Deepest Desires of a Wicked Duke(73)

“There was another murder. Sadie. Strangled,” he bit out. He tried to sprint around the older woman, but she clutched his arm. With a grip like an iron hook driving into his flesh.

“One of the women? Oh! Oh! We’re all to be killed! One by one. For our sins.” Her eyes goggled, bulging out and looking like billiard balls. “But who hasn’t had to commit a sin or two in life? I did nothing wrong.... I had to remove those girls. They were suffering. Sick. Wounded. What else could I do? If I’d sent them to hospitals, they would have talked and powerful gentlemen would have been destroyed. I had no choice, Sinclair. No choice! I protected those men. Those lords. Why am I paying the price? Why aren’t they?”

The Old Madam was screeching at him.

He actually longed to smack her face to stop her wailing in his face in a high-pitched, panicked scream that almost shattered his eardrums. But her words . . . Hell, he understood what she meant by “removed.” “You killed women. Girls you dragged into your bordellos?”

“I had no choice. When they were whipped badly, I couldn’t let anyone see the wounds. I simply gave them something to make them sleep and not wake up. I found new girls. Strong, new, pretty virgins.”

He wanted to vomit listening to this. He wanted to belt the woman. “Go lock yourself in your room and pray you’re not dead in the morning,” he said harshly.

He had to find this killer. Not to protect women like the madam, but to keep Portia safe.

The victims were all sinners. But Portia wasn’t. She should not be in danger, but she’d received a note. That made no sense to him.

It also hit him cold—the murderer considered him as immoral and sick as the Old Madam, who had killed young women hurt by her clients.

In the eyes of the murderer, he was as bad.

But for which sins? The sin of holding orgies? Or for the old sins from his past?

A crazy idea leapt into his head. He’d sinned against Portia. Broken her heart.

Was that his sin?

He couldn’t hear Portia’s footsteps ahead of him on the stairs. This drove him to run down the steps, three at a time. He reached the kitchen floor, stepping onto the flagstones.

Then he saw her.

Dangling feet, swaying as the suspended rope twirled.

Oh God, Portia.

* * *

Suddenly, she was pulled back and all she could see was Sin’s white shirt. He’d pulled her to his chest, blocking her view of the body that hung right in front of her, just as he’d done before. But Portia pushed away. She recognized the plain skirts. She didn’t even have to look up.

It was Ellie the maid.

“Don’t look.” His chest rumbled with his husky voice.

“I have to. I can’t cower in fear. I’ve been far too afraid.”

“No, you haven’t. You’ve been remarkably brave.” He looked at her with admiration.

This was once what she’d dreamed of. Having the Duke of Sinclair realize he’d made a terrible mistake.

But now—it didn’t matter. They were surrounded by horror and that was what mattered.

She forced her gaze to go up. The girl hung from a noose attached to one of the thick, large beams.

Suddenly, she couldn’t stop speaking. Speaking made it so that her mind would not take in what she was seeing.

“I noticed the crumbs on the floor in Sadie’s room when I went to her bed and stepped on them with my slipper. You see, they weren’t there earlier. They couldn’t have been, or else I would have walked on them then. Someone brought food up to Sadie. It could have been the maid—and perhaps she saw someone. Perhaps she saw the killer. And that’s why she was killed.”

Wait . . .

“No, that’s not right,” she said, her voice hoarse. “She received a letter warning her about sins. But how could she have sins? What could she have done? Stolen something from an employer? Ruined herself with a man? How could anything be worth—” Words failed. Her throat hurt too much to speak.

Sinclair’s arms went around her again. “Don’t talk. You are in shock.”

She shook her head. “I can’t be in shock anymore. I’ve been through this five times now. I don’t think I have any capacity left to feel shock.”

“Yes, you do,” he said firmly.

She was sure he was going to march her back to the room. He was already turning her. She couldn’t see Ellie’s dangling form anymore.

But no, she had to have strength.

“I must talk to the cook. Especially now!” Portia cried. “Perhaps one of the guests came down and asked for biscuits, offering to help Sadie. If it was one of the men, surely it must mean he was a murderer, for what man would worry about such a thing? If it was a woman . . . well, it could mean she was the killer, or was being solicitous. Though, would any of these women be worrying about Sadie? Ellie would be the obvious person to take the biscuits upstairs, wouldn’t she? And now she’s dead. I think she is dead because she knew who the killer is—”