A Seduction in Scarlet (Aphrodite's Club 1)

He turned to stare at her. “Certainly not.”

“But I must come. My lady needs me. How will she manage without me? I—I have to come with her. She will be cross if you leave me behind, and you don’t want her to be cross.”

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, trying to free himself from her frantic grip.

“Let her come with us,” Portia called from the coach. “Arnold will punish her if I’m not here.”

“Please, Mr. Worthorne, I have to come, too.”

He threw up his hands. “Get in, then, but I’ll have no complaints from eithe

r of you.”

When they were both seated in the coach, he gave the driver his altered instructions and they set off. The mews were reached by a lane behind the Ellerslie house, but Marcus had told his coachman to stop at the head of that lane. Now he climbed down, peering into the shadows.

“She’s waiting down here?”

“Yes.”

“All right, but if you disappear while I’m gone I will find you and kidnap you all over again,” he said threateningly.

Portia shrugged, hiding the insane urge to smile. “I have no intention of going anywhere.”

He waited a moment more, as if expecting more resistance, and then with an exasperated curse strode off into the darkness.

While he was gone, Portia gave some thought to her situation. Bizarre as it was, it seemed to her that being kidnapped was actually the best solution. Hadn’t she just been thinking how she wished she could run away? Concerns for her mother had prevented her, but if Marcus would deal with that, there was nothing to stop her. Apart from her own sense of duty.

If Marcus kidnapped her, the choice between duty and escape was made for her. There would be nothing more for her to worry about. Apart from what he might do next.

She could hear her mother’s complaints getting closer, interspersed by Deed’s reassurances and Marcus’s low rumble.

The coach door opened and her mother peered up at her, wrapped in a shawl and still wearing her nightcap. Her eyes were wild and accusing.

“Portia! This gentleman says we are going for a ride in his coach. What on earth can he mean?”

“He means what he says, Mama. We are all going on a holiday.”

“In the middle of the night?” But her mother allowed herself to be assisted into the coach.

“The middle of the night is the best time to start a holiday,” Portia said brightly. “Then when you get there, it will be a nice surprise.”

Her mother settled into a corner, while Hettie made a fuss, tucking a rug about her and murmuring reassurances; her eyes began to close. Then the door was slammed and Marcus flung himself back in his own seat as the horses moved forward with a jolt. A moment later the vehicle was rattling out into the busy London streets.

Portia waited until she could bear the tension no longer. “Arnold wasn’t—”

“No, he wasn’t. He isn’t. He is completely unaware that we are gone. Your butler seems to be very competent. By the time Arnold is aware, it will be too late, the trail will have gone cold, and he will have absolutely no idea where to find us. Any of us,” he added with a significant nod toward Mrs. Stroud.

Portia pondered this. “Good,” she breathed.

“I’m glad you approve, my lady.”

Her slippers were too tight and she eased them off under cover of her lavender skirts. What would Victoria think when she didn’t arrive at the ball? How shocking! There would be a scandal. Would they suspect Marcus? Would they think she had run away with him like some naïve young debutante? She hoped they did not. And yet the very idea of running away with Marcus gave her a shivering sense of excitement.

As if he’d read her mind, he said, “You have no control over what’s happening to you, Portia. You’re being kidnapped, remember.”

Again she found the notion oddly comforting.

“Where are we going?” she said after a moment.