Deepest Desires of a Wicked Duke(124)

“Is Sin up to something?” she asked them in the carriage, as they returned from the fitting. “I’m beginning to suspect there isn’t going to be an orgy.” She eyed Helena, who looked lovely and demure. Helena had been a governess and could put on the calm, inscrutable expression one often used with children.

Sophie was the impetuous one, who showed her feelings easily. So Portia turned to Sophie. “Is he up to something?”

“I’m sure he is not,” Sophie said, but she blushed.

“You know something! I can tell.”

Both women shook their heads. As one they said, “He may be up to something. But we have no idea what it is.”

Was it far too impolite to accuse two duchesses of lying to her? Especially when they had been so kind? For the first time, Portia didn’t believe she could be impetuous. She was bursting to say: I think you do know and you must tell me. But she restrained herself. As she did, she looked out the window of the carriage. What she saw made her heart lurch.

“Could we stop the carriage,” she cried.

“Of course,” Helena said at once, and she gave some kind of signal that brought the carriage to a swift halt.

They all had to grasp the seats not to be thrown, but utterly calmly, Helena asked, “What is it?”

“A child, obviously lost, wandering on the edge of the street,” Portia said. She wanted to help but had no money with her. She saw the outrider coming around the carriage to open the door. “I could take the girl to the foundling home . . . but that door is barred to me now, because I am marrying Sin.”

“What?” Sophie cried. “That is terrible!”

“Surely that is not true,” Helena said.

“It is.” Quickly she spilled out the story of what had happened, finishing just as the door was opened.

“Would you go and speak to the child? See if you can coax her to come into the carriage,” Helena said. “We shall find out where she lives. If she has no home, I shall bring her back to the house, see she is fed. Then we shall take her to a home.”

Portia’s heart felt as if it had taken flight. She hastened down the steps to carry out the plan, knowing that both duchesses were wonderful women.

But there was pain deep in her heart. Could she give up the foundling home forever? She loved the children. Seeing this bedraggled little girl on the street made her determined to help. So did remembering what had happened to the cook’s daughter.

As she coaxed the girl into the carriage, she felt a sharp jolt of fear. Could she marry Sin and give up the foundling home forever? Never see any of those children or her mother again?

Helena broke in on her thoughts. “We are also telling you the truth, Portia. We do not know what Sin has planned. He simply told us to acquire for you the most beautiful gown possible.”

* * *

Elegant carriages lined the street, sleek, polished, and gleaming. Portia peered out the window. She sat beside Helena, and Grey sat opposite them. Since she was their guest, she’d traveled in their ducal carriage.

Could this really be an orgy? The other Wicked Dukes no longer attended such events, she’d learned. But Helena and Grey insisted that they did not know what Sin’s party was supposed to be.

The carriage turned up the wide, curved gravel drive of Sin’s Mayfair mansion. Footmen lined the stretch, torches in hand. They halted and the door opened. A young liveried footman held out his gloved hand. Portia accepted his help, stepping down onto the gravel drive.

Lights blazed in the dozens of windows of his enormous pale stone mansion. With Helena and Grey, Portia made her way up the wide stone steps. She lifted the hem of her dress, the silk exquisite beneath her touch and shimmering in the light. It was the most decorative gown, done in a style of several decades before, at the end of the last century, with a square bodice and a tiny waist. Lace roses decorated the bodice, framing her décolleté, looking sweet but also rather enticing. The sleeves were her favorite, elbow length and trimmed with ruffles that skimmed her skin.

If her costume was so delicious, what did Sin’s look like?

Following Helena and Grey, she hastened up the stairs and stepped through the doors, held open by two footmen. Portia stopped in shock.

Hundreds of people filled the entry foyer and the stairs. They were packed on the curved staircase like cattle crowding Whitechapel High Street. They came dressed as kings, emperors, fairy queens, dairy maids. Several devils in black and red populated the crowd. One woman was a butterfly with enormous gauzy wings. Then Portia saw children as well as adults.

“I don’t think this is an orgy.” She leveled a look at raven-haired Grey, who bore an expression that was supposed to display innocence but didn’t. Suspicion flooded her. “You knew!”