The Education of Portia (28 page)

Dawn was breaking on a damp March morning when Ingram called the four searchers
with him to a halt. His hound, after examining Penny's clothes thoroughly, had led them
unerringly west to the beech wood at the base of Muswell Hill. There they had come to a
sluggish stream. They had wasted an hour at the water's edge before Ruff had picked up the scent
on the other side and led them still farther, half way to Coldfall Wood. He had hesitated again
just moments previously and now Caldwell, his own coachman, and two local men stood around
him, cold, hungry, damp and uncertain.

Through the quiet countryside, sounds reverberated in the still air: a rooster's crow, the
cautious lowing of a cow, and the steady gallop of a horse.

The sound of hooves drew near and Ingram's hopes lifted. Someone in haste; someone
with good news? A roan mare broke into their small clearing; Portia Crossmichael was riding it.
The cold dawn air had pinched colour into her pale, weary face, and Ingram bit back a concern
for her, recalling his anger. "Have you information?" he called with renewed agitation. "Have the
others found anything?"

The little colour she had gained from the ride drained away. "No, I have not."

Caldwell Dent hurried to his step-sister's side and helped her to dismount.

Ingram knew he was behaving badly, but his anger prevented him from assisting
her.

"You have tracked us as efficiently as the Ruffian has tracked Penelope," Dent said with
a weak attempt at levity.

"But you have no sign yet?" Portia said.

Ingram turned away from the painful urgency of her questioning. He might be deluded
into thinking she really cared if he looked at her drawn, anxious face.

"The hound will find her," Dent said. "Stadbroke has assured us of it repeatedly, and I
believe him now after seeing Ruff work."

"I have brought a petticoat of Penelope's. I thought the Ruffian's senses might need
refreshing." Portia searched in a sack tied to her saddle and came out with a ruffled muslin
garment.

Ingram edged near her. "I should have thought of that," he admitted, accepting the trifle
from her.

"You need not thank me," she mocked him, her distress transforming to antagonism. She
turned away to untie the sack. "I brought refreshment as well."

The men crowded around her as she opened the sack she lifted from the saddle. She
passed doorsteps of bread spread with dripping and stone bottles of ale among them. The Ruffian
wolfed down the offering of beef scraps Portia held out to him and slaked his thirst at a pellucid
pond on the other side of the clearing.

Ingram accepted his share of the victuals, but did not thank her. He chewed and
swallowed though he had no appetite; he drank without thirst. "How did you find us?" he asked
at last.

"You set off to the west. I've a tongue in my head; and everyone in the vicinity knows
the reason for your search," she said shortly.

"How are Sabina and Melicent?"

"Well enough; confident that you will succeed in returning their sister to them. The
household is engaged in its daily routine as the best defence against folly and imagination." Her
antipathy seemed to drain away, leaving her sombre and downcast.

Ingram could give her no more of his attention without relinquishing his bitterness. He
whistled to the dog and offered the petticoat. After a thorough examination, Ruff put his nose to
the ground and patrolled the clearing.

Ingram left Portia's side without apology or thanks or farewell. He mounted, all the
while watching the hound criss-cross the area.

Caldwell stepped back to speak with her. "You look so tired, Port. You should not have
come out."

"I had to. I cannot turn my hand to anything, Cal. I had a need for activity." Portia
watched Stadbroke with a revealing intensity.

"I understand," he said. "Will you be well enough to return home? Will you mount now?
Let me leave you a groom. "

"No!" she said fervently. "No, you must keep every man you have to search. There is a
stump from which I can mount. I will be fine; the exercise, the fresh air will do me good. I did
not sleep. Well, how could I?"

With a sudden, sure bark the Ruffian was off, and Caldwell mounted in a rush as the
men streamed after the dog, Stadbroke at the head of the small group.

Portia was left, leaning against her mare's withers, wishing someone had looked back.
Stadbroke was so angry, so unforgiving, transformed from the merry, carefree gentleman she
first had met. But she could understand and forgive it. Her anguish must nearly match his
own.

Loving, merry little Penelope gone... Lost... Taken.

She still could scarcely encompass the fact. She did not think she would feel more
distress had the child actually been her own flesh and blood.

Her usefulness was done now. The refreshments had given her opportunity to be of use,
to contribute something substantial to the search. And she had wanted to see Ingram. Their
encounter the previous evening had been terrible. She had expected anxiety, fear and distraction
from him, not threats, accusations and blame. She had been prepared to soothe, encourage and
comfort him, but she had had no response to his harsh indictment of the female sex. What kind of
women had he known?

She had thought, in the dark watches of the night, that her love for Ingram Perrington--
submerged by injustice and prejudice--had died. Yet today she had hoped against hope he would
have a kind word for her. That had been a foolish wish, she knew it now. His dislike of her was
confirmed anew, immutable, intractable.

Shaking her head at her own thoughts, she led the mare to a nearby stump and mounted.
She had to return to the school, and tell the Perrington girls that there was no news, no sighting,
no clue even as to the whereabouts of their little sister.

* * * *

A wretched day passed slowly at Mansion House following Portia's return.

She did her best, talking to Sabina and Melicent, to be positive and cheerful. "The
Ruffian is very much in control of the search. The petticoat you found for me, Melicent, was just
the ticket. When his senses were refreshed, Ruff was away like the wind, with the searchers after
him."

"And Papa?" Sabina said, sitting in the middle of Portia's bed could not disguise the
quaver in her voice.

"Your father has every confidence of finding Penelope very soon." If he had spoken to
her about the matter, Portia was certain Stadbroke would have expressed that opinion. "You have
no reason for hopelessness. Indeed, if you will come with me and rejoin your classes, it will be
much the best for everyone."

Both girls made protesting noises, Sabina from under the coverlet she had dragged over
her head, and Melicent from her position at the window where she had pressed her nose to the
glass.

"Truly, I need your help in this. Everyone--all the students, all your friends, all the
teachers--are upset. If you will but come down, talk to them, the time will pass more quickly for
you, and they will feel more at ease, knowing that you do not despair." Portia hoped the girls
would listen to her. Their cooperation would ease the dismal atmosphere that suffocated the
school, and participation with their friends could only benefit their mood.

In the end, Sabina and Melicent agreed to return to their classes, and Portia was left
alone in her study. She was prey then to all the dismay and distress against which she had
warned the Perrington sisters. The ordinary sounds of the day: classes and meals, chatter and
clatter seemed atrocious to her. That life should continue so normally when the Perringtons'
world, and hers, were suspended in terror was appalling. She had to stifle a strong urge to bring
the school to an abnormal halt. Only the knowledge that she could not afford to do so,
particularly in light of the recent trouble, stopped her.

Eventually, she found the courage and the energy to walk about the corridors and
classrooms and offer words of encouragement. Heloise looked on her approvingly and together
they set about heartening the staff, the students, and particularly the Perrington sisters.

The girls were as brave as they could be, though they ate little at dinner and began to
look very wan as another evening overtook them. Heloise and Gavrielle continued stalwart in
their support, but the choking torment of the waiting told on them all.

Another dusk had fallen when a uproar outside the house alerted Portia--sitting in her
study with Heloise, Gavrielle, Sabina and Melicent--that the search party had returned.

She went alone into the entry hall, cautioning the others to remain behind. But she found
Sabina and Melicent at her shoulders when her old porter tugged open the great front door. On
the doorstep stood the viscount with Penelope, wrapped in the blanket he had carried strapped to
his saddle, in his arms. She was grubby, white with weariness, tousle-headed and very quiet but
she burst into tears of joy at the sight of Portia and her sisters.

The viscount passed into the warmth of the vestibule before handing her into the care of
Sabina.

"Take her above-stairs, see her bathed and fed, my dears," Lord Stadbroke said to his
daughters. "I will be up shortly; we shall leave for home--for Lincolnshire--on the morrow."

He pointedly ignored Portia as he allowed Euston to take his greatcoat, his hat and
gloves.

Drawing her shawl closer about her shoulders Portia, with her heart aching over the
rebuff, stepped outside. The searchers were disposed in attitudes of weariness on the gravel
sweep. She moved among them impulsively, thanking them, hugging her brother, offering beds
and meals and gratitude in equal measures. When arrangements had been made for the comfort
of all, Portia followed Caldwell indoors.

"That was a near run thing, Port. We nearly missed them; Dent was on the point of
removing the child to London. Even the Ruffian could not have tracked her there," he said,
removing his own coat and hat. Euston was there to take them; the viscount had disappeared.
"Where is Heloise? Is Gavrielle with her?"

"In the parlour," Portia said, understanding that she no longer held first place in her
brother's life. His allegiance--and rightly so--had changed. He gave her an absent-minded hug
and removed to join Heloise and Gavrielle, establishing their own family circle.

Unaccustomedly uncertain of her duty, she made for her study. Within it, she found the
viscount. She gasped and strove for composure as he shut the door firmly after her entry.

Lines of fatigue were etched deeply into his sharp features, his high cheekbones
accentuated by hollow eyes and his nose an aquiline slash. Without speaking he sank into a chair
near the fire and contemplated his be-grimed boots.

Her equanimity restored by his exhaustion, Portia moved to the tantalus that sat on a
small table behind her desk. After unlocking it with one of the many keys on her
chatelaine
, she chose the brandy and poured out a generous glass. Wordlessly she
handed it to him and he gulped a third of it without remark.

She seated herself at her desk and waited for him to speak.

Finally he said, "Harold Dent was the culprit, Caldwell was right. He had lured Penny
from the hawthorn woods and held her for ransom and revenge. I have given him a week to quit
this country. He is in the change of the constable at Fortis Green; I shall see the magistrate in the
morning." Even his voice was weary, harsh with exhaustion and repressed emotion.

"Is Penny unhurt? He did not harm her, did he? I would have believed him incapable of
that, at least." Portia could not suppress the anxious catch in her own words.

"Your suppositions, there at least, are correct. She was teaching him a lesson in
vingt et un
when we came upon them in a woodsman's cottage in the ash forest by Fortis
Green. Even in desperate straits he could not leave the pasteboards alone. It was gaming debts
that had been the cause of his financial woes and his extortion attempts--his reason for abducting
her--that and, as you supposed, his anger over my public humiliation of him at the Afrique."

"I see. And now?"

"We will spend the night, and take our leave after I see the magistrate. My daughters are
hereby withdrawn from your instruction, ma'am. Please make up my account, and I will send you
my draft in payment." He tossed off the last of his brandy, the strong muscles of his throat
working in his open collar. Then he rose. "It has been an education, Miss Crossmichael, knowing
you."

With those enigmatic words, he took his leave.

Portia sank into her chair, exhausted and comprehensively enfeebled. Hers had been the
education: an education in love, in loss, in disappointment and now--it seemed--in despair.

How could she live without them, the three girls she had come to love?

She again jumped to her feet--Penny, she must see Penny--see for herself that the child
had taken no hurt. And she must rejoice with the older girls, returned to happiness. She paused,
her hand clenching on her
chatelaine
. No. No, she must not be precipitate. The viscount
would be with his daughters restoring bonds, reassuring them, making plans. She must make do
with the glimpse she had had of the child, the knowledge that she was well. She had no claim on
Sabina, Melicent and Penelope Perrington, and tomorrow they would be gone.

She sank back into her chair, staring at the flickering flame of a guttering candle in a
branch of four.

And so too would he depart. Ingram Perrington, Lord Stadbroke. Author of it all,
arrogant, charming, intelligent, haughty and all too attractive.

How could she ever live without him? He had educated her in the warm desires of the
flesh with only a kiss and an embrace or two. She had learned from him to hope for a family of
her own, a different way of life, a new beginning. Love--that was what he had taught her, a love
that for her had not died, never would.