“This is so good,” she murmured. Bits of the flaky pastry clung to her red-stained lips, and she licked them away.
The restaurant was small and dark and not much to look at, but the chef could make Portia smile and moan in a way Tav wasn’t able to, so it had been the right choice. He’d worried when he led her into the alley, and then down the flight of rickety stairs to the basement, that she might scoff or pull a face. He didn’t know why he kept expecting these things—Portia had never done anything to make him think she’d react in such a way.
Maybe it’s because life would be much easier for you if she did act like the annoying imaginary version of her you conjured up.
“You should taste my mum’s empanadas,” he said. “Makes these taste like deep fried dust.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that,” she said. She stopped and pulled out her phone with her free hand.
“Hey,” he said menacingly. “No working, remember?”
“I’m sending a picture to my friends,” she said, tapping away at the phone with a smile before tucking it away. “Evidence that I am actually taking a night off. You’re not the only one who’s been on my case. Also this deliciousness deserves to be preserved for future generations. One day I can show this picture to my grandchildren.”
Tav smiled.
“The owner of this place is friends with my mum,” he said. “We used to come here all the time when I was younger. Had birthday parties and community events here with other Chileans who’d had to come to Scotland. I thought you might like it.”
“I love it,” she said. She licked at the tip of her thumb, which he was sure wasn’t in any etiquette book, and that made it all the more alluring. When she caught him staring at her, she sheepishly picked up her napkin.
“Do you enjoy the etiquette stuff?” he asked. “I hope so because it’d be a hell of a waste to spend so much time learning and teaching something you didn’t.”
She shrugged. “I’m ambivalent. It’s what my parents thought I was good at. My sister—the smart twin—was more focused on school and I liked artsy stuff and clothes and attention. I was eager to please, while Reggie generally didn’t give a fuck about that as long as she achieved her goals.”
The paint-by-number portrait of Portia’s family situation was getting slowly filled in, but Tav couldn’t quite understand how the woman across from him could be seen as anything less than brilliant.
“So this Reggie is a genius? Because she would have to be pretty fucking intelligent to hold the title of ‘the smart twin’ between the two of you.”
“I know I’m smart. But you know how it is.” Portia shrugged. “My parents sent me for deportment lessons and entered me into local beauty contests.”
“I can’t believe you’ve been holding out that you were a beauty queen, Freckles.” Tav wasn’t exactly surprised, but was still strange to think of Portia parading herself around to be judged. His jibes had hurt her so easily.
She shook her head. “I was a contestant. You have to win to be a queen. But yeah. I had a debut, with the frilly dress and everything, too. I think they were training me to be a good wife since I was so uneven at school and they didn’t think art or hanging on the internet were viable careers. Not their best investment.”
She gave him something between a grin and a grimace. The waiter arrived then with pastel de choclo for her and lomo a lo pobre for him.
“Anything to drink with your meal?” the waiter asked.
“I’ll have another glass of red,” Tavish said.
“And sparkling water with a slice of lime for me,” Portia added. The waiter went off on his way.
“Does it bother you? My drinking?” he asked. “I can just have water, too.”
“No, it’s cool,” she said, cutting into her corn and meat pie. “I can have a drink and be fine. I don’t crave alcohol and I don’t binge drink every time I have it. I decided not to drink because I wanted to see what I’m like when I’m not setting myself up to be a hot mess.”
She shrugged and scooped some of her food onto her fork awkwardly. She was uncomfortable.
“Well, good on you,” he said, but something she’d said snagged annoyingly in his mind. “I don’t know what you were like before, but you’re the furthest thing from a hot mess I’ve seen. Without you I would be completely lost.”
Another shrug. “Without me you wouldn’t be dealing with this to begin with.”
“Portia.”
She shoved a forkful of food in her mouth.
“Portia. Hey, lass.”
She looked up at him, chewing apprehensively, and he folded his hands together and regarded her with as serious an expression as he could muster.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re shite at taking compliments?”
Her hand went to her mouth as a squeal of surprised laughter escaped.
“Like really shite. Jesus Christ.” He was rewarded with more laughter.
Her hand was still in front of her mouth, blocking it from view as she finished chewing. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just take the fucking compliment. Do I seem like the type who goes about doling them out to every Tom, Dick, and Mary?”
She narrowed her gaze at him. “Actually, your dirty little secret is that inside all that armor you’ve outfitted yourself with, you’re a squishy marshmallow.”
Tav growled and shoved the deliciously seasoned steak and chips into his mouth instead of replying. He was used to being described as cold and rude, not squishy for fuck’s sake.
Portia chuckled. “I guess I’m not the only one who can’t take a compliment, Lord I-Turned-Down-a-Shitload-of-Cash-Because-David-Insulted-Refugees.”
Tav pushed a chip to the edge of his plate with the tines of his fork. “Do you think I should have accepted his bribe?”
Do you think I don’t have what it takes to be a duke?
“I think you could have, but I really don’t see you as the type to take hush money from an asshole like that, even if it’s the easy thing to do.”
He wanted to ask her just exactly how she saw him because every morning he looked in the mirror and tried to tell himself he was a duke now, an important man, and every morning he failed spectacularly.
“I keep wondering, who the fuck am I? To think I deserve the titles and properties and everything that comes along with this?”
“The fact that you’re even wondering is a good start,” she said, waving her knife in his direction—something he wouldn’t have trusted her with before. “There are people out there who will do anything for money and prestige, even when they already have it. Your reservations are a good sign.”
Tav sighed. “It’s just . . . When I talked to my mum, I was so mad at this Dudgeon prick, but she loved him at some point. And he loved her. He was dedicated to helping the downtrodden, by all accounts. But she said becoming a duke changed him, and not for the better. I can’t stop thinking what if . . .”
He thought again of the sword above the mantelpiece. It had done something to him, knowing his father had commissioned that first big piece. Like he’d been watching from the wings, and had maybe been proud. Had maybe even cared.
“Tavish, you don’t have to become your father,” Portia said. “You’re your own man. And let’s keep it real—you can’t be worse than David. From what I’ve read, he’s spent more time using his new status to pick up women and bash migrants than he has doing anything else.”
“That git was using the title to pull birds? Of course, he was.”
Portia took a sip of water, and trained her gaze on her plate. “I guess that’s one benefit you haven’t taken into account. A duke is not going to have trouble in the dating department.”