“ ‘They will soon be revealed. And you will pay for your crime,’ ” he finished.
“How did you know?”
“Mine said the same. This note means our host must be responsible for bringing you here. He’s not coming until tomorrow morning. I don’t care for Genvere’s sense of humor.”
“I no longer think this could be a joke.” She pointed to the bottom of her note. Unlike his, hers had a smear of color on the paper. A thick, inconsistent line of dull red-brown ink. No, not ink. Blood. As if the writer had wanted to punctuate the message with a fierce underline of blood.
“This is a threat,” she whispered.
7
I made a hell of a mistake. I should have married you and dedicated my life to giving you pleasure.
Portia kept hearing his words in her head. Each one punctuated by the thrumming beat of her heart as she walked downstairs.
She should have been thinking of the horrible note she’d received. The bloody print on it. The threat. Sinclair had believed it was paint, not blood. But she suspected he was lying to keep her from being afraid.
The threat made him become terribly protective and insist she should stay locked in the bedroom. She’d insisted it was all the more reason to go downstairs.
Finally, he had relented. Sinclair said he was reluctant to leave her alone, even if locked in her room, because she could be in further danger. He wanted her where he could see her.
Really, how dare he think he had to give her permission! He had surrendered that right on the night he had broken their engagement.
On the other hand, the thought of someone cutting a finger to draw a line of blood made her worry. It seemed . . . mad.
Still, the uppermost thought on her mind was what he’d said. I should have married you.
Too late, too late, too late, she thought, and swept downstairs.
She turned the corner at the bottom of the steps, waiting for an orgy to leap out at her.
One didn’t exactly, but there, beneath the stairs, a courtesan was playfully spanking the tight bottom of a dark-haired gentleman who looked like a grown-up, stubble-covered version of a naughty little boy.
He was the one who’d been in the bedroom with the voluptuous blonde. But this woman was quite different. Tall, dark-haired, dressed in a gown that would have made a duchess weep with envy. How could this woman be a courtesan? She looked more regal than the Princess.
“You shouldn’t be watching that.” Behind her, the duke’s voice was curt, low.
Exasperation—and a strange wound-up tension—made her snap, “Why not? They are fully dressed and she is spanking him the way she would discipline a little boy. That I have seen before.”
Sinclair had just teased her with the life she could have had. Hinted at the pleasure she could have spent ten years enjoying—her whole, entire youth. But she would never have that life. Never know that pleasure.
She was nine-and-twenty. Portia had given up on love, on making love. She’d pushed aside marriage as impossible. As for children . . . that was a thought guaranteed to bring her to tears if she didn’t remain staunchly stoic.
Drat him. Of course her tongue was sharp.
“Not that I condone that in our foundling home,” she continued briskly. “There is no corporal punishment allowed. But really—why on earth would he find it pleasurable to be treated like a misbehaved toddler?”
Sinclair stood at her side, watching the spanking from under thick, dark brown, curling lashes. Tension was written in his expression—in the lines around his mouth, the way his eyes narrowed. “That I can’t explain for you,” he said.
A gong rang at that moment.
“What does that signify? What are people about to do?” She looked around, heart pounding. Did they all race to a bed?
“It signifies dinner, love.”
“Dinner? They have dinner?”
He shook his head, looking bemused. “You thought they just had sex and never stopped to eat?”
“Well, er—yes.”
“No gentleman would put up with that. He expects to be well fed, and given damn good port as well.” Sinclair offered the crook of his arm. “We are supposed to go into dinner in order of precedence.”
“And you are a duke.”
“I am expected to escort one of the high-ranking women into the room. But I’m not letting another man lay his hands on you,” he growled.
The guests were gathering, but Sinclair swept her into line before she had a chance to really look at them. One man went in before Sinclair, which meant he had to be at least a duke in ranking. He was the tall, broad-shouldered man with the unusual silver and black hair, and he was almost as handsome as Sinclair. Under long dark lashes, the man studied her curiously. His intense stare made her fear he could see through her mask.