Too Wicked to Tame (The Derrings #2)(30)

“Forgive me for being obtuse, but what does that matter?”

He waved a hand before him, as if the gesture would somehow prompt her understanding. “Let’s just say that if she is unwell, it’s not from any treatable malady.”

Portia stared.

Sighing, Whitfield went on, “No doubt she suffers from some sort of fit as a result of her madness. And there’s nothing anyone can do to help her on that score.”

Trembling with indignation, Portia stepped away from the horrid man, unwilling to place herself close to such idiocy. “Mina is not mad.”

Whitfield stepped forward and grasped her arm. Her skin crawled at where he held her and she tried to shake him off, but he clung like a tenacious root.

“Lady Portia,” he said, his voice slick as oil as it slid over her. “I fear that you’ve come here under some grave misapprehensions.” His fingers flexed, digging into her skin.

“Indeed?” she asked frostily, her lip curling back against her teeth.

“The Moretons are bad blood. Everyone knows it.” His mouth twisted in a wry smile and he dipped his head in acknowledgment. “At least everyone in these parts. Apparently not your family. They would not have sent you here to make a match with Mad Moreton had they—”

“I hardly know you,” she broke in, unwilling to hear more of his concern. “I certainly don’t require your advice on such matters.”

Portia twisted free, eager to be rid of his skincrawling touch. She turned, but he recaptured her arm, dragging her around to face him.

“Unhand me,” she commanded, her cheeks flaming with temper. She glanced at the hand manacling her arm, her flesh whitening where his fingers dug into her flesh.

“I simply seek to protect you from making a grave error.”

“So magnanimous of you,” she bit out, knowing his game. Protecting her had nothing to do with it. “Yet I fail to see how I am any concern of yours.”



His fingers tightened on her arm, hurting her. “I should very much like to change that, my lady,”

he murmured, his gaze sliding over her face with a thoroughness that made the back of her neck prickle. “You’re clearly on the hunt for a husband. Allow me to offer myself as a candidate. I’m of modest means, but far more suitable than Moreton.”

Portia gaped at him. Was it the country air? Or something in the water? First Moreton, and now this wretched man. They both behaved as if she had nothing better to do than find a husband. As if she could desire nothing else out of life. None of the gentlemen in London had come close to their impudence.

Portia flexed her ankle, preparing to stomp down on his foot if he did not release her. Only a quick glance about the silent garden, and she wasn’t certain she even knew her way back to the house. This was no London garden. She did not stand a stone’s throw from a balcony’s door, from people, from safety.

He must have taken her mulling silence for consideration, for he continued, listing his assets as if he were a thoroughbred at Tattersalls. “My bloodlines are impeccable, my mother the daughter of a viscount, my father a hero fallen at Waterloo.” He puffed his chest out as if he himself were the one to fall on some distant field in Belgium. “Most would say I’ve done well in filling his shoes.”

“I’m sure,” she muttered.

“Most importantly, I can promise never to leap off the banister in a mad fit. The present Lord Moreton could not promise you the same.” He rocked back on his heels with a satisfied air.

She frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Ah, you haven’t heard the story. The old earl dove head first off the banister at the dower house, landed smack in the middle of the foyer. A God awful mess, they say.”

Portia closed her eyes, trying to stop the gory image from filling her head.

Whitfield’s voice droned on. “And then there was Lady Moreton—shot herself with her husband’s pistol. And the youngest son—no one’s quite sure what happened to him. He was naught but a babe.” Leaning closer, his whisper ruffled the tendrils near her ear. “Rumor has it his death may have been from unnatural causes.”

From unnatural causes?

She expelled a deep breath, shaking her head. “Certainly you’re not suggesting Lord Heath’s parents had a hand in the child’s death?”

Whitfield shook his head, his handsome face twisting in derision. “Who said anything about them harming the boy?”



“Then who?”

Angling his head, he replied with deliberate vagueness, “They found Lord Heath with the body.”

Heath? Heath had something to do with his brother’s death? Impossible. She had observed him with his sisters. He would never harm a hair on their heads. And she refused to believe he could harm a brother. To what end? No matter how wicked he behaved, he was incapable of evil that foul.

She tossed back her head and released a brittle laugh.

Whitfield pulled back, a grimace marring his pretty features. “Talk of madness and murder amuses you?”

“You amuse me,” she said with a lightness that she didn’t feel. She would not grant him that satisfaction of knowing his words gave her pause and put doubts in her head. Foul as poison, his words swam through her blood. They found Lord Heath with the body.

Inhaling a shaky breath, she continued, “That you would attempt to raise yourself in my estimation by discrediting the earl—”