Marcus had long lost the urge to laugh. How could he when Portia was so tragic? She huddled in the corner of the carriage, wrapped in the picnic blanket, while Hettie clicked her tongue and sent him malevolent looks and Zac stared stoically forward and drove on.
“Your aunt will help me?”
“Yes, she will.”
“And she will tell no one?”
“I will swear her to secrecy.”
“I shouldn’t—” She stopped, but he knew what she’d been about to say. I shouldn’t have come. The accident with her clothes, although potentially damaging to any woman’s reputation, was catastrophic for Portia. The joy that’d shone from her eyes was gone as if it had never been.
What could he say? He felt helpless and annoyed. He wanted to make everything all right again, and yet that was not in his power. He did not live in the same world as Portia. To a man like him, who thrived on being in charge of his own life and what happened in it, the situation was almost unbearable.
His aunt, Minnie Duval, lived three miles from Little Tunley in what had once been the gatehouse to one of the county’s great manors. The manor was gone, long abandoned and fallen down, but the gatehouse remained. When Zac drew the carriage up in front, his aunt was already making her way down the steps toward them. She was dressed in one of her outlandish costumes, an English wool skirt teamed with an Indian gold-frogged jacket that could have belonged to a warlord. On her head she wore a turban.
“Marcus,” Portia gasped, as if she did not know whether to scream or laugh.
But it was too late to offer reassurances, Minnie had spied Portia and made a beeline for her.
“Dear me, you poor, poor child. Come with me at once and I will find you some dry clothes while the servants fill you a bath of nice hot water.”
“Th-Thank you. I am very grateful, ma’am.”
“Call me Minnie, please, everyone does.”
“Minnie.” Portia’s smile trembled. “I think we might have met some years ago.”
“I think we did,” Minnie agreed expressionlessly, “but never mind that now. Let my nephew help you down.”
Marcus clasped her about the waist, lifting her down to the ground with tender care, which Minnie pretended not to notice. She slipped an arm about Portia and led her inside. Hettie lingered, hovering at Marcus’s shoulder like a bad omen.
“Say it, Hettie,” he said wearily. “It’s all my fault, isn’t it?”
“Yes! If Her Majesty hears of this, my lady will be destroyed. The press will tear her to pieces, and as for the public…” She shuddered. “They will never forgive her for doing something so outrageous.”
“Then why continue with such a life? Why put herself in the position of having to live up to others’ expectations?”
“Why?” Hettie glared, her plump cheeks shaking and pink with a mixture of anger and sunburn. “Because she is Lady Ellerslie. She does not choose such a life, she is that life.”
“You make it sound as if she’s been sentenced to hard labor by the justices,” Marcus mocked. “‘I sentence you to be Lady Ellerslie for the remainder of your natural life.’”
“Everything is a joke to you, sir.” She said it sourly.
“Is that what you want for your mistress, Hettie? A life where she’s afraid to be herself in case it offends someone?”
Something flickered in Hettie’s eyes—doubt?—but she refused to admit to it. “My mistress is a great lady,” she said stiffly, and walked past him, following Portia into the house.
Marcus decided he was weary of trying to make Portia, and now her maid, understand his point of view. What was the use anyway? After today she’d never want to see him again.
Impatiently, he strode into the sitting room and poured himself some of Minnie’s excellent brandy. The room was crowded with just about every memento his aunt had ever brought back with her from her travels, among them monstrosities like an elephant foot umbrella stand, beautiful ivory carvings, and erotic paintings illustrating the Kama Sutra.
When he had visited Aunt Minnie as a child, she kept the paintings modestly covered. But after he grew into a young man, Minnie announced that he was old enough now and if he didn’t know what the paintings were all about then he should.
He smiled at the memory and what it said about his aunt’s views on raising children. Some would declare her to be shocking, but he had loved her more than his own mother, and knew that his unconventional view of the world, and his easygoing attitude to life, could be traced back to her.
Minnie entered the room, as usual, by launching into immediate conversation.
“My dear boy, you look as though you’ve seen the sun rise over the Taj Mahal.”