Deepest Desires of a Wicked Duke(114)
“Oh my heavens,” Portia gasped. “You were a child! None of this was your fault. How could he have shot at you?”
“I guess he hated me. He winged me. I wished he’d killed me. But afterward, he must have had a change of heart—he was so guilt-ridden over what he’d done that he took his own life. Estella died soon after when she fell and broke her neck while riding. My father found out the whole sordid truth; then he died of poisoning. And my mother . . . she paid soon after that. She died of a fever. I was the last one left. Then I learned I was the new duke. For me it was going to be a new start. I played a role when I came to London. I pretended to be innocent. I didn’t want anyone to know about my past. What I wanted to do was forget it. But when Will took me back to the brothels, I found I craved wild sex. It flooded my mind so I couldn’t think about the past. When I was having orgies, when I was drunk or in an opium haze, I was free of my past.”
“Now I understand,” she whispered.
“I proposed to you ten years ago because I loved you. You were like an angel to me, Portia. The most good and beautiful woman I’d ever known. I wanted to be worthy of you. But I’m dark and warped inside. That’s why I can offer you marriage, but nothing more. Every time you look at me now, you’ll see the warped man inside. I know I’ve lost your heart forever.”
“Sin, I don’t—”
She broke off and looked over his shoulder in surprise. Sin turned.
The other guests had come from the house—the Incognita and the two earls. Clarissa rushed forward with her arms open. “Saxonby told us everything. Dear Portia, thank heavens you are safe. You saved us all. Both of you. Oh, thank you.”
She embraced Portia, then buried her face in Portia’s shoulder and began to sob.
There was nothing more he could say to Portia now. He was going to insist on marrying her, then give her the freedom he knew she would want.
24
She was on the mainland again. On England’s shores. Safe and alive, thanks to Sin. As soon as she stepped off the dory, Portia bent down and rested her hands on the solid surface of the quay. “I just have to make certain it’s real.”
Sin crouched beside her. “I’m tempted to give the thing a kiss, except there’s likely been a pile of fish slopped there.”
That made her withdraw her hands and he grinned. “It is real, though, Portia. It’s all over. And I’m going to get you safely home.”
He moved to his knees to cup her face tenderly. Then he kissed her—a hot, long, openmouthed, sensual kiss for the whole world to see.
Once she’d been a model of propriety. But that was before their scandalous night—nights—together. Before she’d thought him dead and discovered there were more important things than being proper.
So she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed Sin passionately, in front of fishermen and sailors and fishwives.
When their kissed finally ended, she took fast breaths, and so did he. He stroked her cheeks so sweetly, she shivered. The wind off the sea tossed his hair about his handsome face, leaving the silky brown tresses as seductively mussed as after she and he made love.
“I know no harm can come to you now,” he said softly. “And I know we survived because you are so good, because you deserved to survive.”
He had been quiet on the boat ride back. He’d looked troubled. Now she knew it was because he’d been forced to tell her about his past.
Portia clasped his warm, strong hand. “You aren’t bad. You were a boy, Sin, and others hurt you and took advantage of you.”
“That does not excuse what I did. I knew right from wrong.”
“Sometimes children are forced to do wrong by adults. It does excuse you.”
He shook his head.
His heart was in anguish. He was tormented by his past. He’d offered marriage, but she couldn’t bear to have a marriage in name only. She loved him and wanted him to accept her love. To believe in it.
Or did he simply not want a real marriage because he wanted to go back to his wicked orgies and brothels?
“It’s time to take you home.”
Sin lifted his hand, summoning a young lad to him. He gave the boy some coins to fetch his coachman, instructed other men to pile up his trunks.
Beyond the quay, the sea rippled. The waves sparkled in the sun that had broken through the clouds that dawn. Early this morning, discovering the sun glimmering and the sea calmer, she, Sin, and Sax had used a fire to signal the mainland and the dory had come out.
Now, safe on the quay, Portia turned away from the dark, foreboding shape of Serenity Island.
She would be going back to the foundling home. To the children she missed. She would see Mother and embrace her. It didn’t matter that Mother wouldn’t know who she was. She would be able to tell Mother she loved her, and that was what mattered most.