by Sharon Page
Would she be safe from herself, locked in a bedroom with Sinclair?
* * *
She was curled around her pillow, sleeping like an angel, except she looked like a temptress in his bed. The silky sheets had slid down off her body.
Sin was sprawled in the wing chair. After returning to the house, he and Portia had woken Humphries, and he and the butler had carried the body up to Will’s bedroom, where they’d laid him on the bed and covered him with a sheet. Shocked, appalled at Will’s death and fretting over their bedraggled condition, Humphries had certainly looked genuinely surprised and horrified.
Portia had insisted she didn’t need a bath, and the butler had given her a stack of thick towels to dry herself. After that, she’d gone to bed.
Then Sin had planted himself in the chair. For hours, he had not looked at her. But with daylight—a gray gloomy light—illuminating the room, he’d given in to temptation. Twice, he’d gotten up and pulled the sheets up to cover her. Then she’d wrestled around until they’d slid down.
With her nightgown soaked through, she’d taken it off in the dressing room, then pulled on her shift. But that had ridden up. Fortunately she held the pillow tight to her and it covered her nether curls and her pussy. But he could see the voluptuous curves of her ass and he didn’t have the courage to try tugging it down without waking her up.
He’d barely slept, his brain going mad.
Who could have kidnapped Portia?
Who had battered in Will’s face?
Who’d killed Sandhurst, who seemed like a daft, inoffensive lad?
It was like all those years ago, when Sin had been a boy. So much death . . . death wrapping around him. Then it had all culminated in that moment he’d been standing across from his own brother, aiming a dueling pistol—
His door rattled. Once. Then twice. The knob turned. Then footsteps moved away. The maid laying the fires? A murderer hoping to catch them asleep in bed?
Sin launched to his feet. He ran to the door, turned the key, and opened it. The hall was empty. But from the stair landing, he could hear voices. The appetizing scents of cooked food had begun to slip into the room. Breakfast was being served.
Groaning, he closed the door, locked it again, and went to the window.
The torrential rain had stopped, but gray clouds hugged the island and the sea tossed. No boats would be coming today. He couldn’t get Portia to the mainland. Their host would not be arriving....
Unless Genvere was already on the island.
It was time to wake Portia and take her downstairs. Tell everyone what had happened to Will. Start questioning the guests.
Sin looked longingly at the bed. If he hadn’t been such a damn idiot ten years ago, and if they weren’t on an island with a lunatic, he could be in bed with Portia right now.
Then pain hit him, pain and anger.
“No,” he muttered. “With the perverse things you did as a boy, you could never have had Portia. You’re damaged, just like she said, Sin. You’re not a hero, you’re a sinful bastard.”
Maybe the lunatic was getting to him. He was talking aloud to himself. At least Portia was asleep. She hadn’t heard.
11
Sin walked downstairs with Portia to join the other guests for breakfast, his jaw clenched with tension.
He should have never allowed this. He could have demanded that Portia stay in the bedroom. He wasn’t nineteen years old now, a new duke who had no idea how to be in command. Now, at twenty-nine, he knew how to give orders and have them obeyed. In the decade after he’d lost Portia, he’d learned how to make his cousin respect him, his servants snap to attention and respect him, and he’d learned how to make every gentleman of the ton envy and admire him.
The only man who didn’t envy him was himself.
In their bedroom, with her determined, brilliant gray eyes locked on his face, Portia had insisted she should speak to the other women. It was the best solution, the logical thing to do. To have a woman try to get information from the women.
He’d helped her back into her ivory gown, tightened the ties of her mask. All the while, he’d fought not to fall into the glittering beauty of her eyes. “Let me do this, Sinclair,” she declared. “I am comfortable on the streets of Whitechapel. I can take care of myself.”
“I could seduce information from the women.”
“I doubt they’d tell you they’d done something heinous, even in the throes of ecstasy.”
“Would they tell you?”
“I can be clever. And I can simply climb down from the balcony and go downstairs if I wish, even if you lock me in.”
“Damn it, all right.”
The reason he’d let her come downstairs was that she was right. Portia had the finest brain of anyone he knew.
But the more time she spent with the guests, the more she risked revealing her identity. Portia could end up ruined.
After what had happened to Will, and if Sandhurst had been poisoned, ruination was their smallest concern.
Now Sin watched her walk ahead of him into the dining room, his every instinct on edge. He found the other male guests loading their plates at the buffet. The women were already seated, nibbling from tiny plates of food.
Crayle, the marquis, whom Sin privately called the Marquis de Sade, sat down with a plate in which food had been placed with geometric precision. The Earl of Blute, the muscular, auburn-haired Sporting Corinthian, was piling his plate with gusto, creating towers of kippers and sausages. Rutledge was taking coffee from the urn and holding his head. The sign of a man suffering the aftereffects of drinking. Sax stood at the buffet of warming dishes, selecting sausages.
Sin considered the food. Could it have been poisoned? Portia walked to the warming dishes and picked up a plate. He lunged forward and caught her wrist, ladling spoon clutched in her hand. “Watch for a few moments,” he muttered. “Let them eat. See how they fare.”
She gulped. “Oh, I see.”
Her tummy made a rumbling sound and she stared at the dishes. Damn, he knew she was hungry. How long would it take poison to act? Longer than mere minutes. But he could see the appetizing smells were getting to Portia.
“Do you really think all the food could be poisoned? Though Lord Rutledge is not eating. Do you think that means he is wary of the food?”
“Or that he drank too much last night.”
He saw her gaze longingly at the food. Sighed. Softly he said, “Even if Sandhurst was poisoned, we think it was likely not in the food. I’ll taste some. Then you can eat if you want.”
He knew it would likely prove nothing for him to test the food, but he guessed she was hungry. And the poisoner last night hadn’t seen fit to try to kill them all.
He put a little food on his plate. She did the same. After he tried it, at the table, and nodded, she ate a little.
The women began to leave the table. “We are retiring to the drawing room,” Clarissa announced.
Portia set down her knife and fork. “I should go too,” she whispered. Then she jumped up and followed.
Sin couldn’t tear his gaze from her, from the sway of her hips beneath silk skirts as she sashayed out. Reluctantly, he knew he had to let her go. Then, on a grunt of frustration, Sin got out of his seat and went to the head of the table.
“Last night, Viscount Willoughby was murdered,” he announced bluntly. “He was attacked and savagely beaten on the terrace outside. I found him dead.”
He glanced at each man—even Sax. A kipper fell out of Blute’s mouth. Rutledge sputtered over his coffee. The marquis looked unmoved. Sax blinked.
Sin mentally assessed the men. Willoughby liked pugilism and was a bruising rider. Will had been strong.
Crayle, the marquis, was over sixty, with a thin build. However, Rutledge, Blute, and Sax had the strength to take Willoughby.
He and Sax had been friends for a long time. Since they had all gone to Eton. They were members of the group of friends called the “Wicked Dukes” by the
ton. He doubted Sax would kill anyone, even with strong motivation. But he couldn’t know for certain.
He was considering suspects based on their physical strength. On the other hand, any one of them could have taken Will by surprise, clubbed him over the head first to knock him out, and then beaten him with a weapon. None of the men could be exonerated—including the butler and the footman. And if the killer had taken Will by surprise, the women were suspects as well.
Damn it, he should never have allowed Portia to come downstairs—
“Someone attacked him? You are saying there is a murderer on this island?” barked the marquis. He stood up from the table, tall and straight, his white hair flowing back. “It must have been a footpad who attacked him to rob him. I’d run through any bastard who assaulted me.”
“I doubt that, in a thunderstorm, someone attacked him to rob him,” Sin answered. “I think someone had a motive to want Will dead.”
Sax frowned. “You mean someone in this house. One of us.”
“Unless there is someone else on the island,” Sin said. “I searched as much as I could last night, but that wasn’t particularly effective, in the driving rain.”
“Then we should carry out a thorough search this morning,” Crayle barked. “I will help also. There must be some ruffian on this island. Perhaps several. We will catch them and string them up.”
“String them up?” Sin repeated.
“I had arranged to entertain the lovely Sadie this morning. I came for sexual sport. Having to delay my satisfaction is putting me in a very bad mood,” Crayle snapped.
“If we find this person, we will wait for justice until we can take him back to the mainland. Understood?” Sin said.
He glanced toward the door. He couldn’t go and search now—he’d only allowed Portia to go and speak to the women alone because he was close enough to hear her scream if she was in trouble.
* * *
Portia would never forget what she’d overheard Sin say this morning.
The perverse things I did as a boy. . . .
What did he mean? She knew there was no point in asking. Knew he wouldn’t tell her. She had pretended to be asleep, so he wouldn’t worry that she’d heard.
What could he have done as a boy that was so bad?
But for now, she had to focus on questioning the other women. She sailed into the drawing room, confident she could do this. Determined to find justice.
But as she entered the drawing room, she suddenly remembered that some of these women, or even all of them, might have made love to Sinclair.
She stood in the drawing room, wearing her elegant gown and mask, and she felt tremendously tongue-tied. Did some—or all—of these women know the Duke of Sinclair more intimately than she ever would?
The Incognita wore a day dress of the sort that a royal princess might wear. Elegant and fashionable, it was pale ivory with a delicate stripe of blue, and followed her every curve. But it was cut so low Portia could see the dusky pink of the woman’s nipples.
The Old Madam, Mrs. Barker, paced the room, glaring outside the window through a glittering, bejeweled lorgnette, her skirts swishing around her. She wore a bronze gown, the neckline cut low as well. Her bosom was like two enormous pillows stuffed within. An elaborate turban adorned her head. “What in heaven’s name is taking those gentlemen so long?” she snapped, without looking at the others in the room.
The young and bosomy courtesan Sadie giggled. She wasn’t wearing a day gown. She had on just a thin, silk robe, belted at the waist. She sprawled on the settee, the robe slightly parted to reveal her shapely legs and plump thighs.
The widow stood near the fire, studying it, playing with the pearl choker around her neck.
Portia knew it was time to speak. “They are discussing what happened to Viscount Willoughby.”
“What happened to him?” The Old Madam whipped around and looked at her sharply.
Portia told them, as bluntly as she could. It was tough to do, but she had to see their reaction.
The widow, Lady Linley, turned from the fire and stared. “Killed? Deliberately?” She took a step forward; then her legs crumpled beneath her. She fell to the floor, because no one was close enough to reach her, but she did it as elegantly as a feather fluttering down.
The Incognita rolled her eyes. “For heaven’s sake. I suppose we must come to her rescue. Miss Love, would you help me lift her and take her to the settee? At least she’s not heavy.”
She helped, though even working together, she and the Incognita had to drag the widow. Portia ensured the widow had a pillow. “Do you think she’s all right?”
“I’m sure she will be fine. I wonder if she even really fainted. She wants to look delicate, fluttering around in front of our two available dukes.” The courtesan’s tone was dry, sarcastic.
“Surely, if she hadn’t fainted, she wouldn’t want to be dragged,” Portia observed. Was the faint a sign of guilt? A woman who easily shocked would hardly beat a man to death, would she?
Portia wondered if she should poke the widow to check if she had really fainted, when the Elegant Incognita touched her arm.
“My dear, I know why you are wearing a mask. You are respectable and innocent, and you don’t want anyone at an orgy to know who you are. I take it you were the woman brought here against your will.”
“Er—” She had to distract the woman and think quickly. “Of course not. I came with Sinclair.”
“No, you did not. I saw him arrive from my window. He came up with the oarsmen who were carrying his trunk. You were not there. Is he the one who had you brought here unwillingly?”
“No!”
“Well, Sinclair always did enjoy strange games. And punishment.”
“Punishment?” Portia echoed.
“Didn’t you know? He came to London at nineteen, looking so sweet. But he loves pain. He’ll give it and he’ll take it. He used to like being cut, liked feeling the blade of a knife part his skin. Of course, he also used to like opium. I am sorry to shock you—I can see you are shocked, even with your mask. But Sin is wild. Wild and impossible to tame. I am surprised he’s been so dedicated to you here. It’s unlike him. He usually has four or five people in his bed with him. Anything else, he finds deadly dull.”
Portia had thought his life was shocking. But nothing like this. He found being cut erotic? She fought the dizzy, buzzing feeling in her head. She said, “Perhaps he’s changed.” But it sounded idiotic, even to her ears.
“Yes, some men do change. As they grow older. Or if they truly find love. But some men never do—they are driven by something that is deep in their souls. Sin is a man like that. Enjoy him while you can, dear. But you’ll lose him in the end.”
“Were you ever his lover? Were you Willoughby’s lover?”
The Incognita smiled. “You are innocent.”
What did that mean? That she was Sin’s lover? “Do you know anything about Lord Willoughby’s murder?”
“Are you asking if I murdered him? I would hardly tell you.”
“Someone did. Someone on this island.” Portia watched the Incognita’s beautiful green eyes.
And she saw it. The flash of fear. Of wariness.
“This wretched party is cursed,” Clarissa said carelessly. “First Sandhurst. Now this. I suppose we must all leave. I shall be glad to go.”
“We can’t leave. The sea is too high. We are all trapped here,” Portia pointed out.
“We can’t leave?” The Incognita bit her lip.
“Ooh, look who’s finally arrived.”
The bubbly voice belonged to Sadie, who came up beside Portia.
Portia looked to the door. Sinclair stood on the drawing room threshold, looking slightly disheveled. She was the reason for that. Her stomach had rumbled and he’d brought her down without bothering to shave. Or put on a cravat.
The hint of stubble along his chin was gorgeous. The glimpse of his bare throat in public rather shocking.
“A
t least we have such a strong, handsome duke to protect us,” Sadie cooed.
Then Portia felt a hand where it shouldn’t be. On her bottom.
It was Sadie, and startled Portia turned around. The most wickedly naughty look came into Sadie’s huge blue eyes.
Suddenly Sadie lunged forward. The girl’s bosom smacked Portia’s chest. Sadie’s soft, puckered lips came to hers. Slanting her head, Sadie kissed her. Her mouth was hot, tasted of sugared coffee, and her tongue was small and playful inside Portia’s mouth.
Portia stood, feet riveted to the floor. Sadie moaned, moaned softly in pleasure, and Portia blinked and suddenly all she could see was Sadie. The girl’s lashes trembled. Her lovely eyes filled with pleasure.
Sadie’s arms were around her. Then Sadie cupped Portia’s bottom and her left breast.
Portia made a squeak of shock. Heavens, a thrill went through her as Sadie caressed her.
Sinclair’s jaw dropped so precipitously she was amazed it didn’t hit the carpet. A pained look flashed over his handsome face. He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. His dark eyes glowed as if lit by fire.
The desire in his expression stunned her. Then propriety hit.
She shouldn’t be doing such a thing—not in such circumstances. She tried to ease away from Sadie, but the girl stuck to her like treacle.
Oh. Blast.
She put her hands firmly on Sadie’s shoulders and pulled back. Sadie released her.
What did one say at such a moment? What was proper? “Thank you.”
Sadie laughed. “How polite. I do wonder who you are.”
Sadie was never going to find out.
Still laughing, Sadie turned and blew a kiss toward Sinclair as she twirled a golden curl around her fingers.
At once Portia understood. Sadie’s steamy, lusty kiss with her was a way of flirting with the duke.
Suddenly Sinclair was right in front of her. Hand on her elbow, he pulled Portia away from the others and led her to the window. His wide chest blocked her view of the room. Looking up, she saw the stubble—little bits close enough to his lips that if she kissed him, it would scratch and tickle.
His hair was in a tangle as he shoved it back with his hand. “What are you doing?”
