Deepest Desires of a Wicked Duke(111)

The pistol wobbled slightly, and Portia caught her breath. “I called her Madeline,” Charlotte whispered, “but my mother insisted she was to be given away without a name, that the foundling home would give her a name.”

“And no one told you what it was. For that, I cannot forgive my family,” Portia whispered.

Charlotte let the pistol drop a bit. Then her face contorted with fury and she cried, “It’s too late. You don’t care. You are trying to fool me. Now you are going to die!”

A shot exploded in a roar. Portia expected terrible pain and a powerful blow that sent her over the cliff as the shot hit her. But nothing happened. Except Charlotte screeched and gripped her right arm as the pistol fell from her right hand. Her face went ashen. Then she took a deep breath and pointed her remaining pistol at Portia’s chest. “Well, I still have this one—”

Another shot and Charlotte screamed and grabbed for her leg. She dropped her second pistol and crumpled to the ground.

Portia stood, frozen, then launched forward to the wounded woman who writhed in pain and wailed like a banshee. She knew someone had shot Charlotte, saving her life, but her thought was for the bleeding woman on the ground. “Stay still,” she commanded. “I’ll tend to those wounds.” She got on her knees beside Charlotte and pulled up her skirts, searching for the hems of her petticoats—for clean fabric to use as bandages.

Suddenly, Portia found she was being lifted into the air, while behind her a masculine voice demanded, “What are you doing? The woman wanted to kill you.”

That growling, deep voice. Sin! As he set her on her feet, she turned to him—saw his stark expression. “She’s wounded, Sin. We must do something so she doesn’t bleed to death.”

He pulled her against him and his mouth, hot and commanding, seared hers in a kiss. He kissed her breathless. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him tightly.

When he broke the kiss, he took long, ragged breaths. “God, Portia. I was so afraid I’d lost you. How can your concern be for that witch of a woman? She’s a murderess.”

She pulled free of Sin’s arms, knowing what she must do. “She deserves justice, not agony. I can’t stand by and watch her suffer.”

He shook his head, his hair spraying rain. “No, I guess you can’t, Portia. You are just like the woman I loved ten years ago. Still every bit as noble and perfect. Let me help you.”

She lifted her skirts a few inches to reveal her petticoats. “Tear off some of the fabric of the petticoat—it makes good bandaging. Try to find clean bits—the hems are very much splattered with mud.”

Sin did so quickly, ripping off strips. Then he held the cook steady while Portia pulled fabric clear of the woman’s wounds. “They are surface wounds.” She looked up at Sin. “Was that deliberate? You were the one to shoot her.”

“I was. At first I wanted to debilitate her, not kill her. But when she threatened you with the second pistol, I couldn’t afford to be so careful. I would have killed her had it been necessary.”

Portia saw the cool ruthlessness on his face. How much he’d changed from the young, sweet man of the country she’d fallen in love with.

Yet she loved this mature, wise, strong man even more.

Sin stabilized the woman as she wrapped her makeshift bandages around the wounds.

“I hate you both. Let me up. Let me kill you!” Charlotte Lyon screeched.

“Shut it,” Sin growled. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

As Portia wound the bandage around the bleeding cut, she said, “I’ll have to clean them properly at the house.” Then she told Sin what the cook had said.

“I heard the end of it,” he said hoarsely. “I reached you just as she was explaining all our sins toward her daughter.”

“But how did you guess we were here?”

“I didn’t. A note was left for me in the drawing room of the house. I was wild with terror, wanting to search for you; then Sax found the note. It was intended to lure me here, where she planned to kill me after—” He broke off. “Let me do that.” He took over, wrapping a bandage around the woman’s arm, tying it. “I learned this from when I was shot twice in duels.” He met the cook’s wild-eyed gaze. “You lured me here so I would watch you hurt Miss Lamb.”

A mocking laugh, deep and thoroughly wicked, cut through the night. “No, she didn’t, Sin. I did. The least likely suspect, that’s who I am.”

* * *

Sin slowly stood, turning to face the owner of the sneering laugh.

The barrel of a pistol was the first thing Sin saw. Then, beyond that, the face of a madman with golden hair.