Page 107 of The Duelist for the Ton
He grinned. “Do you speak like this to the colonel?”
“Not yet.”
“Very wise,” he said. “Best to keep him in the dark with regards to your faults until you’ve slipped the parson’s noose around his neck. A man’s best not knowing everything about the woman he’s to wed.”
In that, at least, she agreed with him.
Adam moved to sit beside her while footsteps approached. Then the door opened. Portia’s heart gave a little flutter as Stephen stood in the doorway, resplendent in his uniform, bearing a bouquet of roses in various shades of pink and red.
He met Portia’s gaze, and a little jolt impacted her heart at the expression in his eyes—one of remorse, and love. But as she continued to gaze at him, her breath caught at the memory of the pure hatred in those dark eyes when he’d promised to end the Farthing’s life…to endherlife.
I cannot tell him—I simplycan’t.
Nor could she tell her brother what Stephen had done. Adam stared at him, his face grim, ready to punish him for disappearing from the house party without so much as a message. Were he to know that Stephen was the man who’d shot her…
“Reid,” her brother said, rising, his voice laced with ice.
“Foxton, I-I must apologize,” Stephen said, not moving from the doorway. The footman beside him shuffled from one foot to the other, and Adam let out a sharp sigh.
“You may go, Simon. I’m not about to toss our guest out on the street.”
The footman disappeared, and Adam tilted his head to one side.
“Not yet,” he added.
Stephen bowed his head and stepped inside the room. He glanced over his shoulder. “Shall I…?”
“Close the door, yes,” Adam said. “I take it you’ve something to say to my sister.”
Stephen’s cheeks reddened, and he approached Portia, holding out the bouquet. She reached toward it then withdrew, wincing at the flare of pain in her arm.
Heaven!That hurt. She’d refused to take laudanum with her breakfast, despite Euphramia’s instructions. Today, she needed her wits about her.
On no account must he know who I am—or who Iwas.
He narrowed his eyes. “Portia? Are you well?”
“Quite well, thank you,” she said.
“Right,” Adam said, crisply. “That’s the pleasantries concluded. Now’s the time for explanations.”
“Adam,” Portia warned, but Stephen nodded.
“Your brother’s right, Portia. I must explain my uncivil behavior toward you—at the very least, I ought to have sent you a note when I left Rosecombe. You see, it was a rather delicate matter. I…” He glanced toward Portia’s brother.
“You can have nothing to say to my sister that you cannot also say tome, Reid.”
Stephen nodded. “Of course. I presume I can trust you to be discreet.”
Adam frowned. “Discretion is a quality I value most highly—as do all men of a similar rank to mine.”
Portia shot her brother a warning look while Stephen shifted from one foot to the other, mirroring the footman’s earlier nervousness.
“Very well,” he said, lowering his voice. “I received a note that my sister had been compromised.”
“Good heavens!” Adam said. “And had she?”
“I believe her when she says the man in question did not ruin her—but, of course, I was compelled to act to preserve her honor.”
