Deb Marlowe - Tall, Dark and Disreputable

‘And did he?’

She shook her head. Mateo watched several heavy strands of her honeyed hair fall from confinement and curl against the slender column of her neck. ‘No, neither. So I immediately sent a message to you, asking you to come and help me decipher this mess.’ Her gaze fell away. ‘I realise it might have been short, and perhaps awkward. That was precisely how I felt, considering how long it had been…and especially considering the nature of our last contact.’

Her hand rose and hovered near the bodice of her gown. Mateo recognised her obvious unease and thought back to her letter. It had indeed been curt and cryptic—and it had helped fuel his rising fury and suspicion. He sighed. It didn’t matter now, he supposed, but he was surprised at the intense relief that came with the knowledge that she had not conspired against him.

‘It was only a day or so later that yet another solicitor came calling—but for a very different reason.’ Portia exchanged a pained look with Miss Tofton. ‘He carried with him a deed of conveyance and informed me that Stenbrooke was no longer mine.’

Mateo shook his head. His brain hurt from the sudden shifts in this conversation. ‘How can that be?’

‘That was exactly our reaction,’ Miss Tofton said indignantly.

‘It could be—’ and now Portia’s voice rang with bitterness ‘—because of my rotten blighter of a husband.’

‘Portia!’

Mateo felt inclined to echo her companion’s gasp of shock.

‘I beg your pardon, Dorrie, but you are well aware of my feelings and Mateo might as well be, too.’

‘But to speak so of the dead…’ She shuddered.

‘Will not bother him in the least,’ Mateo assured her. He turned to Portia. ‘Please, go on.’

She nodded. ‘As you said, Stenbrooke came into my possession on my marriage. It was meant to be secured to me and my children in the marriage settlements. Somehow, my father failed to see it done.’ She fought to keep her resentment from overpowering her. ‘I have no notion how my father could have neglected to take care with the single most important thing in my life, but the fact remains that he didn’t. Stenbrooke therefore became my husband’s property, according to law.’ She paused. ‘And I had no idea. It was an oversight that no one saw fit to inform me of.’

Drawing a deep breath, she continued. ‘J.T. knew of it, obviously. He used the estate as a stake in a card game. He lost my home over a hand of faro—another fact that he neglected to tell me before he went and got himself so ignominiously killed.’

There was not enough room in Mateo’s head for all his myriad reactions to this conversation. A whirlwind of conflicting thoughts and feelings set his temples pounding. Ridiculous, then, that the one at the top was an ugly sense of satisfaction that perhaps Portia had not loved her husband.

‘I am sorry to hear it,’ he managed to say.

‘Oh, but you don’t even know the worst of it!’ Miss Tofton exclaimed. ‘This new owner is craven. He didn’t even have the decency to face Portia; he merely sent along a newly hired solicitor to deliver the news. And that dreadful man was in turn evasive and cruel. He said that his employer is an experimental agriculturist who is always in search of new ground for his research. He said it was quite likely that all of this would be ploughed under if ever he got his hands on Stenbrooke!’

Mateo narrowed his focus, and watched Portia intensely.

‘I want you to help me,’ she said simply.

He exhaled sharply. ‘And how do you expect me to do that? Portia, you must know why I’ve come. I want to make arrangements to buy back your interest in Cardea Shipping.’

She shook her head. ‘I won’t sell it to you.’

He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the twisting of his stomach. ‘Perhaps just the Baltimore office, then. I started that branch myself, in the face of my father’s opposition. I confess, I don’t have enough ready capital of my own to buy you out completely, but I could likely manage just the one office.’

She shook her head again.

Now there was anger churning inside of him along with everything else. ‘Portia—’

‘No.’ She interrupted him yet again. ‘There will be no sale.’ Tension shone apparent in the thin line of her mouth and in every stiff angle of her body. ‘Instead I propose a simple trade. Stenbrooke for Cardea Shipping.’ Her hands gripped the end of the table until her knuckles whitened. ‘Buy Stenbrooke, Mateo, and sign it back over to me. Give me my life back, and I’ll give you yours.’

Portia clenched her teeth, her fists, and every muscle at her command as she waited for Mateo’s answer. He would agree. Of course he would. He had to.

His gaze, staring so boldly into hers, broke away. He exhaled sharply and pushed back from the table, crossing over to the stone balustrade. Leaning heavily, he stared out over the garden and beyond for several silent minutes. Portia’s head began to ache with the strain.

‘Why do you not go to your brother for assistance?’ he asked at last.

‘I have,’ she said, helpless against the bitterness that coloured her tone again. ‘Nothing there has changed since we were children. I am still the youngest, the baby of the family, and a woman besides. What need have I to live alone on my own estate?’ She rose to her feet and crossed over to the potted rosa rugosa . With quick, sharp movements she began to pick fading leaves off it, keeping an eye on his bent, still form all the while.

‘Anthony cannot spare the expense, and if he had that sort of ready income, he’d be honour bound to put it into his own estate. He sees no reason why I should not be happy to pack my things and move back to Hempshaw. His countess is overrun, you see, exhausted from birthing four boys in six years, and could use a bit of help with keeping them in hand.’

Mateo let loose a sharp bark of laughter, although there was little humour in it. ‘That is Anthony all over.’

‘Yes,’ she said flatly. ‘But I won’t have it. I am tired of being let down by the men who are supposed to have my best interests at heart. I want my home, Mateo. I want my independence.’

‘At the very least she should be allowed to use the London house,’ Dorrie complained. That had been her favourite plan for their future. ‘But her brother is adamant about saving expenses and has leased it out.’

Finally Mateo turned and looked at her.

‘The rest of the world would no doubt agree with my brother,’ she said. ‘But I had hoped that once you were here, and saw what we’ve done, you would understand. We’ve both had everything we wanted in our grasp, only to have it snatched away.’

His expression was carefully blank, but she could see the tension in the stiff line of his jaw. ‘I don’t have enough to purchase an estate like this.’ He gestured about him.

‘Perhaps not, but between the two of us, together in possession of a company like Cardea Shipping, surely we could, ah, liquidate some assets?’ Her spine had gone as rigid as stone, but she would not plead, even now. ‘I realise that the prospect is not pleasant, but it must be better than the alternative.’She let the unspoken threat hover.

But Mateo’s head had come up. ‘I suppose it could be done. We’ve the Lily Fair just in at Portsmouth with a cargo of flax-seed and fine walnut. And the agent there is as good as any we have in the company. The cargo itself will fetch a fair price, but once she’s unloaded, we could put it about that we’d like to sell her.’ His hands clenched on the balustrade behind him. ‘ Dio , but I hate to give her up. She once made the run from Philadelphia to Liverpool in sixteen days, just two off the record.’