Mina lifted a single brow, the jaunty feather of her hat bouncing in the wind. “I admit you sit a horse well.” Her smiling eyes raked Portia. “But a city girl can’t think to best me. I was born in the saddle.”
“Let’s see, then.” With an exultant shout, Portia jabbed her heels and hurtled ahead.
“No fair,” Mina shouted behind her.
Portia laughed over her shoulder. The pounding of hooves on earth filled her ears, spurring her on even faster. It had been too long. Too long in Town. Too long limited to sedate rides on Rotten Row under Astrid’s watchful eyes.
Without glancing back, she gave herself up to the thrill of the ride, heedless of her bonnet flying from her head. The wind clawed her hairpins loose and her hair trailed behind her. She whooped in delight. Tears smarted in her eyes from the wind’s sting, but she didn’t care; she felt alive.
Free.
After several minutes, she slowed her pounding pace. Assuming she had won, she looked over her shoulder, prepared to tease Mina mercilessly.
Craggy limestone terrain stared back. Gorse and wild blackthorn shuddered in the wind, but no Mina.
“Mina?” Portia pulled on her reins and came to a complete stop.
No sight of her anywhere. Frowning, Portia turned in every direction. “Mina!” she called, worry hammering her heart.
The wind howled back like a beast in the distance, heightening her sense of isolation. She spun her mount around, her unbound hair whipping into her face, blinding her. Wiping the dark strands from her eyes, she scanned the horizon, searching even as she tried to steady her racing pulse. Nothing. She thundered back in the direction she had come.
After several moments, she stopped again, acknowledging that she was well and truly lost.
Believing Mina behind her, she had not paid attention to landmarks.
“Brilliant,” she muttered, her eyes scanning the barren landscape. Opening her mouth, she called Mina’s name until she grew hoarse. The dark clouds looked close to bursting overhead. She was in for another soak if she didn’t somehow find her way back to the house.
Prodding her mount into motion again, she set a halting pace, surveying her surroundings as she went along.
The first raindrop landed on her cheek. So softly she barely felt it. Several more followed, growing in volume and intensity. Tilting her face to the skies, she muttered an epithet no lady should know.
Heath sat in his office the precise moment the storm hit. Wind and rain buffeted the tall mullioned windows at his back. He lifted his head from the ledgers scattered across his desk and turned to glance out the window behind him, hoping his sister and Portia had returned from their afternoon ride.
He had seen them head out over an hour ago—had considered putting a stop to it. With yesterday’s debacle so fresh in his mind, how could he not consider putting an end to their time together? As far as companions went, Lady Portia was entirely unsuitable. Impeccable pedigree or not, she wasn’t a lady with whom his sister ought to keep company. Mina had never given him as much trouble in her entire life as she had since Portia’s arrival. Still, he couldn’t concentrate until he knew they were safely inside. Shoving to his feet, he strode from his office.
He’d just reached the foyer when Mina burst into the house, soaked to the skin, jabbering so fast he could hardly make out a word.
“Heath,” she panted between gulping breaths. Her wet fingers latched onto his wrist. “I’ve lost Portia!”
“Lost?” he demanded, his heart leaping against his chest.
“What’s this?” His grandmother called from the top of the stairs, one of her many cats tucked in her arm. The animal’s yellow eyes glittered in seeming mockery.
“I lost Portia.” Mina shook her head, wide eyes a mixture of awe and worry. “Who knew a girl from Town could ride like that?”
“Well, Heath,” his grandmother drawled, “you’ll have to go after her, won’t you?”
A sound request. Logical. Except his grandmother’s eyes gleamed with a victorious light. She angled her head, her shifty blue eyes watching him, waiting.
The hair on his arms prickled. He pinched the bridge of his nose, convinced more than ever that he wouldn’t have a moment’s peace until Portia was gone. Still, losing her somewhere on his estate was not the way to rid himself of her.
Inhaling deeply through his nose, he said, “Tell me precisely where you last saw her.”
Mina’s shoulders sagged in clear relief. “You mean you’ll find her?”
He felt his lips twist. Dropping his hand from his face he met his grandmother’s triumphant gaze, asking, “Was there ever any doubt?”
Rain fell in torrents. Portia squinted against the downpour, giving up any attempt to guide her horse through the quagmire that threatened to drag them down. She let the reins fall lax in her hands and simply trusted that the animal desired shelter as much as she did.
“Come on, boy,” she muttered through chattering teeth. Crouching low, she clung to the horse’s neck as he wrestled his hooves from the marshy ground. “Take us home.”
A cottage materialized through the gray curtain of rain as if her words alone had summoned it.
Her mount, clearly no stranger to the dwelling, bypassed the cottage, trotting straight for the nearby stables. He halted at the closed doors, snorting loudly enough to be heard over the heavy thrum of rain.
“Not precisely what I had in mind,” Portia grumbled as she slid off the horse’s back and trudged through the mud to fling open the doors. Still, it was shelter, and she couldn’t begrudge the beast from delivering them safely from the storm.
Her mount needed no prodding. He barreled past her in his haste to get inside. Muttering beneath her breath, she followed after him. Her gaze swept over the interior as she tugged off her clinging gloves. A quick survey revealed no animals and little in the way of equipment. Barren stalls stared back at her. Her horse sauntered in and out of these, snuffling and devouring the hay littering the ground.
She followed the horse into one stall. Removing his saddle, she snatched a blanket that hung over one of the rails and rubbed the animal down.
Satisfied that she had tended the horse to the best of her ability, she gave his rump one last pat and darted back outside, a hand shielding her face in a feeble attempt to ward off the deluge.
After three swift raps, her hand went for the latch. Thankfully, the cottage door was unlocked.
Gasping, she stumbled inside. Closing the door behind her, she eyed the room.
This was no meager crofter’s cottage. Contrary to the humble exterior, the inside was well appointed—an elegant sanctuary.
Wringing water from her hair, she moved to the center of the single-room dwelling and turned in a small circle. Her gaze fell on the large tester bed, the type found in any fine home. An elegant dining table, accompanied with high back chairs, sat before the shuttered window. A large desk, littered with books and papers, occupied one corner. A chintz-covered sofa was angled before the fireplace, allowing room for a large sheepskin rug, the mere sight of which already made her feel warm. Her gaze landed on a stack of wood in a basket.
“Yes,” she breathed, her breath fogging the air. Already she imagined the heat of a fire soaking into her bones and ridding her of foggy breath. Hurrying forward, she arranged the logs in the fireplace. Her cold fingers stumbled several times, stinging from both cold and the abrasive wood, until at last she coaxed a fire to life.
Her trembling hands then attacked the buttons of her habit, eager to be rid of the clinging wet fabric, eager for the fire to do its work and warm her bones.
Stripped bare, she draped her clothing over the backs of the chairs. Shaking in the frigid air, she snatched the blanket off the bed and drew it around her. Wrapped tight, she sank onto the rug before the hearth, the soft lambskin a heavenly cloud beneath her chilled body.
She stared into the dancing flames, feeling rather satisfied with herself. Bathed in the warm glow of the fire, she felt at peace in the unexpected solitude. Freedom at last, even if short-lived.
She had contemplated running away before. Escape from responsibility. From the pressure of insurmountable debt. From a constant sense of inadequacy. If her mother could escape, could take leave of all expectations placed upon her, why not her?
Sighing softly, Portia rested her chin on her knees. She flexed her toes in the soft wool. Her eyelids grew heavy as she watched the flames stretch and sway in the hearth. Lethargy crept into her bones and her thoughts drifted back to her mother. Did the daughter she left behind never intrude on her thoughts? Portia gave her head a violent shake and wiped at the sudden dash of tears on her cheeks, refusing to let such thoughts rob her of this rare-found tranquility.
She snuggled onto her side, loosening the blanket so that it draped over her. With the soft wool cushioning her body, she could almost imagine she floated in the heavens. Popping sounds from the fire and the steady beat of rain lulled her. She closed her eyes and let her muscles sink and melt into deep sleep.
Chapter 18
Heath rode like a demon, calling Portia’s name over the howl of wind and rain. He lost all sense of time as he searched, scanning the horizon, his voice growing hoarse from shouting.
Tracks could not be found in this weather, so he scoured the countryside, pushing Iago hard, oblivious to the cold, to the rain that chilled him to the very marrow of his bones. As the minutes rolled into an hour, fear wormed its way into his heart.
If she gave her horse its lead, it should know its way back. His fear heightened. Unless she had lost her horse, had been thrown—like their first meeting. She could be on foot—or worse, lying unconscious somewhere.
Words shuddered from his mouth, from lips that had long gone numb. Gradually, they began to take meaning in his head. God, let her be safe. Let her be safe. Don’t take her, too.
For the first time since boyhood, he prayed to God for intervention. The same God that had cursed his family with a blight that haunted their every day, a specter from which he could never escape.
His horse plunged down a steep incline, and Heath stopped at the bottom, realizing he was near the lodge. His retreat. The sanctuary he had fled lately, preferring it to the dower house and the questions he would undoubtedly find in Della’s gaze when he could not bring himself to touch her.
Hope burned low in his gut, hot and hungry as he thundered into the yard, pulling up hard at sight of the stable door swinging in the wind. Digging in his heels, he rode into the barn, discovering a mount from his stables snuffling the ground for hay in one of the stalls.
A hiss of breath escaped him. Portia was here. Safe. He dismounted and made short work of unsaddling Iago and securing him in a stall next to the sorrel. Tension knotted his shoulders, winding a path up the back of his neck. He stalked through the yard, his relief dissolving in place of anger. Anger at her. Anger at himself for the fear that had gripped him.
He halted at the door, hand poised over the latch. Was this another trick? Another device to force him alone with her? He scowled, recalling his grandmother’s satisfied expression as she looked down on him from the top of the stairs.
Constance had warned him. And he had not listened. He had, instead, let fathomless blue eyes gull him. He stared at the door, watching rain sluice down its plane, knowing to go inside would mean utter isolation with a woman he craved with every fiber of his being. Last time Constance had interrupted. His sister would not arrive to save him this time. No one would. He had only his will-power on which to rely.
Inhaling deeply, he flung open the door, telling himself he could resist one marriage-minded female.
He truly must be mad to have allowed things to come this far. To let his heart soften toward any woman. Soft hearts bled, and in their pain they caused grief and havoc. His parents had proved that.
Yet he could set things right. Starting now. He would do what he should have done from the beginning. Whether she wanted to or not, Portia’s holiday was at an end.