Chapter 4

Phipps surveyed the coach's occupants with more of that stoical expression. "My lady. Your Grace." He bowed to Portia before addressing Granville. "I've sent them all off to the King's Head on your shilling."

His gaze fell on Jupiter, who stared back with the intelligent interest that seemed to be his default attitude. Portia had dealt with hundreds of dogs and loved every one of them. But she could already tell that Jupiter was special. The thought of him being ripped to pieces in a dogfight made her feel sick.

"Housing Jupiter turns out to be an expensive business," Granville said drily.

When Phipps laughed, Portia was surprised yet again. Not just because the duke's response hinted that he might take Jupiter.

It was clear that duke and coachman shared an easy relationship. She'd always assumed that Granville was too high in the instep to treat his social inferiors as anything except convenient underlings. She'd been wrong about this, too.

It was a bitter pill to realize how badly she'd misjudged Granville. She thought back to how disgusted he'd sounded when he mentioned people cozying up to him because of his rank. Perhaps his remote manner in society was justified. He hadn't been at all the haughty aristocrat today. In fact, he'd been a good sport, given that events hadn't gone to plan for him, from the moment he stepped forward to confront Jim.

Phipps subjected Jupiter to a thorough inspection. "He isn't what I imagined you bringing back from the docks."

The now-familiar wry smile appeared. It exerted an unsteadying effect on Portia's nerves. When Granville smiled like that, he didn't look chilly and self-righteous. He looked dangerously approachable. "He'll make a better impression after a bath."

Portia remained as unconvinced about that as Phipps. Now she took the time to consider the dog as something other than a fellow creature in need of help, it was clear that nothing was going to turn him into a beauty.

"Shall I take him?" Phipps asked.

"Yes, please."

"What do you think he is?" Phipps caught the rope dangling from the collar and coaxed Jupiter onto the ground. "There's a bit of bull terrier there."

Granville grunted with amusement. "Among other things." He stepped out of the coach and extended a gloved hand to assist her. "Lady Portia, you're the expert. What do you think?"

What she thought was that she was in serious trouble. When Granville took her hand, she struggled against the urge to clutch at him so he never let her go. It might be worth braving her father's wrath and taking Jupiter home. But since the trouble with Juliet, Papa had been temperamental and despotic. She'd never doubted his ultimatum about her menagerie.

Once she stood beside Granville in the huge, airy stables, she realized that she still held his hand. It shouldn't be a wrench to disentangle her fingers, but it was.

And he'd asked her a question, too. She was almost used to Granville deferring to her expertise. Almost. The arrogant prig she'd assumed him to be would never take advice from a mere woman.

She fought to keep her voice even, which was harder than it should be when her heart raced like a greyhound in pursuit of a rabbit. "The wedge head is bull terrier, but the black and white coloring is more fox terrier. There's some lurcher, too. I suspect he can run like the clappers. So please don't let him go, Mr. Phipps. We'll never catch him."

Jupiter didn't show any signs of wanting to run away. Instead, he strained at the lead to get closer to his idol. His bark attracted a frown from His Grace. "Sit!"

From a dozen stalls, thoroughbred horses poked their heads out in alarm. To Portia's surprise, Jupiter immediately obeyed, which confirmed her suspicion that he'd once lived in a household. He wasn't born one of the thousands of feral dogs that infested London.

"Let's get him clean."

"Should we feed him first?" Granville asked her, taking off his gloves and shoving them in his pocket.

"Bath, then we can give him something to eat." She cast an expert eye over him. "He's not starving. I suspect Jim wanted him in top condition for the fight."

"Very well." Granville removed his beautifully cut dark green coat – a green that matched his eyes, Portia noticed, although she wished that she hadn't. His elegant cream waistcoat followed. He laid them over the gate to an empty stall.

Portia had grown up in the country. She'd seen countless workmen in their shirts and sometimes less than that. Her heart had never shifted a beat at the sight of any of them.

But upper-class men didn't strip down to their linen in a lady's presence. She told herself that she was breathless with outrage because the duke undressed in front of her.

But something powerfully feminine inside her melted as she took in the powerful male body revealed under the white cambric of his loose shirt. The arbiters of fashion admired Granville's broad shoulders and firm chest. Now she had vivid confirmation that he didn't require padding to achieve the desired silhouette.

Luckily, the object of her obsessive, if unwilling interest spoke to Phipps and wasn't paying attention to Portia. She worried that she must look like she wanted to lick him all over.

To hide her flaming cheeks, she began to unbutton her pelisse. It was the height of fashion which meant a tight fit across the shoulders. If she helped with Jupiter, it would restrict her movements. She placed it over the duke's coat.

"Will you fetch Sheriff, please?" Granville said. "We'll need him to join our conspiracy if we're to get Lady Portia out of this undetected. I'd also like him to make Jupiter's acquaintance. While you do that, we'll start making our new friend fit for civilized company."

Phipps looked shocked. "Your Grace, surely you're not really going to get your hands dirty."

Granville shrugged with a casualness that Portia had never seen him display in a ballroom. "Given Jupiter's state, it's inevitable."

She'd always considered herself a good judge of character. Mortifying to recognize how wrong she'd been about the Duke of Granville. Good heavens, she'd once told Juliet that her suitor was the most boring man in Britain! Nobody who had spent the last couple of hours with him would ever say that.

"Your Grace, I'm more than happy to wash the dog." Phipps remained aghast, while Portia battled to ignore how appealing Granville looked with a self-mocking smile curling his lips. When Jupiter whined at the fraught tone, the duke's elegant hand dropped to stroke the decidedly inelegant head.

"It's all right, boy." That deep velvety voice had all sorts of odd effects on Portia's innards. He turned back to Phipps. "It's going to need more than one person. I doubt this fellow will take to the tub like a duck to water."

"Very good, sir." Phipps must realize that he verged on insubordination, although the duke's tone remained steady and held no reproach. The coachman straightened and did his best to pretend that his noble employer preparing to wash a filthy mixed-breed dog was perfectly normal. He didn't quite succeed, but Portia commended the attempt.

"Phipps, can you please send someone with a message for my coachman? Our house is just across the square." She suspected that Phipps knew that. Servants always knew the gossip before anyone else did. Not only that, she was sure that Phipps and Rankin had shared more than one drink at the King's Head, where right now Granville's grooms caroused at their employer's expense.

"As you wish, my lady." He glanced at Granville. "I'll take it myself, if that meets with Your Grace's approval."

"Good idea. The fewer people involved in our plans, the better."

"Could you please tell Rankin I'm occupied with the dog? He'll understand."

"Meaning he's your companion in crime," Granville said drily.

"He's another animal lover. Without him, I wouldn't have a hope of doing what I must."

"Very good, my lady." Phipps bowed his head in acknowledgment.

"I'll find us a tub," Granville said.

"We'll need some warm water, too" Portia said.

"Sheriff will sort that out, my lady." Phipps turned to his employer. "Will that be all, Your Grace?"

"For the moment. Thank you, Phipps."

"You've upset him," Portia murmured after Phipps had gone.

Another of those heart-stopping half-smiles. Blast him, she wished he'd refrain. They made her stomach tighten in a most disorienting fashion.

"I know. He only calls me Your Grace when he's in a snit. He has a much stronger sense of my dignity than I do." His hand rested on Jupiter's head. It was clear that Jupiter approved.

"I always thought you were so puffed up with pride, you were likely to burst," Portia said, then raised her hand to her lips to muffle a gasp of mortification. "I do beg your pardon, Your Grace."

A snort escaped. "For heaven's sake, don't you start Your Gracing me."

"But I was just appallingly rude."

He raised his eyebrows. "Believe me, I'm well aware that you don't like me."

A painful flush prickled her cheeks. "Did Juliet tell you?"

"No, of course she didn't."

Of course she didn't. Until she broke society's rules in such spectacular fashion, Juliet had been a pattern card of good behavior. That included her famous tact.

Portia's lips flattened. "You don't like me either."

Another soft exhalation of laughter. "You're growing on me."

"Like mildew?" Portia said before she processed what he'd said. Once she did, she regarded him in open-mouthed astonishment. "Are you saying you've changed your mind about me?"

He stared back with a blandness that once she'd have dismissed as the boring Duke of Granville being boring as usual. Now she knew that he enjoyed a private joke. His voice emerged equally expressionless, which made what he said next even more bewildering. "Despite my better judgment, I find myself rather admiring you."

"But I've done nothing but disrupt your life. You should curse that we met today."

Another of those attractive shrugs. "Perhaps someone was overdue to turn things topsy-turvy."

"Juliet did that," Portia said, before she could remind herself that mentioning his brief engagement to her sister was disgracefully gauche.

His mouth turned down in self-derision and perhaps remembered pain. Juliet had always said that Granville didn't love her and had only chosen her because she made a suitable duchess. But Portia had never been sure. Less sure now she knew that the Duke of Granville was far from the stolid lump of smugness that she'd judged him.

Juliet was very beautiful. It would make sense that the man who wanted to marry her was besotted. How very lowering to note that every fiber of Portia's being loathed the idea of the Duke of Granville hungering for her sister. Indeed, the thought made her nauseous.

"A talent for disruption runs in the family."

She twined her hands at her waist. "You should despise the name of Frain."

"Perhaps, but today you've proven yourself brave and resourceful, and I applaud the way you defended Jupiter."

"You always thought I was a complete rattlebrain," she said sourly, while the unexpected compliments swirled around her, not making sense.

"I've learned the error of my ways, my lady. Closer acquaintance reveals hidden qualities." She'd never have believed him capable of such a brilliant smile. If his half-smiles sent her silly heart cavorting, this full smile punched all the air out of her lungs and left her giddy.

She was incapable of putting two words together. When she didn't reply, Granville gestured toward the back of the stables. "Enough of this cloying sentiment. We'll be sobbing into the hay bales if I keep this up. Shall we find a receptable for Jupiter's ablutions?"

She gulped for air and through a haze, watched him disappear down the aisle between the stalls.

***

A smile lengthened Granville's lips, as he dug around the small storeroom looking for an apron for his unexpected guest. He'd smiled a lot today. And he wasn't a man given to constant levity. Especially during these last months, when gossip had raged about his failed betrothal to Juliet Frain.

Given this was his second broken engagement in scandalous circumstances – both thanks to that bastard, the Duke of Evesham – his political future was now in question. People asked themselves whether a man with such a chaotic romantic history was capable of running the country. Sometimes even he acknowledged a doubt or two. His judgment was faulty when it came to choosing his duchess. Could he be trusted in other areas?

Today he'd been too busy for soul-searching. It was something of a relief.

Odd to think that the cause of his newly buoyant spirits was Portia Frain, a woman he'd always dismissed as a sentimental hen-wit. Yet recent events proved that she was far from a fluttering nincompoop. And by God, she was beautiful. She took his breath away – which had never happened before.

Juliet was lovely, a perfect cool blonde to set off the Granville emeralds. But Portia was something more. She possessed so much vitality that light shone out of her.

If anyone in England needed a light in the darkness, it was his Grace, the Duke of Granville. Since his marriage plans had foundered, life had turned rather bleak. He supposed it was inevitable that Portia's zest drew him like a magnet drew iron filings.

It meant nothing more than that.

After all, she didn't like him. Nor had she responded when he'd said that he found her stimulating company. It was depressing quite how much that had stung.

He looked down at Jupiter who had followed him into the storeroom. The brown eyes were bright with devotion. "It's been a strange day, my friend. And likely to become more so."

Worse than talking to a dog, he'd brought a gently bred lady to his house without a chaperone. If anyone found out, he'd have to marry the chit.

He frowned at the dog. "Why doesn't that send me screaming down the street?"

Jupiter didn't answer. He didn't have to.

When Granville emerged with a thick leather apron, Lady Portia was standing where he'd left her. "This should help to keep you dry."

The sound of his voice made her jump and blush. Her exquisitely clear skin revealed every emotion. How had he failed to notice that before? Today this woman who had hovered on the edge of his awareness for so long seemed a stranger. An alluring, intriguing stranger who sparked too many forbidden desires.

For a charged moment, she stared at Granville as if she'd never seen him before, then she blinked and broke the odd connection. "Th…thank you," she stammered, accepting the apron with an unsteady hand. She'd taken off her gloves while he was in the storeroom.

Lady Portia wasn't a woman who stammered. Her coolness through the day's dramas had impressed him. When Jim threatened her, she'd hardly turned a hair.

Was she also caught in the grip of attraction? Then a less appealing explanation occurred to him.

He straightened. All day, he'd shown a lamentable tendency to lean toward her. "Lady Portia, I assure you that if you're afraid to be alone with me, there's no need. I'm aware of the behavior becoming to a gentleman." Whatever secret impulses that gentleman might harbor.

She was back staring at him as if he'd appeared from nowhere. "You sound all ducal again."

He frowned. "How the devil else do you expect me to sound?"

His frustration made Jupiter's ears twitch. Folding her arms, she regarded him with displeasure. "That's how you talked to me when we danced. As if you were Napoleon and I was an unpromising recruit."

Startled, he drew back. "That can't be true."

"Believe me, it is. It's how Juliet talks to me, too."

"I'm sure I was polite."

Her shiver was unnecessarily theatrical. "I'm sure you were, too. But not warm. Definitely not warm."

If only she knew how warm he felt right now. As well as the heat her presence aroused, a different heat prickled at the back of his neck. Discomfort. "I'm sorry. No wonder you don't like me."

"You've been fairly human all day." She paused. "When we've been alone for hours. I'm not frightened of you. You're considered the most upright man in England. Anyway, I'm not a fool. If I didn't trust you, I wouldn't be here. Good Lord, if I didn't trust you, I wouldn't leave Jupiter in your care."

He supposed trust provided some recompense for her dislike. Although given the ideas rocketing through his mind, she should be warier of his intentions.

"I just wanted to assure you that you're safe," he said stiffly. He hadn't much liked her snide reference to his pristine reputation.

She subjected him to another of those comprehensive inspections. He wondered what she saw. From a young age, he'd adopted a manner suitable to his dignity. He'd been a shy boy and smart enough to know that people would take advantage if they could, purely because he was the Duke of Granville. Portia was right – his public behavior tended to be very ducal indeed.

Something told him that she saw beneath the polished veneer. He'd never felt that way with Juliet. But then she defended herself against the world, too. When she jilted him for the raffish Duke of Evesham, he understood that he'd never really known the woman he almost married.

Portia was much less enigmatic. He liked that. At least today, when she wasn't bristling with hostility.

"Thank you," she said in a neutral voice, surprising him anew, because he had no idea what lurked under that tone. She shook out the apron and pulled it over her head. It was too big for her. He'd expected that. What he hadn't expected was that she'd have difficulty with the ties.

A hiss of irritation escaped her. "Could you…"

He didn't want to touch her. Actually that was a lie. He desperately wanted to touch her. Too much. But he feared that pristine reputation she derided wouldn't survive past the moment his hands connected with her body.

For a few seconds, he watched her struggle. Then smothering a growl, he stepped behind her and brushed her fidgeting hands out of the way. "Here. Let me."

"Thank you." She sounded more subdued than usual. Or perhaps the pounding blood in his ears muffled her voice.

The apron strings were more complicated than he'd realized when he'd tugged the garment off the shelf. The ties laced through a couple of eyelets to hold the apron in place. Although they weren't nearly as complicated in real life as they felt when his senses flooded with Portia's nearness. His usually adept hands turned into ten thumbs.

It didn't help that he stood close enough for her rich honey scent to torment him. His gaze focused on her nape, revealed under her upswept golden hair. He'd never before found the back of a woman's neck a source of irresistible temptation. But the sight of that pale, tender skin made him itch to taste it.

His efforts with the infernal cords became even more ham-fisted. They'd be here all day at this rate.

He tried hard to touch only the apron, not its wearer. But it was impossible. When his fingers brushed her back, he felt her vibrating tension. The reminder of her dislike should dampen his rising ardor. It didn't. In a futile attempt to clear his spinning head, he inhaled. All he got for his efforts was another wallop of that smoky, alluring scent.

"Have you…have you finished?" she asked with more of that uncharacteristic stammer.

Her husky voice made him think of a sleepy Portia in his bed. A sleepy Portia available and eager for his touch.

"Nearly," he muttered and forced himself to conquer the tangle of laces. For some reason, his hands kept getting mixed up with the filmy material of her dress.

Over his thundering heartbeat, Granville could hear the uneven rasp of her breathing. He gritted his teeth and struggled to steady his hands. He was tying a knot, not drafting a complicated piece of legislation.

For God's sake, man, you've touched a woman before. You're acting like a complete clodpoll.

At last he finished, tying a clumsy bow at the back. He hoped to hell it held. He wouldn't survive doing this again without sweeping her into his arms. "There."

"Thank you." That reedy voice didn't sound at all like the Amazon who confronted Jim and insisted he hand Jupiter over.

"My pleasure," Granville said, which was both a flagrant lie and a profound truth. Because for all his regrettable ineptitude and barely restrained hunger, he loved being so close to Portia.

She'd accused him of being cold. That was true, at least for how he conducted his life. His existence followed rules of logic and cool detachment. So how could he resist warming his soul in her radiant glow? Portia Frain was everything that he wasn't. Passionate. Emotional. Openhearted. Vital in a way that nobody else in his calm, measured world was.

Over the last few hours, she'd made him feel more alive than he ever had. Definitely more alive than he'd felt with either of his fiancées.

So it was understandable if unwise that instead of stepping away to a respectable distance like a true gentleman, he placed his hands on those straight, tense shoulders.

Her gasp sounded like horror.

Appalled at his presumption, he jerked his hands away. What in Hades was he doing, touching a woman who hated his guts?

Granville prepared to step back. Before he could, Portia whirled around in a swirl of cobalt skirts. Burning eyes met his. He braced to read hatred or anger or, worst of all, disgust in her expression. Instead, all he saw was a longing that vied with his own.

Her hands landed flat on his chest, where his heart raced fit to burst. He reached out for her arms, as her fingers curled in his loose shirt.

Then the man widely held to have no impulses at all gave in to his impulses. He kissed her.