Whitfield moved quickly, blocking her path. She looked up at the blond Corinthian, her eyebrow cocked in question.
“And abandon me to myself?” With a mock pout, he pressed both hands to his heart as if mortally wounded.
Portia crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently. Surely he did not think such a tactic would work. She had been fending off suitors far more charming than he since the age of seventeen. “It would be ill-mannered of me not to look in on Mina.”
“I’m certain she is fine—”
“I should like to see for myself.” That said, she dropped her arms and stepped around him, not caring if he followed her or not. His heavy tread fell behind her, crunching over the pebbled path.
His beleaguered grumble reached her ears. “And what, pray, does it matter if she is sick?”
Portia stopped and whirled around, convinced she had misheard. “Pardon me?”
He flicked an imaginary piece of lint off his jacket and lifted his chin. In no mincing terms, without the faintest sign of apology in his eyes, he repeated, “What does it matter if she is sick?”
Marveling at his insensitivity, she raked him with a contemptuous glare and responded crisply,
“It matters a great deal to me.”
He laughed. A lilting, almost feminine laugh. “She’s a Moreton.” His look told her that should explain everything.
“Forgive me for being obtuse, but what does that matter?”
He waved a hand before him, as if the gesture would somehow prompt her understanding. “Let’s just say that if she is unwell, it’s not from any treatable malady.”
Portia stared.
Sighing, Whitfield went on, “No doubt she suffers from some sort of fit as a result of her madness. And there’s nothing anyone can do to help her on that score.”
Trembling with indignation, Portia stepped away from the horrid man, unwilling to place herself close to such idiocy. “Mina is not mad.”
Whitfield stepped forward and grasped her arm. Her skin crawled at where he held her and she tried to shake him off, but he clung like a tenacious root.
“Lady Portia,” he said, his voice slick as oil as it slid over her. “I fear that you’ve come here under some grave misapprehensions.” His fingers flexed, digging into her skin.
“Indeed?” she asked frostily, her lip curling back against her teeth.
“The Moretons are bad blood. Everyone knows it.” His mouth twisted in a wry smile and he dipped his head in acknowledgment. “At least everyone in these parts. Apparently not your family. They would not have sent you here to make a match with Mad Moreton had they—”
“I hardly know you,” she broke in, unwilling to hear more of his concern. “I certainly don’t require your advice on such matters.”
Portia twisted free, eager to be rid of his skincrawling touch. She turned, but he recaptured her arm, dragging her around to face him.
“Unhand me,” she commanded, her cheeks flaming with temper. She glanced at the hand manacling her arm, her flesh whitening where his fingers dug into her flesh.
“I simply seek to protect you from making a grave error.”
“So magnanimous of you,” she bit out, knowing his game. Protecting her had nothing to do with it. “Yet I fail to see how I am any concern of yours.”
His fingers tightened on her arm, hurting her. “I should very much like to change that, my lady,”
he murmured, his gaze sliding over her face with a thoroughness that made the back of her neck prickle. “You’re clearly on the hunt for a husband. Allow me to offer myself as a candidate. I’m of modest means, but far more suitable than Moreton.”
Portia gaped at him. Was it the country air? Or something in the water? First Moreton, and now this wretched man. They both behaved as if she had nothing better to do than find a husband. As if she could desire nothing else out of life. None of the gentlemen in London had come close to their impudence.
Portia flexed her ankle, preparing to stomp down on his foot if he did not release her. Only a quick glance about the silent garden, and she wasn’t certain she even knew her way back to the house. This was no London garden. She did not stand a stone’s throw from a balcony’s door, from people, from safety.
He must have taken her mulling silence for consideration, for he continued, listing his assets as if he were a thoroughbred at Tattersalls. “My bloodlines are impeccable, my mother the daughter of a viscount, my father a hero fallen at Waterloo.” He puffed his chest out as if he himself were the one to fall on some distant field in Belgium. “Most would say I’ve done well in filling his shoes.”
“I’m sure,” she muttered.
“Most importantly, I can promise never to leap off the banister in a mad fit. The present Lord Moreton could not promise you the same.” He rocked back on his heels with a satisfied air.
She frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Ah, you haven’t heard the story. The old earl dove head first off the banister at the dower house, landed smack in the middle of the foyer. A God awful mess, they say.”
Portia closed her eyes, trying to stop the gory image from filling her head.
Whitfield’s voice droned on. “And then there was Lady Moreton—shot herself with her husband’s pistol. And the youngest son—no one’s quite sure what happened to him. He was naught but a babe.” Leaning closer, his whisper ruffled the tendrils near her ear. “Rumor has it his death may have been from unnatural causes.”
From unnatural causes?
She expelled a deep breath, shaking her head. “Certainly you’re not suggesting Lord Heath’s parents had a hand in the child’s death?”
Whitfield shook his head, his handsome face twisting in derision. “Who said anything about them harming the boy?”
“Then who?”
Angling his head, he replied with deliberate vagueness, “They found Lord Heath with the body.”
Heath? Heath had something to do with his brother’s death? Impossible. She had observed him with his sisters. He would never harm a hair on their heads. And she refused to believe he could harm a brother. To what end? No matter how wicked he behaved, he was incapable of evil that foul.
She tossed back her head and released a brittle laugh.
Whitfield pulled back, a grimace marring his pretty features. “Talk of madness and murder amuses you?”
“You amuse me,” she said with a lightness that she didn’t feel. She would not grant him that satisfaction of knowing his words gave her pause and put doubts in her head. Foul as poison, his words swam through her blood. They found Lord Heath with the body.
Inhaling a shaky breath, she continued, “That you would attempt to raise yourself in my estimation by discrediting the earl—”
“I assure you, my lady, the Moreton name has long been discredited. It was quite blackened by the time I was in leading strings. The father was a knave. The mother little better. And all that before the madness.”
Portia leveled him her iciest glare and set out to end this conversation once and for all.
“Although it’s none of your affair, allow me to assure you that I harbor no tendre for the earl of Moreton.”
His lips slanted into a confidant grin. As if she had issued an invitation, he stepped nearer, eyes glowing with a feverish gleam.
She hastily slid back a step. “Nor have I any wish to consider your suit. Even if I were so inclined, my family would oppose our match. A man of mere suitable means is not a possibility.”
His face flushed and he readjusted his grip on her arm, forcing her closer. “That’s the way of it, eh? Money over breeding. You want to populate the countryside with future Mad Moretons?”
“You go too far, sir.” Hot indignation crept up her neck and swarmed her face.
He shook his head, tossing those golden curls about his face. “I feel I must intercede on your behalf. With your family not present and no doubt unaware—”
She snorted. “I would describe my family as many things, but never unaware.”
He stared at her for a long moment, his expression incredulous. She waited patiently for her meaning to sink in.
At last, he exclaimed, “They cannot have sent you here knowing—” He stopped cold at her pointed look and shook his head in denial. “No. No one in these parts would even consider binding themselves to a Mad Moreton—no matter his wealth.”
“No?” Portia mused. “How very shortsighted. He’s rich as Croesus. Owns half the coal mines in Yorkshire and half a dozen factories in Scarborough. I would think he’d have his pick of ladies.”
Whitfield’s eyes glittered with spite, as if the mention of Heath’s wealth made him loathe the man more. Shaking his head, he growled, “Even so, why would the Duke of Derring permit his sister—”
“That is none of your business,” Portia snapped, her last thread of control breaking. She had had quite enough of this arrogant jackass and his meddling…and his relentless grip on her arm.
“I couldn’t agree more,” a voice interjected from somewhere behind, the familiar velvet sound sliding over her like warm sherry, heating her insides in a way totally different from the anger that Whitfield stirred within her.
Chapter 12
Portia looked over her shoulder and swallowed. Heath stood with his arms crossed over his broad chest, legs braced wide, his stone-carved face forbidding as he surveyed her with Whitfield. The mere sight of him unbalanced her. She hadn’t seen him since the night on the balcony. Yet she had never once stopped thinking about him. A deep ache throbbed beneath her breastbone each time she imagined him with his mistress. She shook her head. Absurd.
His storm-cloud eyes missed nothing, taking in Whitfield’s possessive hold on her arm with one sweep before returning to her face.
“Moreton,” Whitfield greeted stiffly, finally releasing her arm.
Portia stepped back, involuntarily rubbing her tender flesh, stopping when she caught Heath watching, his eyes drifting to where she rubbed her arm. His gaze glittered with a dangerous light that made her breath catch, keenly reminding her of the wild, wicked man she had first met.
“Didn’t expect you to put in an appearance today,” Whitfield drawled, his voice calm, polite, yet she detected a thread of apprehension.
“No?” Heath angled his head, the single word loaded with menace. The dangerous light in his eyes intensified. “I live here.” His gaze flicked to her. “And I always see to my interests.”
A frission of alarm—and something else—skittered along her nerves at his words. Surely he did not consider her one of his interests? That would seem contrary to everything he had said since the moment of her arrival, from the moment he sneered at her and called her a gold-digging husband hunter.
Whitfield’s gaze shot to her. “It would appear we have similar interests.”
The corners of Heath’s mouth lifted. A wolf’s smile that made her take a hasty step back.
“I’ll grant you have nerve showing your face here,” Heath murmured with deceptive calm, a muscle ticking furiously in his jaw. “More than I ever gave you credit for.”
“Merely looking out for the lady.”
“The lady doesn’t need you looking after her.”
She looked back and forth between the two men. Animosity radiated off them, palpable and thick. The type of animosity that was long-standing, born years ago—before she ever stepped foot in Yorkshire. She felt like a tasty bone in the midst of two dogs long accustomed to fighting.
“Oh, I beg to differ,” Whitfield rejoined. “Someone needs to see to her welfare. It appears her family didn’t give a thought to sending her into this viper’s nest.”
“Enough,” Portia exclaimed, her cheeks stinging with anger.