Deepest Desires of a Wicked Duke(16)

“I can’t.”

“Pah,” she said. Not the most clever of retorts, but she was not at her best at the moment. “Anyway, none of this matters. Why am I here?”

Then his gaze lifted, holding hers. Those gorgeous, melting, chocolate-brown eyes . . .

His voice dropped to a deep, hypnotic murmur. “I don’t know why you are here. I had nothing to do with it. But you deserve to know I’ve always loved you. I just can never have you.”

Portia’s eyes went wide.

For ten years, she had dreamed he would realize he’d made a terrible mistake. Dreamed he would come crawling back and she would tell him, with pride, that he was too late. What woman who’d been jilted didn’t dream of having the last laugh when the man in question realized he’d been a complete fool?

And now he was telling her he loved her.

Yet not apologizing for breaking her heart.

“How easy that is for you to say!” she cried.

She had never married. Never had any children of her own. She’d devoted herself to her family’s foundling home. She’d had one night of wicked pleasure with Julian, yet he’d bedded scores of women over the last ten years. Portia had never even kissed anyone else. For ten years—over three thousand nights—she’d gone to sleep in her cot, yearning to know love and knowing she never would.

“You’ve had everything you’ve wanted for ten years, Your Grace. I’ve had—” She was about to say “nothing at all.” But that wasn’t quite true. “I’ve watched other people be happy, fall in love, marry. I’ve had my work. I’ve saved children. But I’m a spinster who had the misfortune of learning what it might have been like if I wasn’t one.”

“You’re not married?”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” she said bitterly. “Of course I’m not married.”

“Why not?”

He was so exasperating! “I couldn’t!” The moment the words left her lips she wished she could pull them back. What was she thinking to admit that to him?

“Why not? You weren’t ruined, Portia. I wanted you to be free to find a good man who would give you the love you deserved.”

“You really don’t understand.” Portia realized with shock that he had an entirely different view of the last ten years.

He didn’t understand that he could have broken her heart, yet she could still love him. And when she finally didn’t love him anymore, she knew what love had felt like. No other man made her feel like that.

So she’d waited.

Waited until she knew she was on the shelf. Until her only means of happiness was to watch others find love and marriage, to find those things that she knew were so very precious.

“Then I was an utter fool, I suppose,” she said. “After you, I never gave my heart to anyone else. While you threw scandalous parties and did all your wicked, naughty things. Saying yes to you was a mistake. You weren’t worthy of me—you were absolutely right.”

She launched up from the bed, ignoring how her legs still felt a little weak from being tied up. “If you had nothing to do with this, Sinclair, why did those men tell me I was being brought here for you?”

“Portia, I don’t know. Given they kidnapped you, I wouldn’t say they were the most morally upstanding of men. They lied to you. As for why they did, I have no bloody idea.”

She wanted to take him at his word. Her heart wanted to believe him. And that made her panic.

“Well, I am going to go out there and find out the truth. Now that I am no longer tied up, I will find out who brought me here. And why.”

She stalked toward the door.

Sinclair lurched away from the bed column, but Portia hoisted her skirts and she rushed to the door. She grasped the handle and yanked it open.

The door across the hallway stood open. And she could see into the bedroom.

A blond woman was astride a young gentleman, her pink muslin skirts in a frothy tumble. The blonde rode the man the way ladies rode horses. Her bodice was pushed down and her breasts—plump as two musk melons—bounced as she moved up and down. The black-haired man, utterly naked, wore a delighted grin, watching the wobbling dance of her breasts. Portia couldn’t tear her gaze away from his muscled arms, the glimpse of his long legs, the devilishly pleased expression on his handsome face. Then the man sat up, buried his face in between the bosom, and waggled his head back and forth so her breasts slapped his cheeks.

Portia stood in the doorway, shocked and transfixed.

Sinclair’s arm went around her waist and he pulled her back so fast that her shoulders bumped his chest and her bottom hit his groin. He smelled of lush, exotic sandalwood—that had to be his soap. She could breathe in the astringent witch hazel he must have slapped on his freshly shaven jaw that morning.