Portia turned at bay. “I did not trap Bryght. I do notwantBryght.”
Nerissa chuckled coyly. “Your fiery protests prove the point, Portia.Everyonewants Bryght Malloren.”
“Including you?” Portia shot back. “If he’s your ideal lover, Nerissa, then take him instead of Lord Heatherington.”
The attack bounced off Nerissa. “At one time I hoped to have both,” she admitted, “but Heather suits me very well. The wedding will be on Wednesday at—”
“I will not be there.”
Nerissa’s smile became less pleasant. “I think you will.”
Portia’s belief that they could not force her to the altar was weakening. “Why? Why are you and Lord Trelyn so adamant about a match that will suit neither party?”
Nerissa subsided onto a sofa in a cloud of perfumed silk.
That perfume.
Lord Heatherington.
Portia realized that Nerissa had been the author of that disgusting letter, and that Lord Heatherington was probably Hercules. It hardly seemed to matter anymore except that it confirmed her cousin’s villainy.
And because Bryght had cared when he’d read that note. He had loved Nerissa…
“Why?” Nerissa mused. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes.”
Nerissa shrugged. “It wont help you. Trelyn is motivated by a passionate desire to see Bryght busy with some woman other than myself. He believes in that smokescreen quite firmly.”
Portia, too, sat down, finding some relief in the fact that they appeared to be at the point of honesty. “Is that all Bryght is to you, a smokescreen?”
“If you have no interest in the man,” asked Nerissa, “why are you jealous?”
“I’m not.”
Nerissa leaned back languorously. “Then you will not mind that he wanted to marry me…”
“But you chose a richer man.”
“…and that he and I have been lovers.”
Portia looked away from those perceptive catlike eyes, aware of a pain near her heart. She didn’t know which was worse—that he had wanted to marry Nerissa, or that he might have rubbed perfumed oil into her feet. Had he told her of her beauty, and teased her skin with tongue and teeth…?
She summoned a casual tone to say, “If Bryght and I are forced to marry, won’t that blow away your smokescreen?”
“Alas, yes, but the rewards will compensate.”
Portia turned back sharply. “What rewards?”
“He won’t be able to marry Jenny Findlayson.”
Portia’s pain intensified. “You think he loves her?”
Nerissa burst out laughing.“Lovesher! Oh, you dear ninny. You are so amusing. Bryght loves her money. He needs her money. I have made it my business to learn about Bryght Malloren’s affairs, and he is virtually penniless these days. Heaven knows where the money’s gone for he had a modest fortune when he wooed me—I would not have considered him otherwise. His luck at the tables must have abandoned him, though I hear rumors he has sunk money in Bridgewater’s crazy venture.”
“So, you want me to marry a broken gamester? Is that it?”
“Broken? Somehow, I do not see Bryght as broken. And he is a Malloren still, which is worth a great deal. But only the second son of the Mallorens and thus dependent on Rothgar’s bounty. You can guess how that galls. Having lost what little fortune he had, his only door to freedom is by marrying money. A lot of money. Marriage to you will trap him as Rothgar’s pensioner forever.”
