How to Woo a Widow (7 page)
Read How to Woo a Widow Online
Authors: Manda Collins
“There is a balcony, my lord. It runs from the window in the study to the window in the drawing room.”
Though he was approaching sixty, Jameson followed Tony up the stairs with the grace of a cat and with just as little noise.
Once they’d retrieved the pistol, Tony sent Jameson downstairs and made his way out onto the balcony.
He heard voices— Portia’s in calm, soothing tones, such as she would use to gentle a restless horse, Tretham’s louder, more forceful. As he peeked into the room from his position outside the window, Tony saw Portia approaching the window, her eyes were filled with tears though with her back to Tretham he would have no notion of it.
Tony gave silent thanks that she was as yet unharmed. And when she saw him, her eyes widening in shock. But he was quick to silence her with a finger to his lips. Surprise was perhaps his most valuable weapon and he intended to use it.
“You will forgive me, won’t you, my dear?” Tretham asked from somewhere behind her. “It was all for you. I even eliminated that blackguard Daventry when you were foolish enough to marry him. Really, my dear, it is as much your fault as mine.”
Tony felt his gut clench as he saw Tretham approach her, his arms outstretched as if to embrace her. Not while I have breath in my body, he fumed silently.
Using the other man’s distraction against him, Tony flung open the French door and pointed the gun at Tretham, who stopped abruptly at the sight of him.
“Step behind me please, Portia,” Tony said, stepping into the room, his voice calm despite the burst of indescribable anger that pulsed through him.
“You can’t order her around like that,” Tretham said crossly. “She is nothing to you. She is mine. I’ve waited for her for all these years and I will not tolerate any more interference from you.”
“Perhaps you do not know how these things are conducted, Tretham,” Tony said amiably. “I have a gun. You do not. Therefore the orders will come from me.”
“I should have shot you when I had the chance, Leighton,” Tretham spat. “I could have, you know. I was the one who found you and Bascombe that day. I wanted to make sure that you were out of commission for good. Imagine my horror when I realized that Bascombe had died but you were so inconveniently alive. I thought about shooting you but there would have been inquiries made when theyfound the bullet hole. Instead I left you there, thinking that the broken bones you’d suffered would be enough. I was a fool.”
“Well, that’s all very well and good, Tretham,” Tony said, feeling Portia at his back. “But I’m afraid that this tender recounting of days gone by will need to be saved for another time. For if I’m not mistaken, Lady Bascombe has just arrived home. And you do know how she dislikes finding a mess in her sitting room. I’ll just remove you like the rubbish you are, shall I?”
Right on cue, the doorknob leading into the hall rattled and Lady Bascombe’s querulous voice called out, “What is the meaning of this? Why is this door locked? Portia? You are not entertaining a gentleman, I trust?”
Tony said to Portia without turning away from where Tretham stood glaring at him, “You’d best go distract her, love. I don’t suppose your mama will find this scene very reassuring.”
As Portia stepped away to unlock the door, Tretham made his move. If it had been his intent to assault, Tretham would have met with a bruising right to the jaw. But to Tony’s surprise, the other man barreled past him through the French door and out onto the balcony, where he leapt past him out into the air.
A sickening thud punctuated his landing.
“Dear God,” Portia cried out. She rushed back to Tony’s side and before he could prevent her she looked down over the balcony’s edge to see Tretham lying at an awkward angle on the paving stones below.
To her astonishment, however, Tretham was alive.
“Help me!” the madman cried up to them. “I think my leg is broken.”
“Good,” Tony said without sympathy. “Come, my dear. Let’s let your mama in.”
He took her arm and they walked to the locked door. Portia turned the key in the lock and Lady Bascombe, the butler and two footmen burst into the room.
Tony let Portia explain what had happened to the others, and instructed the butler to call for the watch and the magistrate. Overwhelmed by a sudden wave of exhaustion, he dropped into an ugly carved chair near the end of the hall.
It wasn’t me, he thought with relief. It was at once joyous and heartbreaking. All those years of guilt. All that time he’d wasted in self-flagellation over something he hadn’t even done.
And now, he wondered. What now? He leaned forward and dropped his head into his hands. What if the scandal that was sure to follow this incident with Tretham proved too much for her to bear? She’d finally emerged from the cloud of scrutiny brought on by James’ untimely death so many years ago. Was she ready to endure another round in the public eye? Would linking her name with his prove too much for even a woman with Portia’s strength of will?
“Here you are.”
He hadn’t heard her approach, but now that she stood before him, Tony had to willfully restrain himself from reaching out to take her in his arms.
Unaware of his struggle, however, Portia simply lowered herself into his lap and hugged him tightly to her.
“I am so relieved you weren’t hurt,” she whispered. “If Tretham had taken you away from me as well…” She did not finish the thought, but they both knew what she was thinking.
“Your mama will be scandalized if she finds you like this,” Tony said, though he made no move to eject her from his lap.
“I can manage my mother,” Portia said without remorse, kissing him on the nose. “Besides, it is perfectly unexceptionable for engaged couples to--”
Tony felt his heart soar. “What did you say?” he interrupted.
Her eyes fell. “Well, I thought perhaps that now Tretham has been caught, and your name has been cleared I might think about making an honest man of you.” Her words were playful, but the gaze she turned on him was deadly serious.
“Anthony,” she said carefully, “I know I said before that I couldn’t bear any more scandal, but that was less about fear of scandal, than fear of, well, you.”
“Me?” He frowned. “Why would you be frightened of me?”
Portia hid her face in his neck and held on to him tighter.
“Because I suspect, or rather, I know, that you are my destiny. And when you didn’t come for me all week I almost went mad with fear that you would simply pack your bags and leave London straightaway rather than link yourself to the family that has caused you nothing but trouble since you first met us.”
She felt his chest rumble and thought perhaps he was shaking with anger. But the sound that emanated from him sounded oddly like…a laugh?
“Portia.” When she looked up Tony’s green eyes were bright with mirth. “I was just sitting here thinking you wouldn’t want to ally yourself with me, for precisely the same reason.”
“You were?” She looked at him with suspicion.
“I was.”
“Then you could perhaps be persuaded to marry me?”
His lips quirked. “Depends on your methods of persuasion.”
After several minutes of negotiations, they came to a most amicable agreement.
Epilogue
“You aren’t falling asleep are you?” Portia, Countess of Leighton, asked her husband from within the shelter of his arms.
For their first anniversary he’d insisted that they visit the place where they’d had their first kiss. The dark walk at Vauxhall.
“Darling, how could you ask such a thing?” Tony asked, his lips pressed against her neck. She felt his body tense as he tried and failed to stifle a yawn. “Though if I were to close my eyes for a mere moment,” he said sleepily, “there would surely be no shame in it. I worked hard for that last one.”
“You work hard for all of them,” Portia whispered, kissing him fully on the mouth. Though her gown was draped respectably over the parts of them joined together, anyone stumbling upon them would have little trouble guessing what the couple had been up to.
“Must we go back?” Portia asked against his mouth. “Let’s just live here on the dark walk from now on.”
Looking up into her eyes, Tony began to draw up her bodice to cover her exquisite breasts. “Now, love, you know your Mama would come looking for us sooner or later. If it’s all the same to you I’d prefer to live somewhere with a sturdy lock and a comfortable bed.”
“I thought you loved our outdoor trysts,” Portia pouted. As she stood and began to tidy her gown and hair, Tony began to button his breeches.
“My dear, I know you will not believe it, but I am no longer the virile young buck you married. I’m afraid that my aging person can only endure one or two nights a year of lovemaking on a hard stone bench. Before long, I fear you will be forced to push me around in a Bath chair and rest my gouty feet on plump cushions.”
“Good lord,” Portia gasped in mock horror. “If you are decrepit what hope do I have? I shall purchase an ear trumpet first thing tomorrow morning so that you need not shout sweet nothings into my ear.”
“How old are you exactly, Lady Leighton?” Tony asked, drawing her into his arms again for one last kiss before they returned to their box.
“It is never the thing to force a lady to admit her true age,” she scolded, kissing him on the nose. “But, in answer to your question,” she laughed. “I will tell you when our child is born.”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Well, that’s no answer! I have no way of knowing when that will be. You, madam, are a tease.”
But Portia’s smile held the mysterious mischief women had been perfecting on for generations before. “I shouldn’t think you will have to wait too terribly long,” she said kissing his chin. “Only eight months or so, I should think.”
His mouth, which had been kissing the corner of hers, paused.
Darkly lashed green eyes met brown.
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as a woman can be about such things,” she returned, smiling at him in that way that had been dear to him since he’d first fallen in love with her all those years ago.
Tony placed a hand over her still only slightly rounded belly.
“This calls for fireworks,” he said when he had kissed her, and kissed her. And just for good measure, kissed her again.
“Where on earth will we find fireworks at this time of night?” Portia asked with a grin. “I know! There is a lovely pleasure garden I know called Vauxhall…”
“Hmmm. Do they have a dark walk?”
“And fireworks,” she nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Though I think I prefer it when we make our own”
“Me too,” Tony whispered against her hair. “Me too.”
THE END
Thank you for choosing to read
How to Woo a Widow
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If you’d like to read more books by Manda Collins, try any of her exciting Regency romances. To learn more about Manda’s books, check out her website at
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How to Woo a Widow
About the Author
Manda Collins spent her teen years wishing she'd been born a couple of centuries earlier, preferably in the English countryside. Time travel being what it is, she resigned herself to life with electricity and indoor plumbing, and read lots of books. An affinity for books led to a graduate degree in English, followed by another in Librarianship. A native of coastal Alabama, Manda lives in the house her mother grew up in with three cats, sometimes a dog, sometimes her sister, and more books than strictly necessary.
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