A SHORT DISTANCE away, Lady Ratcliffe stood frozen with her arm extended, a small pistol glinting in the early morning light. A sob escaped her, and she swayed on her feet.
Ratcliffe and the other men rushed to the duke. The doctor knelt beside him to assess the wound.
Gripped by horror, Portia sprang to Lady Ratcliffe and slid an arm around her to keep her from falling. The older woman dropped the spent pistol and clung to Portia, tremors rippling through her slender form.
While murmuring soothing words to Lady Ratcliffe, Portia watched in disbelief as the doctor shook his head and closed the duke’s eyes. He was dead? Her mind resisted the truth of it.
In a daze, she drew Lady Ratcliffe away. The woman was weeping uncontrollably, and it would only be worse if she lingered near the body.
“Which is your carriage?” she asked.
For a moment, Lady Ratcliffe stared dully at her, her green eyes misted with tears. Then she pointed. “The last one.”
Portia took her there and helped her inside while the coachman held the door. Unwilling to leave the distraught woman alone, she seated herself beside Lady Ratcliffe and offered her a folded handkerchief.
“Here, my lady. Dry your tears.”
“It’s all my fault. What have I done? Oh, what have I done?”
“You did what was necessary. The duke attempted an act of treachery. If not for you, he would have shot your son.” The notion of what might have happened to Ratcliffe made Portia shiver. How close he had come to being the one lying cold on the ground!
Lady Ratcliffe wiped her eyes, then twisted the handkerchief between her fingers. As if speaking to herself, she whispered, “I should have known better than to let Albright draw me into that card game. If I hadn’t owed him so much money …”
Gambling. She had been gambling with the duke.
Reminded of what Lady Ratcliffe had said in an attempt to stop the duel, Portia was appalled. Why would the viscountess be so foolish as to gamble with a man who hated her and her family? “How much did you lose to Albright?”
Lady Ratcliffe blinked at her. “Quite a lot. Colin was furious with me. You see, I—I’d sworn to stay away from the card tables. But I only wanted a bit of fun … there’s nothing wrong with that. It wasn’t fair of Colin to make me stay away from London for so long.”
As the woman continued to justify her own wrongdoing, Portia’s mind worked furiously. Lady Ratcliffe was a gambler. Had Ratcliffe needed the dowry in order to pay off his mother’s illicit debts, rather than his own? Was it possible that Ratcliffe himself was not the wastrel people believed him to be? The revelation shook Portia to the core.
If that was the truth, why hadn’t he told her so? Was it some sort of misguided gallantry on his part, a means of protecting his mother’s reputation?
Portia eyed the dainty woman who sat crying piteously. What would become of Lady Ratcliffe now? She had killed a peer of the realm. Surely there would be consequences …
The sound of approaching footsteps drew her attention. The door opened and Ratcliffe thrust his head inside. He glanced at his mother, then looked at Portia. Their gazes locked for one long eloquent moment. A depth of feeling seemed to leap across the small confines of the coach. Then the intensity in his eyes faded to a bleak coldness.
Lady Ratcliffe groped for his hand. “Colin! I didn’t mean to kill him. Whatever am I to do?”
“You’re to go straight back to your town house. Perhaps Miss Crompton will be kind enough to escort you.”
His formal use of her name caused a knell of alarm in Portia. “Certainly. But where are you going?”
“I’ll be leaving England,” he stated grimly. “Quite possibly for a long time.”
She gasped. “What?”
“I shot Albright to death. That is the story the seconds have agreed to tell. Mother, you were merely a bystander.”
Lady Ratcliffe looked stricken. “But … my dear boy …”
“You did nothing, is that quite clear?” She nodded slowly, releasing his hand and sitting back to stare down at her hands. He turned his stern gaze on Portia. “And you are to corroborate the tale. No one else is to know what really transpired here today.”
Portia was aghast. He intended to shoulder the blame for his mother’s act. He would flee to the Continent to avoid being prosecuted for murder. Her spine stiffened at the injustice of it. “I most certainly will not repeat such a lie! No one will blame Lady Ratcliffe for firing her pistol. She did it to save your life!”
“That is not the way society will view matters. I won’t have her involved in such a scandal.”
“I’ll explain it to everyone. I’ll vouch for you—and for her!”
A wintry smile touched his lips. “No one will believe you. You’ll be wasting your breath. I’m the one with the wild reputation, remember?”
The cynical truth in his words gave her pause. The self-righteous snobs of society had already tarred and feathered him. They viewed him as a worthless profligate. Everyone knew about the feud between Ratcliffe and Albright, so they would be quick to believe he had killed the duke in cold blood. No matter what they heard to the contrary.
Agonized by the notion of losing him, Portia lifted her hand to his face and stroked the vital warmth of his skin. She made a swift, heartfelt decision. “Then I’ll go with you.”
A muscle in his jaw clenched. He drew back sharply, out of her reach. “No. I’m riding fast, and you’ll slow me down.”
His rejection hit her like a slap. Without further ado, he slammed the door of the carriage and walked out of her life.
Colin lay flat on his back in the narrow bed, his arms folded behind his head. It made a better pillow than the flat one provided by the inn. Because a storm had blown in, he had been forced to take a room in Dover. No ships would risk crossing the Channel until the morning at the very earliest.
Rain drummed against the window, and a damp chill seeped through cracks in the walls. If the nasty weather kept up tomorrow, he would be forced to go into hiding farther up the coast. He certainly couldn’t remain here where he was a sitting duck for the Bow Street runners.
Cautiously, he fingered the lump nestled in his hair. He had the very devil of a headache. The cowardly blow had caught him off guard the other morning because he had been so livid at seeing Albright with his hand on Portia.
Now Albright was dead. And Colin was left with nothing more than a hollow sense of relief. The spider had devoted his life to playing sly tricks on Colin’s family, but when he had extended his web to ensnare Portia, that had been the final straw. If his mother hadn’t pulled the trigger, then Colin would have done so—gladly. Either way, the road to ruin led straight here to this rented room with its bare walls and dingy furnishings.
The law wouldn’t look kindly on the murder of an exalted duke.
Colin stared up at the bare plank ceiling. The crashing of the surf and the howling of the wind should have lulled him to sleep. God knew, he was weary enough. In preparing for the duel the previous night, he had slept only an hour or two, and not much more the night before that—the night he had spent in Portia’s arms.
Those golden hours had been burned into his memory. Nothing could have prepared him for the bond of closeness between them. The depth of his feelings for her had knocked him off kilter. Even now, when he knew it was impossible, he kept entertaining feverish, foolish hopes of a reunion.
I’ll go with you.
She had no idea of what she was offering. All of her talk about traveling to India and becoming a governess had been just so much nonsense. Poverty was out of the realm of her experience. Having grown up in luxury, she would be miserable living on the run with him, without being able to set down roots or even knowing if they had the funds to purchase their next meal. And once the romantic haze wore off, their closeness would deteriorate into wretched squabbling—as had happened to his own parents.
Nevertheless, Colin found himself wishing he had hauled her out of the carriage and taken her up onto his horse. It had nearly killed him to close the door on her, his last memory the sight of her stricken expression. The pull of her magnetism kept luring his thoughts back to London. He fought the craving to abandon his flight, and damn the consequences.
He shifted restlessly on the bed. The last thing he needed was to be alone with only his thoughts for company. He ought to go down to the tavern where at least there would be a few other lost souls hunched over their pints of ale. But it was too dangerous to show his face. Better he should stay out of sight so that fewer people could identify his presence.
The gray light slowly faded to black. Colin fell asleep. Sometime during the night, he was awakened by the faint rattle of a key in the lock. Snapping to awareness, he sat up, the covers falling away. He grabbed the primed pistol lying on the bedside table.
A party of men burst into the room. One held an oil lamp high.
Squinting against the brightness, Colin cursed.
One shot. Three men.
“Lay down your weapon, my lord, lest things go worse for you,” stated the tall one with the lantern. “As a representative of the Crown, I am hereby arresting you for the murder of His Grace of Albright.”