He went back and just as Sax said, “You’ll break your blasted shoulder,” he charged at the door again. The door resisted for a moment, then yielded with a bang. It flew open and Sin’s momentum carried him wildly into the room.
No one was in the bedroom. A cold wind hit him at the exact instant he saw the window was open. Everything had been swept off the vanity table. Broken glass, brushes, bottles littered the floor around it.
“No! No. Fuck, no,” he roared, his language rough and blunt. He ran for the window. When he looked out, all he could see was rain and blackness. No sign of Portia. There was no smell of blood, thank God.
Sin ripped the room apart in seconds, searching everywhere. He stood, breathing hard, his heart beating so fast he thought it would explode.
Sax rested a hand on his shoulder. “She’s not here,” Sax said, stating the damned obvious.
Then the others were there. Rutledge. The Incognita. Blute, the blustering Corinthian.
“What’s happened?”
“Why in hell did you smash the door down?”
“Where’s Saxonby? He wasn’t in his room.”
They were all here. All the remaining guests. Could one of them have raced back and let himself into the room, making it look like he or she just came out? Or was it Kent all along?
Clarissa stepped forward. “Portia was taken?”
God, his throat was tight. Sin felt like he was trying to breathe through water. “It’s the damn cook. It has to be.”
“The window could be a ruse,” Sax stated. “She could be in the house.”
“Damn it.” Sin whirled and drove his fist into the wall. Plaster and lathe exploded. Pain stabbed at his hand. He pulled out his fist. Blood oozed from his abraded knuckles.
Sax grabbed him. “That helps no one.”
No, damn. He was going to find her. He couldn’t be too late.
* * *
Portia stopped walking a few feet from the edge of the cliff. She stood on grass slick with rain. “I’m not going further. I won’t go willingly to my death.”
She faced the woman who had forced her to walk out here, far from the house. The woman who trained two pistols on her.
Portia thought of all the times she’d carried an unloaded pistol as a bluff. From the triumph blazing in Mrs. Kent’s eyes, Portia knew these weapons were not a bluff.
The woman had killed ten other people and intended to kill her.
When she had come to, she’d discovered she had been brought out of the house. A woman was leaning over her, and had been slapping her face to wake her up. Slapping her so hard that her cheeks stung and her teeth hurt.
For moments, Portia hadn’t even recognized Mrs. Kent. The cook looked completely different. Her face had been transformed from plump and ruddy to smooth and beautiful, with her eyes artfully made up. Her hair was elegantly styled, piled on her head, the coiffure protected from the rain by the hood of a thick cloak. An elegant jade-green silk dress could be glimpsed through the parting in her cloak.
Mrs. Kent had forced her to walk out to the edge of the cliff at this point far, far away from the house. Progress had been slow in the dark and pouring rain. Portia had been stumbling from the effect of the wretched drug that had knocked her out.
Now, she was desperately trying to shake away the woolly-headed feeling. She needed time to regain her wits. “How did you change your appearance?” she asked. “You were so clever. I can’t understand how you did this.” Her brain was beginning to work more swiftly, trying to piece it together.
“What fools you all were,” Mrs. Kent crowed. “I kept all my lovely clothes hidden in the secret compartments I’d built in the thin mattresses of the cots in my servant bedchamber. I had secret compartments put in the furniture—that was where I hid my poisons, my pistols, the balls and powder, and the stage makeup I used for my disguise.”
Behind Portia, the sea roared like a greedy dragon that yearned to feed. “But who are you really?” she asked, fighting to keep her voice calm. “I’m sure Kent is not your real name.”
“No, this was a disguise, of course. Those wretched gentlemen knew me, but they looked at me and did not recognize me. They saw a frumpy, dumpy servant. Once, I was London’s most desired courtesan. I had dukes begging for my favors. My name is Charlotte Lyon. My mother was the most beautiful dancer in Paris, and she captured a duke’s heart. With her encouragement, I became a powerful woman, using my voluptuous figure and beauty to entrance rich men.”
“And you had a child. That is what this is about. A child—”
“My daughter!” Charlotte Lyon cried, impassioned anguish flooding her voice. Her right hand jerked on one of the pistols.