Valentine by Jane Feather Page A

from the decanter and extended his arm toward her. “Port, cousin?”
    Theo uncurled from the window seat and reached for one of the glasses.
    “I’m not sure how much good it’s going to do you on an empty belly,” Sylvester observed, setting the decanter on the floor at his feet.
    “And whose fault is that?”
    “Yours, and you know it. You didn’t have to stomp off in a tantrum.”
    Theo sipped her port. It slid comfortingly down her tight throat and settled in her stomach with a warming glow.
    “You insulted me,” she said, adding acidly, “not that that’s unusual.”
    “And you’ve been insulting me at every opportunity since we met. We can’t go on mauling each other in this manner, Theo.”
    There was silence in the dusk-filled room. Sylvester regarded her over his glass. Her discarded riding habit lay in acrumpled heap in the corner of the room, and she was wearing nothing but her chemise and drawers, her hair tumbling loose down her back. It was the first time he’d seen it unbraided, and he realized it was long enough for her to sit on.
    She seemed unaware of her scantily clad appearance, frowning into the gloom, lost in her own thoughts. Then she said abruptly, as if there were no bones of contention between them, “Thank you for the portrait.”
    It was the first time she’d said anything civil to him, and he blinked in genuine surprise. She’d been staring at her father’s picture, now hung on the wall behind him, when he’d entered the room.
    “I’m sorry it didn’t get moved earlier,” he said. “It was an oversight.”
    “Why? Why did it have to happen?”
With shocking suddenness she hurled her empty glass to the floor as she sprang to her feet. The glass shattered but she didn’t notice. Tears poured soundlessly down her cheeks, and her face was contorted with anguish. Her voice filled the room in a low torrent of rage at fate’s injustice. “It’s so unfair! He was so young … he meant so much to everyone … he was so important … and now everything’s gone … lost … wasted….”
    She was grieving for her father as well as for her grandfather, and sometimes, through the wild, tumbling storm of words, Sylvester found it hard to distinguish which man at any one moment was the focus of her sorrow. But it didn’t matter. Sylvester understood pain and loss and the raging fires of injustice, and he knew that for the moment she wasn’t aware of him in the room. The whole fetid seething cauldron of grief poured from her in words and tears, and she stood still in the middle of the room, her hands clenched in tight fists.
    Only when she kicked blindly at a piece of broken glass with her bare foot did he move. Swinging himself off the chair, he caught her against him, lifting her clear of the floor.
    “Be still,” he murmured into her hair. “You’ll cut your feet to ribbons.”
    She struggled in his hold, although he sensed that she was so far gone in her agony that she’d no sense of who or what he was. He held on to her, stepping backward to the window seat, sitting down with her, clamping her against his chest, feeling the heat of her skin beneath the thin chemise, the desperate shifting of her thighs and buttocks in his lap, and despite the circumstances, his body hardened in response to the sinuous wriggles.
    Eventually, her struggles ceased as the violent paroxysm of weeping eased a little. She still sobbed but rested against him, her face buried in his chest. He stroked her hair, murmuring soothing nonsense words.
    He didn’t notice when the door softly opened and then closed just as softly. Elinor stood outside, her hand on the latch, deep in thought. She’d come up to check on Theo, and the sound of her desperate sobbing had reached her through the closed door. She’d not been expecting the sight that greeted her on the other side of that door.
    Well, she’d told the earl to follow his instincts when it came to his dealings with Theo. It seemed he was taking