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Deepest Desires of a Wicked Duke(5)

By:Sharon Page


“Then I don’t think we saw the lass.”

The rest shook their heads, pulled at their pipes.

“Only people we saw were toffs, Yer Grace,” the fisherman said—the one who appeared to be the group’s spokesman. “And ladies in some shocking dresses. Necklines cut down to their wee nipples and their tits almost falling out.”

“Ladies? You daft old buggers don’t think they were ladies, do you?” An older woman sat a few feet beyond, on a rickety chair, sewing up fishing nets. She laughed, spat out some tobacco, and leveled a shrewd gaze on Sin. “Those were no ladies. Not in those garish dresses.”

She was wrong. Some would be courtesans, but some would be ladies of the ton—ladies looking for carnal fun. Portia would never wear a shocking dress, but he realized she could have been forced into one. “None of them had bright red hair and freckles?”

“One had red hair—henna-colored, out of a bottle. There weren’t any natural redheads.”

“Then the woman I’m looking for was not amongst them. Thank you for your help,” he said, though he hadn’t gotten any help. He tossed them all a few coins. “Have a pint on me.”

He’d asked every person at the quay if they had seen Portia. This was the last group. He’d had no luck.

Was this whole thing just a sick joke? Maybe Portia was still in London, safe and sound in her family’s foundling home....

But he couldn’t give up and walk away—not until he was sure she was safe.

He turned to face out over the sea.

A few hundred yards offshore, a sheer face of dark rock rose out of the water. It looked square, squat, flat topped. That was Serenity Island, though it looked ominous and stark instead of serene.

A dory was moored on the quay, waiting to take him to the island.

Portia might already be there. She could have been taken to the island at night, under cover of darkness. Or hell, even in a sack so no one would see her.

He had to find out.

Long strides took him to the stone steps that led to the small jetty where the dory was moored. Sin waved away help from one of the oarsman and climbed aboard. He settled in the rear of the craft, facing the island, and they cast off.

The two men pulled hard on the oars. A breakwater stretched out into the sea, calming the larger waves, allowing the dory to make headway over the water. But it was still a journey that took time.

Giving him time to think . . . and remember when he’d gotten engaged to Portia . . .





Ten years earlier

London, 1811





His carriage rattled along a wide cobblestone street past soaring mansions of glittering windows and crisp white stone. A huge park stretched out along the street. Earlier today, in the afternoon, he’d seen beautiful young women strolling along the park’s paths. Skirts of colored muslin and silk swished around their legs and they twirled dainty, lace-trimmed parasols.

It had been astounding to Sin to see so many elegantly dressed girls gathered in one place.

Now, he stared through the window at the darkness that shrouded the park. He was in London for the first time in his life as the new Duke of Sinclair, a title he’d never expected to inherit. He was the son of a cousin of a duke, a side of the family that had been exiled long ago over some son’s bad behavior. His name was Julian Markham, and he was just about to be given the nickname “Sin.”

When he’d first met the bucks of London at White’s Club—he inherited the membership at the exclusive gentleman’s club along with his title—they expected him to be a rural rube since he’d grown up in the country, even though his father had been a gentleman and Sin had gone to Eton with the sons of peers. He could have been offended, but he let them think he was innocent and naïve.

It was a way to hide the truth about his past. About all the perversions he’d taken part in. A sordid, wicked past that he didn’t want anyone to know about.

On his first visit to White’s, Julian met Viscount Willoughby, a peer of twenty-four who held court in the bow window at White’s, making rapier-sharp jokes about the peers strolling past. “Come with us tonight, Sinclair,” he’d drawled, “for a night of deep play at a new gaming hell on Curzon Street. Have to initiate London’s newest duke properly.” A slow grin spread over Willoughby’s good-looking features.

“I’ll go,” Sin had agreed. That night Willoughby had jokingly decided to call him “Sin.”

That had been a fortnight ago. Tonight, he was meeting Willoughby and several other peers at a gaming hell.

His carriage traveled several more blocks, stopping in front of a townhouse with a dark-painted door. Within minutes he was inside, hunkered over his cards in a smoke-hazed room, gambling at whist with Willoughby and two other men. After a few hands of play, Sin realized the other men hoped to relieve him of some of the fortune that came with the dukedom. But one thing he knew was how to play cards—and so far, he and Will, who was his partner, were winning. After a few hours of play, Sin had downed a lot of port and was in a state that titled men called “disguised” and others called drunk, when some saucy, voluptuous women came flirting around them. Willoughby planted one on his lap and instructed one to do the same with Sin. He tried to get her to shoo. He lifted her off several times, but she kept climbing back on.