How to Woo a Widow (4 page)

This seemed to filter through his passion-soaked brain, for she felt the breath of his sigh against her, and he pulled back from her and straightened.

“What were you thinking?” Portia demanded, batting his hand away so that she could adjust her gown without help. “For God’s sake, I’ve known you since you were a boy.”

His mouth tightened in anger. “I am not a boy now. I’m a man and I know what I want.” Tony leaned in close to her, as if to ensure she heard him. “Surely you cannot deny there is something.” He lifted a hand to lightly touch her cheek. “Something between us.”

Portia pulled back from his hand. “Of course I deny it,” she lied. “Tony, you’re confused,” God she hoped he could not see the truth in her eyes, else they were lost. “What you feel for me is the love a brother feels for his sister.”

“I’m not a child, Portia,” he bit out. “I know what I feel and what I am feeling for you is nothing like what I feel for my sisters.”

She lowered her eyes against his burning gaze. “Well, the love of a friend, then,” Portia finished lamely. “Regardless, nothing can come of this thing between us. Tony, do you not realize what people will say?”

“Is that your only argument?” he asked, taking her chin and lifting it so that he might look into her eyes. “Portia, people talk. It’s what they do. Surely a bit of scandal…”

This angered her. “I have had enough scandal in my life to last a lifetime,” she felt her voice rising in frustration but she didn’t care. “Or have you forgotten, my lord?”

“No, I haven’t forgotten,” he returned. “And do not forget that I, too, have had my share of unwanted exposure. But you move past it. You move on.”

“I have made one bad marriage, I do not care to embark on another.”

Portia knew it was a low blow, but she had to convince him. An alliance between them would be the worst possible thing for him—if not for himself then his mother and sisters.

But if she’d thought to dissuade him, she’s been wrong.

“Perhaps we needn’t marry in order to be together,” he said finally, his eyes intense as if he were trying to persuade her with his stare. Could he really be suggesting…?

“An affair?” she cried. “You want me to risk the reputation I’ve cultivated in the year since William’s death for an affair?”

She stepped away from him before he had a chance to react.

“You are more deluded than I thought,” she snapped, and stalked away from him toward the door they’d come out through.

She’d almost reached the doorway before she turned.

“I’ll thank you not to call on me or approach me again, my lord. We have nothing further to discuss.”

And like that she was gone, leaving Tony to sink back into the stone façade of the building with an oath.

Dammit. He’d botched that, but good.

She’d been right to castigate him. He’d not been this clumsy with a woman since he’d first been seduced by Molly Sweet, the barmaid at the local tavern.

He listened to the sounds of chatter among the grooms and coachmen tending to the expensive horseflesh of their masters. Smelled the scent of pipe smoke in the air.

How would he convince her to change her mind, he wondered? Because he knew now, of course, that he had to have her. What he’d said there at the last had been a final attempt to convince himself as much as her that what he felt was simple, garden-variety lust. Something that could be sated with a few months of passion. But he knew in his gut it was something more. Much more.

Dammit.

As soon as he’d seen her there, shining like a gold guinea in a basket of stones, he’d known. He wanted her. Not just in his bed, but out of it as well. But how to convince her of his sincerity after what he’d just asked of her?

It had been a cover, that misdirection about an affair. Because how the devil could he admit the truth to her when he’d only just discovered it for himself? And, if he were honest, her words had stung. Did she really see him in the same scandalous vein as her late husband? Could she have so misunderstood the man he had become?

He thought back to those moments before the argument had flared. The moments of passion between them. Her body had told him what her words did not. This was good, this tempest. He felt his body react to her even at the thought of her lips on his. No matter what she said, her actions said something different. She might resist now, but he’d be damned if he’d give her up without a fight.

He’d loved her for half his life, and if she’d but listen, he’d tell her so.

As he stepped away from the wall and straightened his coat, he felt something under his dancing shoe.

Her fan.

She must have dropped it in her haste to escape.

As he bent to pick it up, he imagined that he could feel her warmth emanating from the ivory handles. He slipped it into his pocket and made his way around the mews toward the street. His townhouse was but a short walk from here, and he needed the time alone to think.

It was really too dreadful of him, Portia thought the next morning as she rode her mare, Buttons, through the streets of Mayfair toward Hyde Park. It had been one thing for Tony to steal kisses from her on the dark walk at Vauxhall. There had been nobody there to see them—well, Noakes of course, but he was so loyal to Tony there was no danger that he’d spread gossip about them. But last night’s debacle at Almack’s had been another thing all together.

After she’d repaired the hem of her gown in the retiring room, she returned to the ballroom. Only to discover that their absence had been noted. By both her mama and his. And though they were both grown, it did not do to displease one’s parents. Particularly when said parents were attempting to launch ones’ younger siblings into society.

Tony had not returned, though she had scanned the crowd for him every few minutes or so. And Portia, with whom he had last been seen, had been forced to endure the scowls of any number of ladies who had looked forward to gracing his arm for the supper dance.

All in all it was an awkward situation and one that she must put a stop to immediately. Yes, there was a certain passion between them, she admitted. But it was entirely inappropriate given the difference in their ages and their shared history. James’ death had been a wrenching ordeal for her family and though her parents rarely spoke of it, she knew that the shadow of her brother’s death lingered over them. And Tony had been there when it happened. Might even have been the cause of it.

She had always been one to keep her emotions, as well as her environment, tidy. Her life with William had made it even more imperative for her to manage the world around her. When circumstances ran completely out of her control, her first instinct was to take hold of those things in her life that were within her grasp and arrange them into some semblance of order. Thus through the darkest days of her marriage her household was immaculate. The linen closets were sorted, the menus planned ahead for weeks—even all her darning was done, a task she loathed.

So, as with every other crisis in her life, she would handle this untenable attraction between herself and Tony by molding it into something she could manage.

Friendship.

Glad for the clarity of mind that a good gallop always gave her, Portia allowed Buttons to slow into a canter, then a trot, then a leisurely pace more suited for appreciating the scenery around her. The park at this hour was deserted. A far cry from later on in the day when it was bustling with the fashionables who aimed to see and be seen.

Then, as if her thoughts had conjured him, Portia felt a presence behind her and she knew it was Tony.

“Goor morning, Mrs. Daventry,” he said, as she maneuvered Buttons to face him. Tipping his hat to her in a manner that seemed utterly mundane when compared with the heat emanating from his eyes he continued. “I had no idea you were an early riser.”

“How on earth do you manage to make such a bland statement sound so scandalous?” she wondered, hoping that the blush she felt rising would be interpreted as high color from her gallop rather than the stomach-flipping excitement the sight of him sent surging through her blood.

“It is a gift,” Tony said lightly. Contrary to what he’d just said, he had hoped to find her here. Remembering her habit of riding out early from the days when he was a frequent guest at the Bascombe estate, he had sought her out here.

Silence descended upon them as Tony drank in the sight of her.

He could not remember the last time, if ever, he’d been this drawn to a woman. Certainly he had never felt this way about anyone remotely suited to be his wife. And yet, he felt no anxiety about the idea of her in the role. None of the panic he thought every man felt when the demise of his bachelorhood was in sight. Instead he felt a sense of peace. Like nothing he had ever known.

“You are looking well this morning, Portia,” he said, noting the way the fabric of her habit accentuated all those lovely curves. “Trysts at Almack’s agree with you it would seem.”

He watched in appreciation as her bosom heaved with her sharp intake of breath.

“A gentleman would not speak of that unfortunate incident between us last night.”

“Unfortunate?” he asked idly, drawing his gelding closer to her mare. “I had rather thought you were enjoying yourself before the arguing. But, no matter. I will endeavor to improve upon my technique. We will, naturally need quite a bit of practice.”

“Don’t be absurd, Tony!” He smiled inwardly at her discomfiture. So, the lady was not so indifferent as she would have him believe.

“You know what I mean,” she continued. “What happened between us last night, while…” she paused as if searching for just the right word. “…pleasant, was something that cannot, and will not be repeated. I thought I’d made myself clear. I will not be the subject of gossip.”

“Let them talk,” he waved off her concern. “We are consenting adults, my dear. And aside from that it is not as if we are entering into some sort of libidinous affair. My intentions are entirely honorable.”

That gave her pause. Her eyes narrowed for a moment as if she were trying to understand what he’d actually said.

“Well, of course it would be an affair,” she said finally. “You cannot be serious about marrying me after all. I am a widow of little means. Your intentions would be suspect to any person of sense. And I have always counted myself as that at least.”

“What if I were truly thinking of marriage, Portia? What then?”

“That is beside the point. You are not thinking marriage so why should we continue discussing absurd hypothetical situations?”

What the devil? He felt something inside him snap at her dismissal.

Chapter
Five

“It is not hypothetical!” Tony snapped.

“Of course it is,” Portia said heatedly. “I’m old enough to be your—”

“Sister?” he asked brusquely. “Cousin? Don’t be absurd Portia. There are only six years between us. And unless you were the most precocious child in history there is no way you could possibly be my mother. Which is what you were about to say, is it not?”

She had the good grace to color. And dammit it made her even lovelier.

“Perhaps, I was going to say mother,” she conceded. “But Tony, you must know how people would talk if we two were to make a match of it.”

“Let them talk. I gave up on trying to make the ton see reason years ago. There is nothing so very scandalous about a lady and a gentleman of the same social strata marrying.”

“There is if the lady is several years older than the gentleman and he happens to have been the boon companion of her deceased brother. For pity’s sake Tony, just seeing our names together will dredge up all that old talk about James’s death. Surely you can see what that would do to our parents.”

“It would be a nine days wonder and then polite society would move on to the next scandal. You can say many things about the ton but that they have a long attention span is not one of them.”

She looked as if she would argue the point, so he did what he’d wanted to do since he spied her here in this deserted part of the park. He dismounted and stepped over to offer his assistance for her to dismount as well.

The look she gave him was mulish.

“What are you doing?” she asked a little breathlessly.

“I am assisting you from your horse, as a gentleman ought.”

“But perhaps I do not care to get down.”

An upraised brow was his only response. Seeing that he would not brook a refusal, Portia gave a little sigh of pique then allowed herself to be lifted down. Though she tried to steel herself not to react, it was delicious to feel his lean hard body brush against hers as he lowered her to her feet.

She said nothing as she watched him loop the reins of both their horses over an obligingly low branch. And when he turned back to her there was no mistaking the vibration of attraction that shimmered on the air between them.

Taking his offered arm, she followed him into the little clearing tucked away into this distant corner of the park. To her surprise there was a bench there within the shelter of the elms and the copper beeches.

“You will not move me from my point,” Portia said, once they were seated. “I will not expose my family to that sort of scandal again. They suffered enough when I married William for heaven’s sake.”

“Is scandal all you can think about?” Tony asked, taking her hand in his. Portia felt the warmth even through the fine kid of her gloves. She felt a flush suffuse her as she though about how warm his bare skin might feel pressed against hers. Slowly, with a single-minded deliberation that stole the very breath from her lungs, he began to unbutton and then peel off her gloves. He raised her now naked hand to his lips and kissed her palm.“You are here with me now and that in itself is a scandal,” he said.