Page 102 of The Duelist for the Ton
He sat, then leaned toward her. “I hear you’re indisposed.”
She nodded. “My health is—”
“Delicate, yes. May I see it?”
She squeezed her thighs together, her cheeks warming with embarrassment.
“You can’t blame me for being curious.”
Heavens!What was he about? She gestured toward her body. “Brother, I hardly think it’s appropriate to—”
“Be fair, sister,” he said, his tone casual. “I’ve never seen one before, you see.”
“A…what?”
“A bullet wound.”
Her stomach fluttered, and she opened her mouth to deny it. He fixed his gaze on her, then shook his head.
“I have no wish to be angry with you, Portia, but I’d advise you not to disappoint me. I do not like to be disappointed.”
“Please…” she said, then swallowed.
“Please what?” His voice remained calm, his body still, but the slight tightening in his tone warned of a simmering rage beneath his calm exterior.
“Please don’t dismiss Nerissa. She was acting on my instructions. If that cockroach of a butler—”
“Reeve has nothing to do with this. I spoke to your maid myself.”
“H-how did you—”
“Do you think me incapable of looking out of a window? I saw two men entering the house just after dawn.” He folded his arms and fixed his gaze on her, “Well, what Ithoughtwere two men.”
“Are you spying on me?” she asked. “Or perhaps you were on the lookout for Mrs. Scarlet while she paid you a visit?”
“I’vehad no visitors, Portia, but I understand that doctor’s daughter arrived here, unchaperoned, and presumably without her father’s permission.”
“She had every right to be here.”
“In which case you’ll have no objection to my discussing the matter with Dr. Lucas.”
“Leave Miss Lucas alone. I’ll not have you causing trouble for her.”
“I’m causing trouble for no one, sister,” he said. “Perhaps you should consider your own actions and the consequences that they reap. Not only the consequences for yourself”—he gestured toward her bandaged arm—“but the consequences for others who are not protected by the same degree of privilege that you seem to take for granted.”
He lifted his hand to his brow and wiped it. When he lowered it again, sadness flickered in his eyes.
“Perhaps the only way to teach you a lesson in propriety would be to punish those closest to you. You seem to have no regard for your own suffering, but mayhap the suffering of others would have some effect. After all, you are not entirely without feeling.”
“Unlikeyou, brother. You are devoid of all feeling.”
“Do you really think you’re in a position to answer me back thus? Your maid—”
“Leave Nerissa alone!” Portia cried. “She was only acting on my instruction.”
“In that, if I nothing else, I agree with you.”
“But you still intend to torture me by punishing her for something I’ve done?”
