Page 114 of The Music of Love

Portia realized it was the flask of poison and clamped her jaws shut tighter than a vise. A mindless fury swept through her trembling body and she drove her elbow back with all the force she could muster. Rowena grunted and staggered back, her arm loosening. Portia dropped to her hands and knees and crawled between the legs of the big table, curling her body into a tight ball.

“Fant!” Rowena screamed.

Portia heard the sound of scuffling feet and a muffled curse as somebody struck the tool box and sent the contents clanging and banging across the flagstone. The deafening crack of a pistol filled the room and what sounded to be at least a dozen male voices shouted just before a second gun went off, followed by a sickening grunt and the unmistakable thud of a body hitting the floor.

“Fant is down, Lady Rowena. It is over.” Stacy’s voice came from someplace close by and Portia had to bite her tongue to keep from calling out.

The sound of pottery shattering on the flagstone was followed by a watery, choked laugh. A light flared and Portia looked up to see Stacy holding a candle away from his face and staring at something on the other side of the small room.

“My God. What did you do?” His voice was thick with dread.

“You didn’t think I was going to let you lock me up, did you?” Rowena’s gurgling laughter turned into an animal scream of pure pain. Her pale green eyes bulged with the torment she’d promised Portia she would not feel and she slid down the wall until she sat slumped on the floor.

The door Fant had come through exploded and Robert stood panting in the doorway, his lantern illuminating the carnage, a giant man beside him holding an ax.

He saw Fant’s body first. “The devil!” he hissed.

“Ah, my darling husband has arrived.”

Robert turned at the sound of his wife’s voice.

“Rowena! What have you done?” He closed the short distance in one long stride and dropped down beside her. Blood oozed from her mouth and she coughed and spat blood at his feet.

“You poor fool,” she rasped. “I did all this for you. And it was all for—”

Portia closed her eyes at the sickening sounds and felt a light touch on her shoulder and looked up to find Stacy’s beautiful eyes only inches away. He took her hand and lifted her to her feet. “Are you hurt, darling?”

She launched herself at him. “I am so sorry, Stacy.”

“Sorry for what, sweetheart?”

Portia further embarrassed herself by dissolving into tears, the love in his voice making her feel like the world’s greatest fool. She squeezed him until she hurt.

He stroked her hair. “Don’t cry, Portia, you’re safe now.”

“I never cry.” She sobbed into his neckcloth.

“I know you don’t, love,” he agreed, his laughter a low rumble in his chest. “But I think you may have earned this one. In fact, do you mind if I join you?”

She laughed but it turned into wracking sobs, her body shaking so hard she could barely stand.

“Are you going to faint, Portia?” He pressed his lips against her head over and over.

“I never faint.”

And then everything went black.

The first thing Portia saw when she woke after the nightmare in the tunnels was her husband, reading a book in a wingback chair close to her bed. A slow smile spread across his face when he saw she was awake. He took off his reading glasses and put down his book.

“I thought you would sleep today away,” he murmured, coming to sit on the bed.

Portia took his hand and looked up into his beautiful eyes, “I am so sorry, Stacy,” she said, the enormity of her idiocy the first thing to enter her mind.

“You kept saying that all the way back to the house last night, even after you fainted. You’d wake from time to time and mutter how sorry you were. Would you mind telling me exactly what you are sorry for?” He reached out and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Or do I want to know?”

Her face became hot and she kissed his palm before holding his hand against her face. “I heard you and Mrs. Charring in the chapel yesterday.”

He looked blank. “So?”