The Education of Portia (30 page)

What would happen to the portrait? She supposed Stadbroke would order it sent to him
in Lincolnshire.
Then
, she wondered,
where will I find my consolation?

Through tears she gazed from the window at the rose garden, just stirring to life, and
beyond the fountain and the labyrinth to where daffodils had swayed before the hawthorn
wood.

A knock at the door disturbed her reflections. Aware suddenly of the wetness on her
cheeks, she withdrew her handkerchief from her muslin sleeve and scrubbed it angrily away.

"Come!" she called, and the door was opened by the upstairs maid.

The girl curtsied and said, "Visitors, ma'am. Would not give me leave to announce them
or alert you. I'm sorry, ma'am." She was pressed against the door by the entrance of the three
young Perrington ladies, followed more slowly by Miss Thripton.

Portia stared in stupefaction.

"I told you we should surprithe her!" Penny shouted triumphantly.

"We are on our way, Miss," Melicent said. "We are going home."

"We could not go without taking our leave of you, Miss Crossmichael. We told Papa we
would not. We miss you, ma'am." Sabina was quiet and sincere. "And we could not go without
our portrait."

Portia looked at the bright young faces surrounding her and raised her grey gaze to Miss
Thripton's indulgent one.

"They insisted, Miss Crossmichael. And rightly so, in my opinion. Their sojourn here
was most beneficial," the governess said.

"Most beneficial," a masculine voice echoed from the doorway; a well-remembered,
well-loved voice, a delight to her ears.

Portia was reluctant to look at its owner for seeing him again would make separation yet
more painful.

"Good day, Miss Crossmichael. You will forgive our intrusion, I hope."

She had to look. Lord Stadbrooke leaned indolently in the doorway, smiling at her, his
dark gaze gentle. He looked as though he had never said those harsh things, those terrible words
that echoed and re-echoed in her dreams. She could not find her tongue.

Sabina broke the taut silence. "Oh look at the garden! The daffodils are finished here
and they will just be covering the lawn at the Hall. I cannot wait. There must be primroses left
here though. Let's go and look for them. Come along, Pen, Mel. Miss Thripton, do let's cut some
for Miss Crossmichael's desk; have you your scissors in your reticule?"

Portia was bemused by Sabina's mature efficiency. The girl ushered her sisters and their
governess out the terrace doors and into the spring sun and left behind a growing silence.

Lord Stadbrooke entered the chamber and closed the door carefully behind him. "Say
something, Portia... Anything. Tell me to go to hell--and I'll tell you I have been there these past
three weeks. Tell me you never wish to see me again, and I will believe you, after the things I
have done and said.

"I tried for a while, since I took the girls to London, to forget you, to uphold my
righteous indignation, to remain angry with you. But I could not, because my resentments were
nonsensical, foolish. You had done nothing to merit my censure, you were nothing like the other
women I have known. I had finally to admit that I could not live without you."

He paused and looked uncertain, uncomfortable, then cleared his throat and continued.
"Will you forgive me the things I said in a time of fear? Will you tell me if you love me as I love
you? Will you marry me and let me tell you I love you every day for the rest of my life? Let me
apologize in every way I can think of for all the stupid things I have said and done these past few
months?"

"Stop talking and let me think," Portia said, pressing her hands to her hot cheeks as she
sank into the nearest chair. She could only stare at him as her mind teemed with questions.

He seated himself in the silk-covered armchair beside her broad desk and obediently
held his tongue.

She tried to order her chaotic thoughts. He loved her. He loved her and he wished to
marry her. She couldn't believe... He didn't mean... Finally, she gave up the effort of
understanding and blurted, "I didn't lie--I didn't. I couldn't tell you everything. I was torn so
many ways."

He nodded. "And I was wrong to accuse you--to ascribe to you the same faults that
blemished my late wife, my mother and my mistresses. I have not been a saint, Portia, I cannot
lie about that to you. But my daughters--and you--have ensured that I have seen the error of my
ways. If you made mistakes, I made more. But I think... I hope...we can put all of that behind
us."

Portia took a deep breath and dared begin to hope. She realized her hands were shaking
and she clasped them tightly on her
chatelaine
. "Did you mean what you said?"

"When?" he rose again. "Did I mean what I said weeks ago? No; I spoke in anger, and
sometimes in frustration and once or twice in sheer stupidity. Did I mean what I said just now?
That I love you and I want you to be my wife? Yes, most emphatically."

"But... The girls?"

"My daughters are aware of my hopes. They were aware of them I think, before I was
myself. They enjoyed being your pupils; they have expressed a desire to be your daughters. They
have, in fact, expressed a wish to have a baby brother or two... Or failing that, another
sister."

Portia flushed rose red, and when he unlinked her clenched fingers, she did not resist.
Her
chatelaine
swung with a clatter to hang among her muslin skirts. He kissed each of
her slender hands.

She lifted them without hesitation to his broad shoulders, at last believing that all her
dreams had come true.

His strong arms gathered her close. "I love you, darling Portia. You have educated me in
matters of the heart and will, I hope, do so our life long. As I will take pleasure in educating
you." His arms tightened and his strong, gentle hands left her no doubt of his meaning.

Portia said, "You wakened me to my senses, when I thought I was cold. I cursed you for
that these past weeks, but now I cannot deny that I would enjoy your instruction."

"Could you give up your school?"

"Should I have to?"

"I am not asking you to be my mistress, but my wife. I am asking you to live in
Lincolnshire, to be mother to my daughters, to bear my children should we be so blessed. You
cannot teach classes from such a distance. But I would not ask you to divest yourself of the
school completely. You need only put it in the hands of someone you trust."

Portia rested her cheek on his chest, revelling in his support, his nearness and the steady
beat of his heart as she thought. "I should like to retain ownership," she said at last. "It is
my...security, you might say. Perhaps Heloise and Cal would care for it. It will be strange to me
to put my life in another's keeping. I do appreciate your understanding of the matter."

"Then say it, my darling." He held her a little away, his hands tight on her slim
waist.

"Say what, my lord?" She teased him in a way she did not realize she had ever
learned.

"What is in your heart..." He looked suddenly uncertain again, and the doubt sat
endearingly upon his sharp, decisive features.

Portia relented. "I love you, Ingram." She punctuated her statements with light touches
of her lips. "I will always love you. I will be honoured to marry you."

His kiss was ferocious, overwhelming in its demand, in its giving. Portia had no
difficulty meeting it with her own need and her own gift.

"Ith it settled?" A small voice finally cut through the aura of devotion and desire that
surrounded the pair.

Portia looked to the terrace doors to see Ingram's daughters crowded in the opening,
their faces curious and hopeful by turns. She felt shy to be caught in so private a moment, but
Ingram did not release her, only allowing her to turn in his arms.

"It is. You shall be chaperones home to Lincolnshire, and we'll be wed in St. Antony's in
the village at Stadbroke, if Portia agrees," their father informed them.

The girls burst in and Stadbroke relinquished Portia to their embraces. At last they stood
aside and Melicent said, "You shall have to leave off your
chatelaine
, ma'am. I will
miss it!"

"Do not call her ma'am. She will be Mama," said Penny.

Tears of joy threatened to overwhelm Portia. "I shall have to arrange things here," she
said in a sudden panic.

"Then we will stay until you are ready to leave. And you will have only to add the keys
of Stadley Court to your
chatelaine
, not abandon it here." The viscount grinned.

The girls shouted their hurrahs in a most unmaidenly manner and streamed past them to
request their luggage brought in, reclaim their places in the dormitories, and disrupt classes in a
most wanton manner.

"We shall disorder the place entirely," Stadbroke said with a contented chuckle,
recapturing her in his arms.

"Mansion House Establishment will survive," said Portia, lifting her face to his. "It has
survived worse."

"I might not survive the next few weeks." His embrace tightened around her.

Portia's forehead creased with incomprehension as she stared at him, loving the
openness of his expression, awed by the love freely displayed in his dark gaze.

"I shall have to put up at The Three Compasses, and exist without your embraces until
we leave the school. 'Tis the worst thing I can currently imagine," he explained.

It occurred to Portia that she had never felt so light-hearted, so expectant, so...joyful.
"Me too, my lord. I shall have to work very quickly."

"See that you do," he laughed.

THE END

Lesley-Anne McLeod has loved all things British for longer than she can remember. So
it was natural that when she turned to writing fiction she should write Regency romances, those
uniquely English historical romances in the tradition of Jane Austen.

Lesley-Anne has been writing for twenty-five years and has written seven Regency
romances and several Regency short stories. She has published articles on antiques and
collectibles, and has also free-lanced in business writing. Book-selling was her career for nearly
ten years; she owned her own bookstore for three of those enjoyable years. She belongs to the
Saskatchewan Romance Writers and treasures the support and friendship that group offers.

Lesley-Anne is married and has one daughter. She lives on the prairies of Canada which
are distant from Regency England in time and thought, but which retain an echo of Great Britain
in history and tradition.

* * * *

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