Blood Secret. Sharon Page

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      She wanted to smack her brother. The duke calmly withdrew a few more notes from his pocket. “I assume he was not as generous with his tips for your services?”

      “Indeed he was not. If you will follow me, Your Grace—” With that, the young lad turned and strode toward a curved stair. They took that one up, followed myriad corridors until they reached a door painted a powder blue. The servant rapped. And rapped again.

      “He’s probably asleep.” Lucy knew Jack—it was far too early for him to be up. Irritation made her slam her palm hard on the door. “Jack, get up and open this door right now.”

      The servant looked as though his cravat was strangling him. “I beg your pardon, Miss, but the gentleman might not have come because he’s not—not decent.”

      “My brother is rarely decent.”

      The lock clicked and to Lucy’s shock, the door opened. The duke had his hand on the door handle. The door swung wide, revealing a room with a huge bed. And bodies in the bed. Arms stuck out from the sheets, and dangling feet. There must be four women in the bed.

      Four women in the bed ... with Jack.

      The duke grasped her shoulders. “You should wait outside.”

      “You must be joking,” she gasped. “After what you did. After what you threatened to do to me—including keeping me a prisoner in here? Finding this particular scene is nothing.”

      “My dear, I never threatened anything specific. Your vivid imagination ran away with you. I would never keep you a prisoner. Not a courageous lady like you. Your brother, however ...” He let his voice trail away as he tried to direct her away from the bedroom door.

      “You said you would quite happily keep me captive.”

      “My own private captive. And not here.”

      She pushed his hands away. Anyway, now the shock had gone and she knew what she was seeing, she could tell her brother wasn’t in the bed. “My brother isn’t here, so it doesn’t matter what you planned to do with him.”

      “So he isn’t. But I should make sure.” The duke moved quickly and effortlessly to the bed. One girl sleepily tried to sit up, gasping, “Oo—er, what time is it?”

      The duke yanked the sheets back. Lucy saw four voluptuous females intertwined on the bed, heard the girls squeal and protest and try to grab the sheets. She saw the duke look under the bed before he relinquished the blankets and allowed the women to cover themselves.

      She suspected he was trying to shock her. Or perhaps show her Jack’s true nature, in the hopes she would betray her family by telling him where his nephew was. She would tell—if she knew. She squared her shoulders and stalked to the wardrobe. She opened it—it had much the same scandalous sexual playthings in it, like whips and ropes, as the duke kept in his wardrobe. Regardless, Jack wasn’t hiding there.

      She shut the doors. Greystone was looking behind the curtains and one of the prostitutes cried, “What are ye doing? Who are ye?”

      “The Duke of Greystone,” came the deep, rumbling reply. “And a lady. What happened to Lord Wrenshire?”

      The girl pushed tangled blond curls back. “ ’E’s not ’ere? Well, ’e was last night. ’E was in bed with all of us.”

      Lucy stepped forward and faced the girl squarely. “I am his sister—”

      The duke made a strangled sound, but she ignored him. She was too angry to care that these women now knew who she was. “I did not know he was here. I thought he was in trouble, lost somewhere in London. He has three sisters altogether and we have been all frantic with worry.”

      “Well, that’s gents for you. Thoughtless.” Another girl extracted herself from the tangle on the bed. She jumped off the mattress to the floor. She wore a shift that was so translucent her dark pink nipples showed through. Red waves hung to her waist.

      “Do you know where Wrenshire went?” Greystone asked. “To another room perhaps?”

      The redhead shrugged. “He might have. Or he might have gone. He said he couldn’t stay much longer. That he could not stay in any one place for a long time anymore, in case he got caught.”

      “Caught? By who?” Lucy glared at the duke.

      He shrugged, palms up, with a look of innocence on his face. “Not me.”

      She was not so sure, but she met the eyes of each girl. “Was my brother afraid of someone? Did he say who?” She knew they would not say if Jack was afraid of Greystone, but one of them might betray the truth with a nervous glance to the duke.

      They all stared at each other. A brunette rubbed her chin. The redhead yawned and stretched and the other two, both blondes, shook their heads. “He didn’t say,” they all said, almost in unison.

      Lucy could see the duke searching the room. There were no masculine clothes, though the scent of cigar smoke hung in the air. She went to the bedside tables and pulled open drawers. The four prostitutes peered at her, and she knew her neck was blushing scarlet, like her cheeks, but she kept searching. The drawers held nothing personal to her brother. There were velvet ropes, manacles, and ivory wands.

      She went to the dresser table, reaching it at the same moment as Greystone. “I should look—I would know what belongs to him.”

      “Be my guest then, my dear.” He stepped back, but as soon as she began to search the marble surface of the table, Greystone returned to stand behind her. Very close. His hands settled on the edge of the table, his chest brushing her back. Soft puffs of his breath coasted over her neck. And against her bottom—

      She had riffled through a glass tray on the vanity twice and could not remember what she had seen in it. “Stop it,” she said to the duke. “Move back. I cannot think with you looming over me.”

      “It bothers you?” His voice lowered to a soft caress beside her ear. “Even after what we’ve done?”

      “Yes. Of course, apparently that did not matter to you. It did not stop you from threatening me,” she answered, keeping her tones so quiet, the prostitutes would not hear. She focused on her search. Hairpins were scattered on the vanity. The small glass dish held a key—perhaps for the wardrobe? A pocket watch, but a cheap one, and it certainly did not belong to Jack. There were ropes laid on the vanity top—when men wanted to do naughty things, ropes seemed to figure quite prominently. She pushed the ropes aside with a furious sweep. “There’s nothing here. Nothing to tell me Jack ever was here. Or where he would go.”

      “He’s run farther than a brothel this time,” Greystone murmured.

      “Thank you. How helpful of you,” she said through gritted teeth.

      “It is possible he has gone to where my nephew is being held.”

      She let out a long breath. “I don’t know where that is.”

      His hands abruptly lifted from the dresser and he stepped back. “All right. I believe you, my dear. So where do you suspect your brother would go?”

      She thought. Screwing up her СКАЧАТЬ