Tall, Dark and Disreputable (18 page)

She slammed the coal bucket down with a horrendous
crash. ‘It’s all gone now!’ A harsh, broken sound erupted from her chest. ‘You
owe
me!’

‘I’m sorry for what happened to you.’ Portia firmed her voice. This woman had to be made to understand, finally, here and now. ‘Truly I am. But your misfortunes came about due to your own actions. They’ve nothing,
nothing
to do with me.’ She glared at her. ‘Do you see me endlessly blaming you for the loss of my husband? Let us not speak of who owes whom! We’ve both paid enough. It’s over.’

‘It’s not over for you, is it, you spiteful, prideful bitch?’ Moira’s voice rose to a screech. ‘You’ve got a future, haven’t you? You can find another poor, unsuspecting sod to marry you. Look at me! No man will touch me! What am I supposed to do?’

Suddenly Mateo’s form filled the doorway. Hair tousled, his eyes heavy with sleep, he scowled at Portia. ‘Damnation,’ he grumbled. ‘What’s going on here?’

Cold despair washed over her. Mute, Portia watched Moira take in his loose linen shirt, tight breeches and bare feet.

‘Is this him? The next one?’ the other woman spat. ‘Don’t be taken in by her.’ She pointed a spiteful finger. ‘Her heart is cold, but the rest of her is worse. If you’ve a wish for a warm bedmate, then keep looking.’

Portia clenched her shaking hands and raised her chin.

‘Portia? Who is this little shrew?’

Mateo came further awake and quickly recognised the danger of his position. The only tom in a cat fight?
Not a good place to be. He rubbed the last bit of sleep from his eyes and began to tally the butcher’s bill.

One down, it would seem. Miss Tofton slumped against the wall next to a tray-covered table, her hand in front of her eyes. The remaining two combatants still faced off. Portia—looking rumpled but lovely with colour flaring high in her cheeks—shot daggers at someone who appeared to be a serving girl—one whose pretty face had been marred some time in the recent past.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Portia’s opponent, ‘but you appear to be upsetting Lady Portia. This, you understand, is a sacred duty that has apparently fallen to me. I can’t have you interfering.’ He raised a hand and beckoned. ‘Come, then. I’m sure you understand. I’m afraid you’ll have to go.’

‘I’m not going anywhere until I’ve had my due,’ came the snarled reply.

Clearly the serving girl was unhinged. Or didn’t know when she was bested. Or both. ‘Portia?’ He turned to the only reasonable-looking person in the room. ‘Who is this…person?’

Her chin high and her eyes blazing, she answered. ‘She’s the woman who killed my husband.’

The servant girl gasped and reared back. Her face went bright red, and then deathly pale. Mateo knew just how she felt.

‘No!’ she gasped. ‘That’s not true. It was your fault, you cold bitch! If you’d been any kind of wife, he’d never have chased after me! And if you’d given him the
money he needed, we never would have made that bet, never been in that street…’ She broke down, sobbing, and threw herself against Mateo’s chest.

Other guests were beginning to gather in the hallway behind him. Mateo tried to put the girl away, but she pounded at him with her fists. ‘Just look at what she did to me!’ she cried.

‘Please, miss. I mean, ah, madam? Pull yourself together.’

Instead she collapsed in a heap at his feet. Mateo reached down to lift her up. She fought him. He dropped her and she attacked his legs, clawing and scratching in time with her sharp, sawing breaths. ‘Not my fault,’ she moaned repeatedly.

Portia turned away. Mateo was desperate for help. He turned to her companion. ‘Miss Tofton,’ he pleaded.

The girl clutched his ankles and sobbed harder. ‘Miss Tofton, please!’

Portia’s companion took pity on him. Her face shifted, a mask that wavered between anger and pity as she knelt down, captured the girl’s hands and pulled her in close.

Mateo heaved a grateful sigh. Carefully he eased away and went to shoo the audience away from the door and back to their rooms. When he returned, Miss Tofton was assisting the girl to her feet. The fight had gone out of her. She leaned into the older woman, her face turned away.

‘I’ll just take her downstairs,’ Miss Tofton said quietly.

Portia still faced the fire, her back to them all. She did not respond.

‘Will you need help?’ Mateo asked quietly.

The older woman shook her head. The girl’s sobs had quieted now. The rasping catch of her breath faded as Miss Tofton steered her into the hall and towards the stairs.

Quiet settled over the room. Mateo waited.

And waited. Portia neither moved nor spoke.

‘Portia,’ he began.

‘Just go, Mateo.’

‘But I—’

‘Please, go. I cannot take any more tonight.’

At a loss, Mateo fell back on the tried and true. He summoned a smile. ‘Come now, Portia! Don’t fret. You’re the clear winner in this skirmish.’

That got her moving. She rounded on him, eyes wide and clearly aghast. He winced. It was not the effect he’d been hoping for.

‘Winner?’ She’d gone from aghast to incredulous. Not a far trip, and not one that favoured him in any way. ‘Is that what you see here? A battle won?’ She whirled again and began to pace, as if she could not contain her outrage. ‘I cannot decide if it is because you are a man, or if you merely possess your own particular brand of obtuseness.’ She threw him a scorching look. ‘Would that I were a man, then, to see things in black and white.’ She snorted. ‘Most of us, and women most of all, know that life is lived in all the grey areas in between.’

She folded her arms and glared at him. ‘And in a horrible, dirty grey area such as this, there are no winners.’ She turned away again. ‘We are all losers.’

‘Perhaps I might see better if I knew what I was
looking at,’ he said quietly. ‘I think it’s time you told me just what this was all about.’

Silence again.

He was not going to be put off. ‘Clearly it involves J.T. I may be a clown, Portia, but I’m not stupid. I know there’s something I haven’t been told, something about his death that everyone else seems to know.’

‘It’s no secret,’ she said bitterly. ‘It’s a sordid tale that made every paper and a hundred broadsheets across the kingdom. I’m surprised you didn’t hear of it in Philadelphia.’

‘Tell me.’

‘I’d rather not.’ Her shoulders slumped. ‘I don’t think I can.’

He let out an explosive breath. ‘Of course you can.’ He crossed the room, stood between her and the obviously fascinating fire in the grate. Tenderly he cupped her face in his hands. ‘I’m beginning to believe you can do anything, Portia Tofton.’ He let his hands drift down, over her shoulders, down her arms. He grabbed up her hands. ‘Come. We’re going to talk, but not here.’

She was distracted enough not to object. ‘Where, then?’

He stood in the hall, her hand warm in his. His palms itched, tingling from that brief touch, eager for more. Looking about, he considered his options. His gaze slid past his own door, and kept on sliding. The lower part of his anatomy stirred, pointing in that direction. No.

‘Aha!’ He pulled her down the darkened hallway, to the stairs. Faint light drifted up from below, along with
the sound of masculine merriment from the public rooms. He swept an extravagant hand, indicating the top step. ‘Your seat, my lady.’ He raised a brow. ‘As long as you promise to behave. I recall what happened the last time we were in a stairwell alone together.’

‘Nothing happened!’ She was blushing, he knew it. He wished he could see it clearly.

‘Only because we were interrupted. You were going to kiss me, though.’

‘Is that how you recall it?’ She settled down on the top step and glanced archly up at him. ‘Strangely enough, I remember that
you
were on the verge of kissing
me
.’

He dropped down next to her, leaned in close. ‘Oh, that’s right,
cara
—I was going to kiss you. Damned thoroughly, too.’ He retreated, rested back on his elbows in a completely non-threatening pose. ‘But I promise—no kissing tonight.’

Dio
, was that a look of disappointment on her face? Suddenly he was grateful for the dim light. It was better if he didn’t know.

Footsteps sounded below. Slow and methodical, they climbed steadily upwards. ‘At least we’ll know if we’re to be interrupted,’ he whispered. They slid over towards the wall, leaving a path open.

Miss Tofton wearily rounded the turning below. She stopped, surprised to see them there.

‘How is she?’ Mateo asked softly.

‘Sleeping.’ Portia’s companion gave a wan smile. ‘I told you, you never know when you might need a little laudanum.’

Portia let loose a great sigh.

‘The landlord sends his apologies. I explained, and he understands the situation, but still asks if we could leave early, before she awakes.’

Mateo nodded.

‘Shall we head back to our room?’ Miss Tofton asked Portia pointedly.

‘I’ll have Portia back to you in a little while,’ Mateo answered for her.

A silent communication passed between the two women. Miss Tofton sighed. ‘Comesoon. You need your rest.’ She climbed past them. ‘Goodnight, Mr Cardea.’

‘Goodnight.’

After a moment the door closed behind her and they were left in the comforting darkness. Portia had tensed up again beside him; he could feel her unease radiating through the small space that separated them.

He kept silent.

And at last she relented, slumping against the wall beside her. ‘I don’t know where to begin,’ she said.

He shrugged. ‘At the beginning?’

‘No,’ she said definitely. ‘There’s too much hurt between now and the beginning. I’ll just stick with the end.’

He nodded. Her head turned, tilted questioningly.

‘I’m nodding,’ he said.

She laughed, but it turned into a sigh.

‘She was his bit of muslin?’ he prompted.

‘Yes, she was his mistress, obviously. Not his first—he made sure I was fully aware of that—but without a
doubt she was his most notorious. They were together quite a while—I wondered if they didn’t have real feelings for each other.’

His fists clenched. A sound of protest slipped out. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Go on.’

‘It was quiet enough at first, and I was preoccupied with Stenbrooke, and with my father’s health. But then the rumours and scandals began. I found out later it was because she wasn’t content just to be his mistress, she wished to be famous, acclaimed, sought after.’

‘Ah, but don’t we all?’ he murmured.

‘No, we don’t,’ she said firmly. ‘Some of us just wish to be left alone.’

And if that wasn’t a telling statement, then Mateo had never heard one.

‘At first he appeased her by getting up to mischief
with
her,’ she continued. ‘He dressed her up like a man and tried to sneak her into his club, but they were both tossed out before they’d barely made it past the door. He bought her a gleaming white high-perched phaeton with blue trim and a matched white team to pull it—and she had their manes and tails dyed blue, as well. He gave her lessons and she drove it all over town, always with a little blue-grey greyhound beside her on the bench.’

‘Ah, yes, she sounds an exact match for J.T.’

‘I think she was. They might have been happy together indefinitely.’

‘Were it not for money?’ he guessed wryly.

‘J.T.’s lack of it, more specifically. She became more
demanding. She wanted a certain, expensive, diamond necklace and he didn’t have the blunt for it. Perhaps it was just an excuse—for she announced that she was moving on to a new protector with deeper pockets.’

‘Poor J.T.,’ Mateo said mockingly.

‘He was desperate to keep her. He came to me, demanding money, but I hadn’t any to give him—and I wouldn’t have given it, in any case. He went back to town and made a bet with her. He would race her through the streets of London, each in a high-perch phaeton. If he won, she would stay with him. Should she win, he’d buy her a necklace
and
let her go with his blessing.’

‘Oh, Lord,’ he whispered.

‘They set the reservoir at Green Park as their destination. All their low friends and members of the
demimonde
gathered to cheer them on.’

Mateo’s teeth ground together. ‘Were your brothers there?’

‘No, thank goodness. I like to think that they would have tried to talk some sense into him.’

Mateo was not so generous, but he let it rest.

‘They barrelled down Curzon, then he took HalfMoon Street and she took Clarges. They met at Piccadilly and were racing towards the end when they came upon a carter carrying a load of wooden faggots. His nag had broken down. They never had a chance. The carter was killed outright.’

‘And J.T.?’

‘He was crushed under someone’s wheels. He lived
in agony for a couple of days. Long enough for me to arrive—at which point he soundly berated me for ruining his life.’

‘Consistent to the end,’ Mateo said bitterly.

‘The papers reported every dirty detail. And while all of England rebuked him for his careless disregard of safety and consequence, he blamed me for all the shortcomings of his life. Had I been a better wife, he would have been happy in Berkshire. Had I not been the dull, sturdy type more interested in playing in the mud, he wouldn’t have had to stray. Had I not poured all of his money into the wreck of the estate, he could have lived happily in London.’

Hate this hot and potent must be a sin. Mateo couldn’t help it; he dearly hoped that J. T. Tofton currently occupied a particularly nasty corner of hell. He clenched his fists and struggled to breathe evenly.

‘A futile, meaningless death,’ she finished bitterly, ‘that in true Tofton fashion, managed to hurt a great many people.’

She sighed. ‘You can see what happened to her. I suppose she’s been here since the accident. About six months afterward, she began to write to me, demanding money.’

Mateo sat up straight. ‘You didn’t give it to her?’

‘No, though she threatened to take her case to the courts, since she had lost her livelihood.’

‘Ridiculous.’

‘I still had my hands full paying off all of J.T.’s legitimate creditors. But I did take in the carter’s family,
brought them to Stenbrooke. Somehow she heard of it and her letters increased in number and malevolence.’