Page 110 of The Music of Love

Portia recalled the earl’s gleeful venom in the ballroom. “Who does such things?”

“The kind of man who throws out his own son.”

Portia stared at the other woman, whose expression, for once, was one of compassion. Rowena laid a hand on her arm. “I know how you are feeling—Robert has paraded his mistresses in front of me for years. I suppose that makes me sympathetic to you. I want to help you—not just because you may be carrying the heir, but—” she chewed her lip, her pale cheeks reddening. “I’ve grown to like you.”

Portia gawked at her in disbelief; would the surprises never end? She shook her head and pulled away from the woman; she needed to sit. She opened the library door and went inside, slumping into a chair and dropping her head in her hands. Rowena moved away, but Portia could hear sounds coming from the far side of the vast room.

“Come and help me,” she called to Portia.

Portia groaned and sat up. She just wanted to go to bed—forever. But she forced herself to her feet and went to join the viscountess, who’d begun pulling books off the shelf and piling them on the floor.

Portia stared; the woman had run mad. “What on earth are you—?”

A low grinding sound filled the room as the entire bookshelf—a good ten feet high—slowly swung inward. Her mouth fell open.

Rowena took a candle from the candelabrum and turned to her. “This passage will get us to the chapel much faster than following them above ground.”

“The chapel? But what—”

The viscountess disappeared into the darkness and Portia’s feet followed before her brain could stop them. Rowena was standing just inside the entrance and feeling for something in the panel beside the moving section of wall. Portia glanced around, her eyes adjusting to the gloom. At the end of the short hall was a set of stairs.

“Where do those lead? To the chapel?” When Rowena didn’t answer, Portia turned around, just in time to hear the scraping noise and watch the bookshelf door swing shut.

“Why did you shut it?” Her voice was shrill.

Rowena’s pale eyes glinted in the candlelight. “Don’t worry, the mechanism to open it is here.” She gestured toward a large wooden lever sticking out of the panel. “Come, follow me.” Rowena squeezed around Portia and headed toward the stairs.

“Follow you where? And why did you shut it?” Portia demanded as she hurried after Rowena, who was now the only source of light.

“I doubt you want an audience for this meeting.”

Portia didn’t want Rowena, either. “I didn’t say I wanted to go, did I?”

The other woman stopped so abruptly that Portia ran into her. “Are you saying you wish to go back? Will you give up what is yours so easily?”

“And have you confronted all your husband’s mistresses?” Portia shot back.

“No, I have not—but then I am not carrying Robert’s child. I heard them speaking, Mrs. Harrington, That woman will have him if you do not fight for him. You might be carrying the heir.”

Ahh, now Portia understood—it always came back to status and blood lines and the future of the bloody earldom with this woman.

She opened her mouth to demand Rowena take her back, but the scorn in the other woman’s eyes was too much to bear. Portia threw up her hands. “Fine, lead on.”

Rowena turned without a word.

Portia had to trot to keep up with her and she stubbed the toe of her thin satin slipper against something hard. “Will you please slow down,” she called out as the light disappeared around a corner. She rested one hand against the wall and massaged her aching toe until Rowena came back.

The viscountess reached up to a wall sconce and Portia saw there were others evenly spaced down the narrow hall. She plucked out the candle and lit it. When it flared to life it bathed the space between them with twice as much light.

She came back to Portia, her pale face eerie. “Here.” She handed her the candle and resumed her journey.

Portia scrambled after her down the hall but paused when they reached a second, longer, set of stairs.

“Hold carefully to the railing and watch your step,” Rowena called over her shoulder.

“I thought you said they were going to the chapel?” Portia asked Rowena’s retreating back. “This feels like we’re headed down the side of the cliff.”

“The tunnels run to Thurlstone and beyond. We must go down and then come up again in another section. They are very old—far older than the chapel itself, which is not even a hundred years old.”