Deepest Desires of a Wicked Duke

by Sharon Page

  Curled in Portia’s hand was the piece of pink ribbon she had found on the bed. In the room that hadn’t been used by anyone.

  She stroked it—it was just a tiny scrap with ragged edges and her thumb ruffled them. Had it fallen on that bed? Had it dropped from the marquis? By why would he have been on top of the unmade bed?

  She had shown the ribbon to Sinclair, but he’d been in a hurry to go downstairs and tell the other guests what had happened. He had ordered Humphries and the footman to find them all and have them assemble in the drawing room. She knew he’d wanted to see if guilt could be read in one of the guests’ faces.

  Heaven only knew what carnal activities had been interrupted.

  While Sinclair had told the guests, Portia had studied each person: Blute, Rutledge, Saxonby, the women. They had all looked equally shocked.

  Was one as good as Edmund Kean at acting? Or was it one of the servants who had done this? The butler, the footman, the maid, or the cook?

  But why?

  The blond Wanton Widow was pale, curled up on the settee. Saxonby was tending to her, fussing over her. He had brought her a thick velvet wrap, and now he fetched glasses of sherry. Portia wondered if he would mind knowing the widow had just been made love to by two men.

  The Old Madam, the Peacock Girl, and the Elegant Incognita sat on a settee. The Old Madam was dabbing at tears with her handkerchief. “I can’t imagine why you are crying,” drawled the Incognita softly. “He was a horrible man. He lived violently and I, for one, am not surprised he died that way.”

  “What an awful thing to say, Clarissa!”

  “You didn’t care for the man either,” Clarissa said. “But you did have an eye on his money. I can’t imagine why. The wretched man thought any woman over twenty-one was too long in the tooth for him. He wanted the youngest, the prettiest, and he believed he could own us body and soul. So I shouldn’t waste my tears on him if I were you. He would never have made you his mistress.”

  “Cat,” spat the Old Madam.

  “Realist,” Clarissa returned.

  “Let’s not fight over him now,” grumbled Nellie, the Peacock Girl.

  The Old Madam got up and stalked over to the sofa where Rutledge was sitting. She put her hand on his knee. He moved her hand. She replaced it.

  Sadie was not there—she was fast asleep upstairs. She didn’t even know the marquis was dead. She had collapsed after her wounds had been cleaned. Portia had put her to bed.

  “We’re running out of gentlemen awfully quickly,” piped up the Peacock Girl. Her almond-shaped eyes narrowed. “What kind of orgy is thish?” Her words slurred, and she tossed back the last drops of her sherry.

  “Shut up,” Clarissa snapped, not emulating a lady at that moment.

  Portia shuddered. The girl was right. Of the thirteen guests at the beginning—seven men and six women—there were now only ten. Within the space of a day, three guests had died. Three men.

  Good heavens—had someone killed the men so there would be more women each? No, that would surely be madness.

  At that instant, the Old Madam murmured, “Are you certain he did not take his own life?”

  “That old sadist would never feel an iota of guilt,” Clarissa muttered.

  “Remember what Sinclair told us.” Saxonby stood up and walked over from where the widow was seated. His eyes were alert with interest. “The point about the chair is a good one.”

  The old madam asked, her voice quavering, “But that would mean someone lifted him up and put him in the noose. Wouldn’t he have struggled?”

  “He could have been knocked unconscious,” Sinclair said, his voice low and quiet, but filling the drawing room because everyone went silent when he spoke. “Or he could have been strangled with a cord or a wire, then put up in the noose to hide the evidence of strangulation.”

  The thought was sickening, but Portia knew about violence. She had seen it in the stews.

  Rutledge suddenly leapt to his feet. He waved wildly at the window. “We scoured this island for a criminal and found nothing. What are you saying, Sinclair? That one of us has murdered three peers of the realm? What are you going to do next—accuse me?”

  “I wouldn’t blindly accuse anyone. I want proof. For a start, did any of you hear Sadie scream?”

  Several guests nodded their heads. “Was anyone off alone during that time?” he asked.

  Sinclair naturally took charge, Portia saw. And all seemed to accept his authority.

  “Georgiana was with me,” Rutledge said. And he shot a triumphant look toward Saxonby.

  It turned out that all of the guests had been within sight of another guest. No one had been alone and unaccounted for.

  “There is the possibility someone else is hiding in this house,” Sinclair said. “Given what’s happened—”

  “I suggest we all search,” snapped Rutledge. “Shite, I don’t care if I have to tear the house apart stone by stone. We need to hunt this bastard down.”

  “Language,” Saxonby warned. “In front of the ladies.”

  The earl sneered. “These women aren’t ladies.”

  “Rescind that insult, man.” Saxonby was on his feet, but Sinclair stepped between them.

  “Enough. We need to direct our energies to figure out what is going on.”

  “I meant most of these women aren’t ladies,” Rutledge said sulkily. “My fair Georgiana is a goddess. I wouldn’t imply anything less, Sax.” He turned to Sinclair, glowering. “Maybe it’s time we accused you, Sinclair. Three men have died and I know you had reasons to want each one dead.”

  Startled, Portia met Sinclair’s dark brown eyes. He looked as if hit in the face. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

  “You were overheard shouting at Crayle. I was Willoughby’s second when you faced him at Chalk Farm to duel, when he shot you. And I know you were angered by Sandhurst’s attention to your masked mistress. If there’s a murderer amongst us, it’s likely you.”

  “It is not, damn it.”

  But Portia saw the guests all stare at Sinclair, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  Before she’d had a moment of doubt. Did she now? No—because Sinclair had been angered by the Cruel Marquis’s treatment of Sadie.

  She believed him innocent.

  “I assure you I did not kill anyone,” Sinclair said. “I’ve had ample time to seek revenge on Willoughby if I’d wanted. As for the marquis, if I wanted retribution from him for what he did to Sadie, I wouldn’t kill him. A flirtation with my mistress is not a reason to kill a man.” He looked around. “Do the rest of you believe this?”

  “Of course not.” Portia stood. “You could never have done such things. To think it is madness. You are not that kind of gentleman, Your Grace. And if you are going to search the house, I wish to go too. To help.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Of course he would say that. “I could go on my own, the moment you are gone. I think it would make far more sense to work together.”

  * * *

  Portia stayed with Sinclair and Saxonby as they searched the house. The two gentlemen were extremely intelligent, but needed a woman’s touch when it came to assessing a house for its hiding places, she quickly realized.

  She knew where children would choose to hide—either for games or to escape punishment for pranks. She set out the search agenda. Up to the attics first, then working down through the house. They looked in every room, every wardrobe, behind curtains, under beds. Any place someone could hide.

  The Earl of Rutledge helped with the attic search for a half hour, then grunted that he needed a drink and disappeared. Blute did not join them at all. He remained in the drawing room with the other women, who had elected to stay there. Together. As she, Sinclair, and Saxonby passed the drawing room, Portia saw all the other guests seated inside. Tea had been served, but no one was touching it. They all had liquor in their hands.

  Sinclair paused just beyond door, and Portia realized he was listenin
g to hear what was being said.

  “We’ll only drink from fresh bottles,” Rutledge muttered. “Heard Sinclair say he thought Sandhurst had been poisoned. As long as we open sealed bottles and drink in front of each other, we’ve got nothing to fear.”

  The others answered in muted, emotionless voices. The tones of people in shock. No one was touching or having sex. They all sat grim-faced, watching each other.

  Then Portia found herself dragged away from the drawing room by Sinclair. He stopped with his hand on her low back to confer with Saxonby. His touch made her think of the most inappropriate things. Such as the wonderful, thrilling way he’d made her climax—

  “We’ve got to do this floor, then the basements,” Sinclair said. “I want to search this story and the upper one again. I want to check more thoroughly for hidden rooms or passageways. My gut instinct says there are some in a rambling house like this.”

  “What if we don’t stumble on the mechanism that opens doors to hidden rooms?” Saxonby asked.

  “We measure the rooms,” Sinclair said.

  Saxonby groaned. “That will bloody take forever.”

  Portia knew how he felt. But—“What else can we do?” she asked. “I’d rather work like a fiend than be killed.”

  Sinclair’s hand pressed with gentle firmness against her back and moved a little, in a caress. She almost gasped and her whole body tingled, just having him touch her.

  “You will not be hurt,” he growled. “I would never allow it.”

  It touched her heart, made it wobble. But he couldn’t promise such a thing.

  He moved to the bellpull with a panther’s lithe, muscular grace. But before pulling on it, Sinclair made a lower grumble in the back of his throat, then said, in his deep, melodic voice, “Come in, Humphries.”

  Portia whipped toward the door as the butler walked in. The man was blushing—even his balding pate looked pink. Humphries had been skulking outside the door.

  Why? To overhear what had been said? Could the thin, aging butler be involved in these crimes?

  Sinclair walked away from the group of guests with the butler, close to her. She and Saxonby could overhear their conversation, but none of the others could. Yet the others watched them. In silence, drinking liquor or tea, they watched. And their gazes flicked to each other, narrow with suspicion or wide with fear.

  “Any secret rooms or passages in the house, Humphries?” Sinclair asked. “Any priest holes? Or doors that are cleverly hidden in walls?”

  The butler’s heavy black eyebrows shot up, as if he’d expected different questions. “I have no idea, Your Grace. I was never told of any such thing. Nor have I discovered any. Now, I must clear tea.” He scuttled away, sideways like a crab, as if he was still trying to hear what they said.

  Portia said, “He could be lying.”

  Sinclair said it at exactly the same time.

  He flashed her a smile. “You are clever, love.”

  Then he stalked away, stopped, turned. “Come, angel. You as well, Sax. Time to hunt.”

  Determination gleamed in Sinclair’s dark brown eyes. He looked so different—she’d never seen him like this. She’d always thought of him as sweet and naïve. She’d even really thought that was why he had orgies—because he’d been bowled over by freely available sex and adventure.

  Now, she saw he was even cleverer than she’d thought. And his mind seemed to race swiftly, assessing, figuring, planning.

  She and Saxonby had to race to catch up to him.

  Then the work of measuring began.

  Portia carried paper and a quill pen. She drew pictures of the rooms, wrote down all the measurements. The three of them added figures to see if there was any place where outside and inside dimensions did not make sense. Sinclair was astoundingly good with figures—he could juggle several numbers in his head and do mathematics almost instantaneously.

  Nothing came to light. The measurements showed no discrepancy that could be a hidden space. Not in room after room. They did the attics, the basement and kitchens, where the cook demanded to know what they were doing.

  “The Marquis of Crayle was murdered,” Sinclair told the woman bluntly.

  The woman clapped a flour-covered hand to her mouth. She slumped back onto a stool. “Blimey? Murdered? Like that one last night?”

  “Different,” the duke said. “Crayle was strangled, then hanged.”

  “Oh dear heaven.” The cook reached unsteadily for a bottle and slopped a good amount in a glass. It was the cooking sherry, and Mrs. Kent began to knock it back.

  After that, Portia went with Sinclair and Saxonby through the bedrooms—easy to search with the other guests downstairs. As they measured and searched, she saw Sinclair swiftly search drawers. “No one can hide in there.”

  “Weapons. Poison. I’m searching for those.”

  He even searched the marquis’s room. She ignored the body under the sheets. She had to admit—going through the man’s bedchamber taught her rather a lot about gentlemen of the ton. The marquis, cold and arrogant, had feminine lace-trimmed shifts, corsets, knickers, and gossamer-thin silk stockings shoved in a drawer. “For the courtesans?” she wondered.

  “Or himself,” Sinclair remarked lightly.

  She jerked up her head.

  He gave her a wry look that made him unbearably handsome. “Some men have the desire to wear women’s clothing, especially their lacy underclothing.”

  She thought of the Cruel Marquis dressed in such a way. Given his vicious behavior to Sadie, the image she conjured was not flattering. Wrinkled skin, paunchy stomach, white hair, then filmy lace. “Oh dear.”

  Sinclair took the corset she held and put it back in the drawer.

  “Er, yes, thank you. I’d rather not be touching that.” She looked up into his dark brown eyes. “But why?”

  He lifted his brow wryly. “Everyone has their deepest, hidden-most fantasies.”

  “I guess yours are all the naughty things you’ve done,” she said. “I don’t have any.”

  “My deepest fantasy is something I’ve never done before, Portia. And you have to have hidden fantasies. Everyone does.”

  “I do not.”

  “Not even two men making love to you?” he asked softly. Saxonby had moved on to the next room. Sinclair came close to her, enveloping her in his scent—sandalwood and the warm, sensual scent of his skin.

  No, she didn’t really want two men like the Wanton Widow. All she wanted was Sin. Sinclair, she meant. But she couldn’t admit that.

  “We should look through Willoughby’s bedroom,” she said crisply. In the hall, they discovered Saxonby was searching the bedroom belonging to the Old Madam, and they went to the viscount’s room.

  No frilly, pretty undergarments graced his drawers. But when Portia checked the drawer in the bedside table, there atop an assortment of riding crops and ropes sat a piece of pink ribbon.

  She lifted it out. “Ribbon again!”

  Hands settled on her shoulders, making her gasp. Not with fear, with a sudden rush of awareness. It was Sinclair of course. “Portia, you shouldn’t be looking at those things. You’re innocent—”

  “Never mind those. It’s the ribbon that’s important.”

  “The ribbon?” Sinclair stared like he couldn’t believe what he’d heard.

  “I found pink ribbon on the floor near Viscount Sandhurst’s body. And there was a piece on the bed in the room where the marquis . . . died. The cook had a piece too—she found it in her room.”

  He frowned. “You think the ribbon was a warning?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t have any in our room. I found the ribbon on the floor near Sandhurst, not in his room. Perhaps it fell out of his pocket. It must mean something.”

  Sinclair took it and she watched his fingers stroke it. “It’s a girl’s hair ribbon, isn’t it?”

  “It could belong to one of the women here,” Portia began. “But this would be for a younger girl—”

  “S
ome women dress up as young girls to arouse certain men. You think one of the women committed these murders and left hair ribbons?” Sinclair’s brow rose.

  Could a woman have done it? “I suppose it seems impossible for a woman to have lifted Crayle.”

  “Agreed.”

  Did that mean it was the mysterious Lord Genvere? A thought struck and she gasped out a little “Oh!”

  Sinclair looked at her in surprise.

  Why had she not thought of this before? She used false names in the stews to get access to places where she feared she might not. She’d even used disguises—dressing up as old ladies or servants.

  “Maybe there is no Genvere at all. There is just us. And a killer.” At his questioning look, she explained, “Perhaps one of the guests brought us all here, creating invitations with a false name. I’ve yet to find anyone who has met Lord Genvere. Not even the servants.”

  A grin spread over his handsome face. “Brilliant, Portia.”

  That smile, those words sent a warm glow through her, despite the chilling thought she’d had.

  “When we found no sign of anyone on the island, it seemed logical the killer has to be one of us. I hadn’t discounted Genvere altogether, but you’re correct. As far as I’ve been told, no one has ever met him. But there are sections of the cliffs I haven’t checked. I want to be positive there is no one hiding on the island. When the weather clears, I’m going to search for caves again. I’ll rappel down the cliffs and search.”

  Her glow vanished. “You are going to do what?”

  “Take a rope, lower myself down, look for caves—”

  “Suspended over the rocks and sea? You could be killed.”

  “Not if I use stout rope. And Sax will be on hand to help.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” she cried. He could be killed. She couldn’t face that. Couldn’t. “You’re utterly mad. You cannot take such a risk.”

  “I’m trying to stop a murderer. And find the bastard who kidnapped you.”

  “It is not worth risking your life.”

  He touched her chin, tipping it up. “For me, it is.”

  She wanted to protest, but the Duke of Saxonby came into Willoughby’s room. “The storm’s eased a little, Sin. But—”