“Oh, well, remind me to beg his pardon,” Portia said with a sardonic smile. “I’m sure I didn’t mean to cause a thieving brigand any trouble.”
“Eh, someone got outta bed on t‘ wrong side,” Josiah observed placidly. “Mebbe a good wash’ll sweeten yer temper.” He bustled back to the washstand and poured hot water into the ewer. “There’s a nice piece o’ lavender soap, too.” He looked expectantly at Portia.
“I’m not about to strip naked in front of you,” she said. “Or has the master decreed that I’m not to be granted any privacy?”
“Lord bless ye, lass, the master never said nothin‘ o’ the kind. Not that ye needs to worry about me. I’ve seen all an‘ more than you’ve got to show.” Josiah chuckled and went to the stairs. “Skinny little thing, aren’t you?”
“Very.” Portia untied the ribbons of her nightrobe.
The door below banged open and the sounds of shrill, squealing protest rose up the stairs. Rufus’s voice cut through the childish trebles. “Josiah?”
“Aye, m’lord. I’m ‘ere. What’s all that caterwaulin’?” Josiah hurried down to the kitchen where Rufus had set the boys on their feet but was keeping a tight hold on their collars.
“These children need to go under the pump,” Rufus announced. “Just hold Toby while I get these filthy clothes off Luke.”
Portia heard him in astonishment. Was the man completely mad or just totally heartless? She yelled from the top of the stairs, “For pity’s sake, Decatur, you can’t put them under the pump. It’s freezing!”
Rufus, still clutching the boys, came to the bottom of the stairs. He looked up and saw a pair of bare feet and long white legs. “Aren’t you dressed yet?”
“My clothes aren’t fit to put on, thanks to you.” She hastily retreated from view, grabbed a coverlet from the bed, wrapped it around her like a toga, then made her way downstairs.
The boys ceased their wailing and regarded her with hope. “It’s too cold for the pump,” Toby declared. “She says it is.”
“Yes, of course it is,” Portia reiterated firmly. “Of all the cruel and absurd ideas. It’s January, for God’s sake.”
Rufus looked both annoyed and nonplussed. “There’s no reason for wild accusations,” he said stiffly.
“Oh, you mean cruelty?” Portia regarded him with cold scorn. “My experiences in this den of thieves, my lord, make such an accusation perfectly reasonable. And when I think how this hospitality was designed for Olivia, I’d like to cut out your heart!”
Rufus released his hold on the boys. “All right, Portia, let’s not get carried away here. You have in no way been treated with cruelty, although you’re entitled to your own view on the matter. But don’t confuse your experiences with the way I treat my children. You know nothing about it. However, I concede that it is too cold to wash them outside. I wasn’t thinking clearly. It’s just that I always put them under the pump when they get unsavory.”
There was a warning snap in his eyes.
“Well, they’re certainly unsavory.” Portia examined the boys with a critical frown. “I haven’t had much experience with children, but surely you could bathe them in a tub or something.”
The snap in Rufus’s eyes vanished. “They won’t keep still,” he said gloomily. “And they splash water all over the place. The kitchen’s a lake by the time they’re finished.”
Portia wanted to laugh. There was something so absurd about the master of Decatur defeated by a pair of toddlers. She sat on the bottom step, resting her chin on her linked hands. “Take all their clothes off, sponge them down and put clean things on them, and then they won’t look nearly so unsavory.”
Rufus seemed to consider, then he said, “I’ll strike a bargain with you. If you and Josiah will deal with these two, I’ll find you some clean clothes. How would that be?”
Portia regarded the boys, who had retreated to the far end of the kitchen and looked ready to fly out of the back door at the first move against them. “I think you would have the best of the bargain,” she said.
“Please yourself. If you want to stay wrapped in a quilt, it’s all the same to me,” Rufus said airily. “In fact, on reflection I think it would be a very good thing. It would keep you within doors as effectively as any restraints. I withdraw the offer.”
“You are an unmitigated son of a bitch,” Portia said softly, realizing that they had just come dangerously close to a moment of affability.
“Eh, watch yer tongue!” Josiah exclaimed, for once shocked out of his customary placidity. “You don’t use language like that to the master.”
“Ah, but Mistress Worth acknowledges no master,” Rufus said. “Isn’t that so?” He raised an interrogative eyebrow at Portia. “Isn’t it so?” he repeated when she made no answer.
“I’ve yet to meet someone worth the title,” she said frigidly. “And I don’t expect to… not in this life.” She rose to her feet, preparing to return upstairs.
Rufus moved swiftly, catching her around the waist and lifting her down into the kitchen. He held her shoulders and smiled down into her furious face. “Come, Portia, I was merely jesting. Let’s call a truce. Help Josiah with the boys, and I’ll find you a change of clothes. It’s a beautiful morning, and if you promise not to quarrel, I’ll take you out for a walk and show you around the village.”
It was such a volte-face Portia was momentarily speechless. His vivid blue gaze danced with laughter, his mouth curved in a smile of unexpected sweetness. “Truce?” He pressed the tip of her nose with a forefinger.
God, how she hated him! He was manipulating her again, teasing her with all the deceit and arrogance of men the world over. How could he know that when he touched her and looked at her in that way it made her blood sing? Her loathing of the man just seemed to slide away under a smile that seemed to imply some deep knowledge of the world, of herself, even. But he did know and he was using it for his own ends.
The sheer force of his personality, his physical presence itself, was somehow dictating how she was to respond to him, overpowering her own sense of what was rational and legitimate in the circumstances.
Rufus let his hands fall from her shoulders, and Portia stepped away from him, her hands half lifted as if to ward something off.
“Truce,” she said in a voice that didn’t sound quite like her own. Then she turned abruptly to where the boys still stood at the back of the room and lunged for Luke, catching him up in a shrieking tangle of limbs. Josiah caught Toby as he dived between the legs of the table.
Rufus stood for a minute, unaware that he was smiling as he wondered what it was about his accidental hostage that was so appealing. She was all spikes and sparks, and yet there were moments when he saw beneath the antagonism, and what he saw he found utterly delightful.
It was disturbing. He turned on his heel and left the shrieking chaos of the cottage.
When he returned half an hour later, it was to find his sons in clean clothes, astonishingly subdued, damp curls clinging to their scalps, cheeks scrubbed shiny. They were sitting by the fire, shivering intermittently like newly bathed puppies, and regarded their father with large eyes filled with recrimination.
“I’m cold,” Toby said reproachfully.
“We’re both cold,” his brother chimed in.
“They’re only cold because their skin isn’t used to fresh air and water,” Portia said. “We almost had to scrape the grime off them.”
“Well, I’ve fulfilled my side of the bargain. See what you think of these.” Rufus handed her a bundle, with a strange gleam in his eye that put Portia immediately on her guard.
“I’ll be off, then, master.” Josiah headed for the door, Luke and Toby on his heels, as Portia took the bundle gingerly, almost as if she were expecting it to conceal a sharp-toothed ferret.