Page 31 of Her Rogue to Ruin
They could be lovers, but there would be an end to it eventually. His future had been prearranged.
CHAPTER7
A little stirringof trepidation accompanied Portia when she entered the Pemberton townhouse the next morning for a sitting with Louisa and further work on her portrait. Not that she feared seeing Phin. Indeed, the opposite was true. She was eager to see him again, if only to ask what had caused him to rush off the previous night.
Last night, after returning home, her thoughts had returned again and again to those moments in the studio with him. She’d slept but only fitfully, her dreams filled with the memory of his touch, his scent, his mouth on hers. It had been a long time since she’d awoken to anything but thoughts of work, what needed to be done for the day, what her finances would look like at the end of the month when rent came due.
This morning, her mind had been filled only with Phineas Pemberton.
“Lady Louisa may be late to the morning room today, Lady Hastings.” Wallis, the Pemberton’s butler, approached after she’d removed her coat, hat, and gloves in the Pemberton House foyer.
“Oh? I hope she’s not unwell.” Portia approached the lean older gentleman and followed his gaze as he glanced upward to where the family suites were located on the townhouse’s upper floor.
“As do I, my lady. Though her lady’s maid informs me that she will be down directly.”
“Very well, I’ll set up my things and wait for her.”
“I’ll have a tea service sent in.” The older man bowed and then headed off below stairs.
Portia wondered at the worry she’d glimpsed in the butler’s gaze.
Still, she busied herself preparing her palette and setting out the brushes she planned to use. And once the tea service arrived, she waited, expecting Louisa to join her at any moment, and then finally poured herself a cup.
When the girl still hadn’t come down after half an hour, Portia decided that something had to be amiss. In the hallway, she didn’t see any servants, so she made her way upstairs. She’d been invited up to the viscountess’s sitting room on occasion, but she had no real clue where Louisa’s room might be.
She didn’t have to wonder for long. The muffled sound of Louisa crying carried through a door on the left side of the hall. Portia rapped twice and Louisa bid her to enter.
The girl stood up immediately from an overstuffed chair near the fireplace.
“Lady Hastings, do forgive me for being late to our appointment.” She swiped at her cheeks and pasted on a smile as she got the words out.
“Do not worry about that. May I ask what’s troubling you and if I can help in any way?”
“Oh, I’m perfectly fine. I swear it.” She sniffed and then patted the pretty coiffure a maid had wound her hair into for the portrait. “I can come with you now, and we can get started.”
Portia considered whether to let the girl carry on with the pretense that all was well and found she didn’t have a stomach for the sort of polite pretending that she’d practiced all her life.
“You’re not fine, Louisa,” she said softly. “I heard you weeping when I came upstairs.”
The girl’s eyes ballooned wide. “Heavens, did you?” She clasped a hand over her mouth and looked even more miserable than when Portia had walked in. “What if Mama heard me? Or Phin?”
Portia frowned. If they’d heard her, she suspected either of them would have come to her room just as Portia had. That they’d with to comfort her and help her if they could.
She approached and gestured to the matching chairs near the fire.
“Shall we sit?”
Louisa hesitated, then relented and joined Portia, settling onto one of the rose-hued velvet chairs.
“Take your time,” Portia told her, “but do tell me what’s troubling you. Sometimes just saying it aloud can ease one’s mind.”
That was certainly true during meetings of the widows’ club. They laughed and cried and told painful truths they’d held inside far too long.
Louisa clasped her hands together and rested them in her lap. She still held the hint of a forced smile on her lips, even when she lifted her gaze to Portia’s.
“Well, I…” Louisa choked in her attempt to explain and tears rushed down her cheeks. “I love him.”
Portia nodded. She’d suspected it had something to do with the visitor Louisa had been so eager for, so eager to show her finished portrait to.
