“Her Majesty the Queen would never forgive you.”
Portia considered Victoria her friend but was under no illusions as to what that meant. Powerful people, especially royalty, were motivated by greater issues than mere liking and friendship. If she were to be disgraced, Victoria would throw her to the wolves.
“You’re right, Hettie. I cannot risk it. I have no plans to do so. It is over.”
“Good.” But there was a little crease between Hettie’s brows, as if she didn’t quite believe her.
Victoria insisted that Portia stay to lunch. The little princes and princesses were allowed to sit down with them at the table, and the royal family made a pretty picture of domestic bliss. Victoria and her Prince Consort led a life very different from that of former monarchs, who had scandalized the British people with their debaucheries and extravagances. Victoria and Albert were at pains to show they were obedient to the laws of God and man, and to set an example for their subjects. This new Victorian era was going to be very different from the royal eras that had come before.
Of course, there were many who scoffed. Some members of the aristocracy considered such ideas of respectability to be very middle-class, and others paid mere lip service to the royal insistence on proper and scandal-free behavior, while privately continuing on as they always had.
Portia could imagine what Marcus Worthorne thought of it. He would wonder what all the fuss was about. Unlike her, the opinions of other people, and the demands of conscience, would cause him no lack of sleep. But she had always been “good”; a proper little lady. Until last night…
“You are smiling, Lady Ellerslie. What are you smiling about? You must share your joke with us. I insist!”
Portia was momentarily speechless, but she had long ago learned to dissemble and did so now
. “I was smiling because I wondered if we should continue with the little play we were rehearsing the last time I was here, Ma’am, that is all.”
The children were delighted. The heavily pregnant Victoria clapped her hands. “What a splendid idea! My dear Albert might join us. It will do him good to take a moment from his work.”
Albert was sent for and duly arrived. He was distracted from his lines, however, and when questioned admitted that he was concerned over a large meeting that was taking place in Soho. Some of the working-class poor were demanding that the land owned by the rich few be handed over to them, so they could share in the wealth and gain employment. Such radical ideas were not new in Europe, but they were worrying to the royal couple and the government.
“If these people wish to live in a republic, they should remove themselves across the channel to France,” Victoria said unsympathetically. “I have not forgotten how they sang ‘La Marseillaise’ at Sadler’s Wells rather than ‘God Save the Queen,’ and I have not forgiven them for it. Such rudeness and disrespect is intolerable to me.”
“We cannot dismiss such matters just because they are unpleasant,” Albert admonished her gently. “There are those in Britain who plot the destruction of us all. They wish for revolution and use the poor and disaffected as their tools. They would happily bring the guillotine to Trafalgar Square and set it to use.”
“Please, I do not wish to talk about it in front of the children,” Victoria said in a low voice, shuddering. “Let us enjoy the play. Lady Ellerslie does not wish to hear such things, I am sure.”
Albert cast Portia a glance that said he understood it was his wife who did not wish to hear such things, but his smile was kind. Albert was in many ways a humanitarian and a forward thinker, but like Victoria, he was fearful of any ripple in the status quo. The rolling of aristocratic French heads into baskets was still very clear in the memory. The royal couple believed, as did most Englishmen, that a man should swear allegiance to his queen and his country and obey its laws, while a woman should be obedient to her husband.
Those were the rules, and woe betide anyone who stepped outside them.
“If your husband were still alive,” Albert said, “he would have marched the army against these troublemakers and sent them fleeing like the cowards they are.”
“Indeed he would,” Portia murmured obediently.
“It is important we remember him,” Victoria added, growing a little teary. “Your presence helps us to do that, Portia. Seeing you reminds us of Lord Ellerslie and all that is good in England.”
“I am glad,” Portia replied. She was Britannia in widow’s weeds, just as she had said to Aphrodite. A perfect image of womanhood for others to admire and aspire to.
But she wasn’t perfect. She had broken the rules. And now the memory of Marcus Worthorne was so wickedly delightful she had to lower her gaze in case the queen caught the echo of those licentious images reflected in her eyes. The things he had done to her, and she to him! Portia was quite certain she would remember them for the rest of her life.
Several days later Portia was no longer smiling. The memories and pleasures of her night with Marcus weren’t fading; rather, they had turned on her. Instead of lightening her dull days, they were occupying her every waking thought. And the nights…he came to her in her bed, but now he wasn’t some vague fantasy from her past. An incubus bringing dark and wicked pleasure. He was real, solid—the man he’d become.
In her dreams he promised to take her to heights she had never known, but though she begged him again and again, he always vanished, leaving her unsatisfied. She began to grow afraid that she might cry out his name in her sleep. What if someone heard her? In the mornings when she woke, her flesh aching with need, she automatically turned eagerly toward him.
But he wasn’t there.
To her consternation, she was finding it more and more difficult to ignore that matter-of-fact voice in her head telling her that the only way to free herself was to do it again. That why shouldn’t she enjoy herself like other women? That it wasn’t fair to expect her to be a saint. This was Marcus Worthorne, after all, not just any man. If it was anyone else, Portia was certain she would not be having this crisis.
Hettie was eyeing her with increasing concern.
“She warned me.”
“Who warned you about what?” said Hettie, with one of her worried sideways glances.
“‘Sometimes once is the beginning of something rather than the end,’” she quoted.