At Saxonby’s angry bark, the earl glowered.
“Let him go,” Portia said.
“You could be the madwoman behind these killings, Miss Love,” the brawny earl snapped. “No one can be trusted. I trust only myself.”
He lunged toward her pistol.
She gasped and jumped back, holding the pistol away from his reach. “It’s empty! Don’t be daft. We must keep our heads.” That was what Sinclair had not done. Now he was gone....
Pain almost made her fall to her knees.
“For all I know, you’re going to reload that blasted thing and shoot the rest of us,” the Earl of Blute spat.
“This is utterly insane,” she said firmly. “You suspect me when I would never hurt a living soul. I suspect you and I know nothing about you except you are arrogant and strong. We’re all fearful of each other. We can’t attack each other, for heaven’s sake. Let’s not do the killer’s work for him. Or her.”
She couldn’t say any more. Not around the swelling of her throat. Grief gripped her heart like desperate, clutching hands. Tears spilled over and rolled down her cheeks once more.
“Leave her,” the Elegant Incognita warned. “Leave her alone. She has lost someone.”
“She could be the killer,” Blute insisted.
“Then be careful and watch your back, my lord.” Clarissa gave him a wry look. “The mysterious Lord Genvere doesn’t even exist, I’m sure. So the genius behind this sadistic madness could even be me.”
“I doubt that,” the Earl of Rutledge snorted.
“Do you?” snapped Clarissa. “Never underestimate a woman, Rutledge.”
Everyone glared at the Incognita, then at Portia. She had never been stared at so intensely and with such cold, hate-filled eyes since she’d gone into gaming hells and taverns to rescue young women from prostitution. Yet she had done nothing. It was just mad, dangerous suspicion. It was like an infection, spreading and turning foul.
Saxonby made his way up the stairs with Rutledge, both of them now carrying Sinclair. She followed. She never dreamed it would be so hard to lift her feet. She felt so heavy.
He was gone. Julian was gone.
He was Julian again to her for that moment—the beautiful, beautiful man she had fallen in love with.
Rutledge and Saxonby puffed and grunted to the end of the corridor, to the empty bedrooms. In moments, Julian’s body was laid on the bed. A stripped bed with a white sheet.
She flinched at the sight of the blood on his waistcoat and shirt. “I should bathe him. Clean him.”
“No.” Saxonby gripped her shoulder and pushed her out of the room. “You are in shock. You need to recover, and seeing his wounds is not going to help you.”
He closed the door. Shooed her away. She turned, intending to argue, but he turned the key in the lock, then pocketed it.
“I would like to be able to see him.”
“That will only bring you pain, Miss Love.” Saxonby steered her away from the room. “I should have some food brought to you—”
“Brought by whom, Saxonby? The servants are gone. They’ve been killed. And cooked by whom? The cook has said she won’t return downstairs, because she’s too afraid. Besides, would anyone trust any food brought to them anymore?”
Strangely, thinking of this took some of the awful pain away—it distracted her. People needed to eat. Managing meals at the foundling home was one of her largest tasks.
Food was needed for survival. The innocents amongst these people needed her. “I need to think of what we must do for dinner.”
Saxonby stared at her, stunned. “You’ve just lost Sin, but you are thinking of dinner.”
“I’ve spent my life managing a foundling home,” she said quietly. “I know that, even in grief, such things have to be dealt with.”
“You didn’t care about him. You couldn’t have done—not and be so calm now.”
Something snapped inside her. She physically felt it, within her soul.
Suddenly, she lunged at Saxonby. It seemed to happen without thought. Her hand was raised, her palm flying toward his face. Portia stopped it before she slapped him.
Once, she’d been to Brighton and she’d played in the sea with her father and a large wave had knocked her down. Grief and pain and a pit of shock and sadness swallowed her up, just like that wave had done.
“He’s gone. I’m never going to see him again. Never hear him laugh. Never get exasperated by him. Never—never kiss him.”
It felt like she was freezing inside. Her whole body was turning to ice.
“I’m sorry,” the Duke of Saxonby muttered. “I had no right to say that. It’s obvious you are in pain—”