicated for Portia to precede him when a niggling memory caused him to turn and glance at the man again. But the fellow was gone already; he could hear his footsteps continuing on down the stairs. Mateo shrugged. Silent and tense, he followed Portia to the room she shared with Miss Tofton.

Her companion was comfortably ensconced there, Mateo noticed irritably. He’d asked her to come along expressly to prevent such tantalising interludes. What good did she do him, curled up by the fire like a cat?

‘I was wondering where you’d got to, Portia, and was just trying to summon the energy to come and find you!’ Miss Tofton said. ‘Good evening, Mr Cardea. I hope you find your room as comfortable as we do ours?’

‘I do.’ It was the damned stairwell that had proved uncomfortable. ‘I’d like to speak to you ladies about where we go from here, if you don’t mind.’

‘Of course.’ Portia perched herself on the edge of the bed. ‘I was going to ask the same of you.’

Mateo swallowed and went to lean against the mantel. ‘I’m afraid you’ll object to what I have to say,’ he began.

At the same time, Portia had looked to Miss Tofton and warned, ‘You won’t like what I mean to propose.’

He met Portia’s startled gaze while Miss Tofton looked from one to the other. ‘Well,’ she said briskly, ‘let’s get this unpleasantness over with, shall we?’

‘I would normally encourage the lady to go first, but I have a matter of importance to discuss,’ he said regretfully. ‘I can scarcely believe there’s been another leg added to this wild-goose chase, but it’s clear we need to get to Lambourn next—and we need to get there as quickly as possible.’ He paused. ‘I’ve been enquiring into the state of the roads between here and there.’

‘There are no direct routes, just a maze of narrow country lanes,’ Portia interrupted. She shrugged. ‘I’ve been asking about, as well.’

‘It’s not terribly far as the crow flies, perhaps twelve miles or so north-east, according to the ostlers. But a larger coach cannot travel that way. We’d have to travel back to Hungerford, take the road north and east to West Shefford, and then turn west towards Lambourn. It will double the distance and just take too long.’

‘I agree,’ said Portia. ‘The best route is the most direct, but it must be taken on horseback, as there are places we would need to leave the roads altogether to cross over the chalk plains.’

‘Yes, exactly.’ He could only be grateful for her understanding. ‘That’s why I’d like you and Miss Tofton to return to Stenbrooke while I go alone.’

‘What? No! I agree that Dorrie should return home, but the
two
of us will continue on to Lambourn.’

They glared at each other.

‘Wait just a moment, both of you.’ Miss Tofton sounded distinctly grumpy. ‘Portia, you mentioned that Mr Riggs promised to stop that solicitor—Rankin—from pursuing this matter. If that’s so, then why are we still in a tearing hurry?’

Mateo struggled for patience. ‘Rankin is an unknown. Riggs may be able to stand him down. He might never even have lifted a finger against us after we left. Or he might be the mean and stubborn sort to do all he can to hurt us, despite anything Riggs says, just because we crossed him. We cannot know.’

He hardened his voice, just a bit. He wanted them both very clear on the urgency with which he needed to be done with this. ‘But even if you remove him from consideration, I am still facing an important time issue. I must get back to Philadelphia soon, if at all possible. I am, of course, thrilled to even have the opportunity to get Cardea Shipping back, but if I delay much longer, this escapade will have cost me more than a few months’ time and the loss of my pride. It will cost the company the rewards and opportunities resulting from several years of struggle and hard work.’ Earnestly, he faced the two women. ‘My family’s fate is inextricably bound up with the success of the business. In a hundred different capacities, they make their livings and stake their futures on it. If I fail at this, I fail them, too.’