Then his expression changed. He stood up and came over to her. He lifted her chin on his palm. His eyes were now grave as they looked down into her own. “I am very glad you came back. I don’t know what I can offer you, but since you’ve been reckless enough to abandon Cato’s hearth, then I fear you must accept mine.” He ran the pad of his thumb over her mouth.

“I don’t need your charity,” Portia said, turning her head slightly away from him. She wasn’t certain quite what he was saying. The invitation, if it was one, lacked something. If he was offering her a home just because she had nowhere else to go, just as payment for her information, she knew she wouldn’t accept it. “I didn’t come here expecting it.”

Rufus’s hand dropped from her face. He stared down at her. “Charity!” he exclaimed.

“I can manage alone,” Portia persisted. “I’ve always managed alone.”

“Dear God! If you weren’t in such a pathetic condition…!” He spun away from her and took one quick turn around the room. Then he came back and stood foursquare in front of her. “Do you wish to stay here?”

“Not if you’re always going to think of me as a Granville,” Portia said. Suddenly there was so much at stake. More than she could yet fully grasp.

“You are,” he said flatly. “I don’t see how I can forget it.”

“But how important is it?”

Rufus sighed. “I have missed you, Portia. Not a Granville. But you.”

Portia smiled slowly, feeling the warmth seeping through her veins. “That’s all right, then,” she said.

Rufus had the strangest feeling that he’d just been routed in a battle he didn’t know he’d been fighting.

Then Portia said softly, “I missed you too. I kept looking around for an old man with a humpback, lurking in some corner of one of the courts.”

Rufus stroked her face lightly with his palm, feeling his unease fade. He was aware once more of her pallor, of her weakness, of his need to look after her. “I’m going to fetch you some food from the mess. I won’t be long.”

“Bring something for Juno too.”

Alone, Portia sat drowsily in front of the fire, the ache in her ankle dulled by the whisky. She felt for the first time in her life as if she had come home.

Rufus returned within ten minutes, shaking snow off his cloak, stamping his boots in the doorway. A lad carrying a laden tray came in after Rufus. He glanced curiously at Portia as he set the tray on the table and seemed inclined to linger.

“Thank you, Adam,” Rufus said pointedly, putting a lidded jug down on the hearth.

“Right, sir.” The boy cast one more glance at the figure by the fire and with obvious reluctance went back into the snow.

Portia sniffed hungrily. “What is it?”

“Soup, braised ox tongue, and sack posset.” Rufus filled a bowl with vegetable soup, his movements swift and efficient. He gave it to her and stood watching as she ate, like a mother hen with a wounded chick, Portia thought, stifling a smile. There was something wonderfully comforting about that close, concerned regard. It told her that in some way she belonged again. She belonged enough that the most trivial aspects of her well-being mattered to Rufus.

She drank the soup greedily. It tasted like manna from heaven. Rufus replaced the soup with the ox tongue and set a saucer of chicken giblets on the floor for Juno, who attacked it with something remarkably like a growl. Rufus poured himself more whisky and stood before the fireplace in his habitual pose, one arm resting along the mantelpiece, one foot on the fender. He watched, amused by his own possessive satisfaction, as his patients ate with steady concentration. Color was returning to Portia’s cheeks and a little bounce to her hair, he noticed.

At last Juno abandoned her dish and came to the fire. She lay at Portia’s feet, rolling blissfully onto her back, exposing her distended belly to the warmth, her legs flopping in the air.

Rufus took away Portia’s empty platter and took up the covered jug from the hearth. “Drink this and then I’ll put you to bed.” He filled a tankard with the hot spiced milk curdled with wine and Portia curled her hands around it, burying her nose in the fragrant steam.

“Where’re the boys?” His choice of words had reminded her of his unruly and ramshackle pair. She glanced toward the curtained corner with a little start. “They aren’t out in the snow, are they?”

“No, of course they’re not. I don’t let them out in a blizzard.” Rufus sounded indignant at such an implication. He was filling a warming pan with embers from the fire. “They’ll sleep with Will tonight.”

“Do they often do that?”

Rufus shrugged, setting down the tongs. “Quite often… if they’re with him when they get sleepy.” He picked up the warming pan and went upstairs.

Portia drank her sack posset. It seemed a remarkably haphazard way to bring up children, but who was she to talk? She who’d never known a moment’s routine in her own upbringing. Not that she’d trumpet Jack’s parenting as a model.

When Rufus came back down again and lifted her to carry her upstairs, she felt the most glorious relaxation, a warm and sensuous languor. Lying back in his arms, she lazily lifted a hand to touch his face.

“Don’t get any ideas,” he said, supporting her against his upraised knee as he turned back the quilts on his own big bed. “Necrophilia has never been a passion of mine.”

“I’m not that tired,” Portia said hopefully.

“Believe me, you are,” he stated, deftly divesting her of the fur-lined robe and inserting her neatly into the bed. The warming pan had been passed over the sheets, and the bed was blissfully cozy.

Juno whined from the bottom of the stairs. The flight might just as well have been a sheer mountain for all her ability to scramble up it on her short legs.

“The dog may sleep below by the fire,” Rufus said firmly, seeing Portia about to plead for the puppy. He looked down at her, thinking how pitifully frail her shape seemed under the covers. And yet he knew how robust she really was-at least, when she hadn’t trekked for twelve hours through snowdrifts to save his neck.

“I have to talk to George about posting pickets. Will you be all right alone for a little?”

“Mmm.” Portia yawned, waves of sleep breaking inexorably over her. “But can’t Juno sleep up here?”

“No. She’s filthy and probably flea-ridden,” Rufus declared. “She’ll be warm enough by the fire. Now go to sleep and don’t argue.” He bent and kissed her, his lips lingering for a minute on hers. He’d forgotten how deliciously soft her mouth was. Soft and sweet and wonderfully responsive.

“More,” she demanded, when reluctantly he raised his head.

“Later. You may have as many kisses as you wish,” he promised with a light laugh, then left her before she could sing more of her siren songs, and went downstairs, quietly letting himself out of the house.

Juno whined and scratched at the stairs. When Portia didn’t come down to fetch her, she began to bark, incredibly annoying little yaps that made it impossible for Portia to sleep even through her exhaustion.

“Juno, be quiet.”

It did no good. The yaps grew more high-pitched and impossible to ignore. With a groan, Portia dragged herself up and out of the nesting warmth. She stood on one leg and hopped across to the stairs. “How can I possibly come down to fetch you when I can’t put my foot to the floor?”

The puppy took a running jump at the first step and tumbled backward. She yapped again, looking expectantly upward. “And you are filthy,” Portia said. Juno whined.

“Oh, Lord!” Portia sat down on the top step and inched her way down on her bottom. The stairs were steep but the descent was surprisingly easy to accomplish using just one foot, while she held the injured one out stiffly in front of her.

At the foot of the stairs she scooped an ecstatic puppy into her lap and tried to lift herself backward onto the step above. The problem was immediately apparent. It was impossible to climb back up in the same way without using both hands. And she was holding Juno on her lap.