The warmth in Tav’s chest coalesced into a sensation that made his eyes burn. He fought against a sniffle.

“Let us know when you figure out you’ve decided to do it,” his father said. His mother wore a faint smile, but her brow was creased, worry creating the wrinkles time and genetics hadn’t.

They traded some more pleasantries and after the call disconnected Tavish sat staring at the blank screen for a long time.

How was one even supposed to start the task of becoming a duke?

Chapter 14

Portia opened the copy of Debrett’s she’d picked up from Mary and turned to the section about sending emails to members of the peerage. She had maybe been a bit too hasty with her offer of help to Tavish. She’d hobnobbed with the rich and powerful all of her life, but her mingling with royalty was relatively new, and was via one degree of separation.

She had gotten him into this, though, so she couldn’t let him down. She had spent the past two days with her face stuck into the high society etiquette guide as if she was cramming for a test. In a way, she was—that is, if Tavish decided to pursue his claim to the dukedom.

He still hadn’t decided, or so he’d said, but three days had passed and instead of focusing on invoices and sandpaper orders, her mind kept formulating plans for how to proceed if he decided to go for it. This was exactly what her parents had always scolded her over—already thinking about the next pipe dream before this one has even run its course. But to Portia, what seemed disparate to other people made perfect sense to her. For example, her parents saw her apprenticeship as a lark, instead of a way of testing the years of crafting classes, art history studies, research, and her innate talent at putting other people’s best face forward. If Tav was about to become a royal duke, that was just another way in which she could help.

She ran through the list she’d created in her Brain Basura under the heading “Project: New Duke.” Not entirely original, but if it worked for her it could work for Tav. She had subheadings like “style upgrade,” “dinner etiquette,” “not cursing at people,” but she was currently staring at “contacts.” She couldn’t work on any of those other things—maybe ever—but she could get an email drafted and ready to go. She had to do something. She’d come to Scotland to learn how to make swords, and to put the Bodotria Armory on the map. This was so much more than that.

In the days since she’d told Tavish the news, the immensity of her revelation had had time to sink in. Whatever he decided, her actions had changed the course of his life, completely. Unless they perfected a memory erasing serum sometime in the next week, he couldn’t go back to not knowing he was technically a duke. Whether he acted on it or not, that knowledge would be with him forever, all because of her. Her actions had consequences and she couldn’t fuck up.

“You can’t even manage not to flunk philosophy 101? Do you know how much we’re paying for school? It’s not like you got scholarships like your sister.”

“Dad, I told you I’d do better next semester.”

“Portia, why can’t you manage even a portion of what Reggie is handling? Sometimes I wonder why—”

She closed the Debrett’s for a moment and pressed her hand to her chest, taking deep breaths against the panic. She’d always reached for a drink whenever she’d felt this sick sensation take hold of her. It had been like a more enjoyable version of an IV drip, because once it hit her bloodstream, the tightness in her chest would release and she’d be the fun-loving Portia that people enjoyed being around. Perhaps a bit too fun-loving, as her friend Ledi had tried to gently point out over the years. But it wasn’t until Portia had cut it out of her life that she’d realized it had stopped being fun and started being a coping mechanism, long, long ago.

She inhaled through her nose, then out through her mouth. Breathing through her anxiety would have to suffice for now. She had work to do. Maybe work was just another coping mechanism, but at least it was productive.

She re-opened the Debrett’s to “How to email a royal secretary” and began composing her email. It turned out, there wasn’t exactly a tactful way to say “I am writing on behalf of His Grace’s secret baby,” so she stuck with some approximation of that and attached her evidence.

“Oh my gosh!”

Cheryl burst into the office, the strings of her TARDIS apron flailing behind her and her phone caught in a death grip.

“What’s wrong?” Portia had learned to ask before immediately going for the mace.

“GirlsWithGlasses!!!” Cheryl shouted, performing some strange circular dance routine that was maybe a reenactment of the mating dance of the flamingo. “You wrote about Doctor Hu’s on GirlsWithGlasses! And then your sister shared one of the photos from the social media account you had me create. And then THE LATEST DOCTOR QUOTE-SHARED IT.”

Cheryl’s cheeks were pink and her eyes were glossy with tears as she stuck the phone in Portia’s face.

Hoping I get to make a visit to this dimension, the food looks great.

Portia felt her adrenaline return to baseline, though she was happy that Cheryl was so happy. “That’s awesome! I bet you’ll have an uptick in customers—”

“Customers? Who cares about customers! The Doctor knows who I am and it’s because of you!” She pulled Portia into a hug, which was apparently the culmination of the mating dance. “Thank you! You really are a superhero!”