of your word. I thought I was protecting your virtue. He could have me arrested. I could face time in prison for this. How could you be so . . .”
“Foolish?” Cornelia supplied.
Portia was torn between tears and rage. “But . . . I love him, Papa, like you loved Mama. All the stories you told us of her . . . I wanted what you had.”
Her father shook his head. “Then I have taught you all the wrong lessons. Clearly, you don’t know the first thing about love. Love isn’t about getting what you desire on a whim. It’s about sharing your life with another person. A person you trust, someone who trusts you in kind. It’s about sacrifice and loyalty and friendship and . . .” Jackson dragged a hand over his face and let out a weary sigh Portia had never heard before. It was a sound that broke part of her armor of self-indulgence and self-centeredness.
“Papa, I’m very sorry I lied to you.” She threw herself next to him on the settee, and her eyes filled with tears. She reached for his hands, but Jackson pulled away and stood, putting distance between them.
“Cornelia, I think Portia should partake of the ocean air in Brighton. Would you be willing to escort her there? I will have the arrangements made in a few hours.”
“I would be glad to, but what will you do?” Cornelia asked.
“Find and rescue my daughter, even if it means facing down a very large and rightfully angry Scotsman.”
7
Brodie was in a black mood that afternoon as they journeyed toward the next coaching inn. He’d gone from loathing her, to desiring revenge against her, to simply desiring her, all in the span of a single night and day. He didn’t know if it was because Rafe’s blasted wager had made her a forbidden temptation or if her pleas of innocence straddled the line between believable and intolerable. The link between anger and arousal was a strange but real one, and he needed to be careful that he did not act in poor judgment because of it.
Yet all he wanted now was to take Lydia to bed and give in to his mad desires. But he’d kept his restraint, not only because of the wager, but because it was right. Yet here she was resisting his suggestions, and she even dared to demand fair treatment as a proper mistress.
The nerve. Given what she and her father had done to him, she didn’t deserve fairness, yet he would give it to her, and that made him feel fairly disagreeable. Neither Rafe nor either of their valets had volunteered to accompany him inside after they saw Brodie’s thunderous expression. So now Brodie and his captive were trapped inside the coach alone. After half an hour, he noted she wasn’t reading her book.
“Miss Hunt,” he said. She’d been frozen on the same page all this time, her gaze distant. He was curious to know what she was thinking about and what manipulations she was planning next.
She finally looked his way, and those soft blue eyes held him, calmed him in a way he hadn’t expected. “Yes?”
“You’ve not been reading.”
“Yes, I have.” She held up Park’s Travels in Africa.
“You havena turned a page in quite a while.”
A faint shade of rose tinged her cheeks. “I was just thinking . . .”
“About what?”
“Mr. Park was Scottish. Did you know that?” she asked suddenly.
“Was he?” Brodie leaned forward a little. He hadn’t had a chance to read the book yet. He had only purchased it recently. He loved to read, and it had always haunted him that he hadn’t been able to rescue the books from their library back in Castle Kincade when his father began selling everything they owned to keep the castle. When he had seen Park’s book in the bookshop, he’d desperately wanted to read it. Yet part of him had felt rather unsatisfied knowing he would never have adventures like Park. He would never see the world or live a remarkable life. The book seemed to haunt him with the promise of a life he couldn’t live.
“Well, he was Scottish.” Lydia turned a few pages, as if reviewing them. “He writes dispassionately about all that he sees, yet beneath that there is an undeniable curiosity about Africa, its lands and its people. He offers a beautiful glimpse into Africa’s complexity and humanity. He even details hundreds of languages and the customs of many tribes who live there.”