Page 120 of The Duelist for the Ton
He caught her hand, and she let out a low cry. He released it, but not before he’d felt the misshapen fingers—the lumps and bumps and sharp shards, almost as if…
…almost as if someone had smashed her hand to pieces.
“Forgive me, Mrs. Stowe,” he said. “I meant no harm.”
She cradled her hand, then tugged at her glove to hide the scars peeping out from beneath the hem.
“I rather suspect you’re a great deal more intelligent than you’d have Society believe, Mrs. Stowe.”
She gave a wistful smile. “Society will believe what it wants,” she said. “There’s nothing I—or any woman—could do, or say, to convince the world otherwise.”
“Perhaps the world you’ve occupied has failed to appreciate you, Mrs. Stowe, but the little corner you occupy at presentplaces great value on your qualities. In many ways, you remind me of…”
Lady Portia.
She approached the door and reached for the handle with her right hand, then hesitated and took it with the left. Then she turned to face him.
“Might I be so bold as to make a suggestion, Colonel Reid?”
“Please do.”
“You could always pay her a visit.”
There was no need to ask to whom she was referring.
“Lady Portia has left London, Mrs. Stowe.”
“I’m aware of that,” she replied, “but Forthridge Park is en route to your brother’s seat. It’s a short detour—barely five miles, on the outskirts of Saddleforth village.”
“You know the place well?” he said. “Have you visited? Forgive me, I had not known you were acquainted with Lady Portia.”
“I have not had the pleasure of an introduction with her.”
“Then her brother, the duke?”
Her eyes widened, then she shook her head, her cheeks reddening. “My late husband was a little acquainted with His Grace, I believe, though he wouldn’t recall it, for it was only a slight acquaintance.”
“And Foxton isn’t one to recall anyone he considered beneath him,” Stephen said. “Not to impugn the late Mr. Stowe, of course, but Foxton’s the most frightful—”
“I should go to Angela,” she said. “I fear that if I do not encourage her hourly, her trunk will never be packed in time before we leave.”
“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to distress you,” Stephen said, “or to pass judgment on your late husband.” He lowered his gaze to her misshapen hand.
“It was nothing,” she said, smiling, though her eyes retained a gleam of sadness as she shifted her hand behind her back. “And you must forgivemefor speaking out of turn. I have no wish to disrupt our journey to Somerset, and have no right to tell you what you must do.”
“But that doesn’t mean I should not at least listen,” he said. “When an insightful woman speaks, it is wise to take note.”
She nodded, then slipped through the door, closing it softly behind her.
Mrs. Stowe was right. In fact, Stephen had fought the urge to follow Portia and beg her forgiveness. She was generous-minded enough to give him a chance. After all, in their discussionshewas the one who’d displayed arrogant intransigence. His fear that she might reject him was born of a fear that she might be like him.
But she was a better person than he—a better person than the rest of the world. And, perhaps, if she forgave him, she might teach him to aspire to reach her level of goodness.
There was nothing to lose if he tried.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
After traveling whatseemed like several miles through the trees, the carriage rounded a corner, and the trees thinned to reveal the landscape.
