The Undoing Of A Lady

– From The Devil’s Walk

by Robert Southey, 1799

CHAPTER ONE

The Folly, Fortune Hall, Yorkshire-June 1810

A little before midnight

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL NIGHT for an abduction.

The moon sailed high and bright in a starlit sky. The warm breeze sighed in the treetops, stirring the scents of pine and hot grass. Deep in the heart of the wood an owl called, a long, throaty hoot that hung on the night air.

Lady Elizabeth Scarlet sat by the window, watching for the shadow, waiting to hear the step on the path outside. She knew Nat Waterhouse would come. He always came when she called. He would be annoyed of course-what man would not be irritated to be called away from his carousing on the night before his wedding-but he would still be there. He was so responsible; he would not ignore her cry for help. She knew exactly how he would respond. She knew him so well.

Her fingertips beat an impatient tattoo on the stone window ledge. She checked the watch she had purloined earlier from her brother. It felt as though she had been waiting for hours but she was surprised to see that it was only eight minutes since she had last looked. She felt nervous, which surprised her. She knew Nat would be angry but she was acting for his own good. The wedding had to be stopped. He would thank her for it one day.

From across the fields came the faint chime of the church bell. Midnight. There was the crunch of footsteps on the path. He was precisely on time. Of course he would be.

She sat still as a mouse as he opened the door of the folly. She had left the hallway in darkness but there was a candle burning in the room above. If she had calculated correctly he would go up the spiral stair and into the chamber, giving her time to lock the outer door behind him and hide the key. There was no other way out. Her half brother, Sir Montague Fortune, had had the folly built to the design of a miniature fort with arrow slits and windows too small to allow a man to pass. He had thought it a great joke to build a folly in a village called Fortune’s Folly. That, Lizzie thought, was Monty’s idea of amusement, that and dreaming up new taxes with which to torment the populace.

“Lizzie!”

She jumped. Nat was right outside the door of the guardroom. He sounded impatient. She held her breath.

“Lizzie? Where are you?”

He took the spiral stair two steps at a time and she slid like a wraith out of the tiny guardroom to turn the key in the heavy oaken door. Her fingers were shaking and slipped on the cold iron. She knew what her friend Alice Vickery would say if she were here now:

“Not another of your harebrained schemes, Lizzie! Stop now, before it is too late!”

But it was already too late. She could not allow herself time to think about this or she would lose her nerve. She ran back into the guardroom and stole a hand through one of the arrow slits. There was a nail on the wall outside. The key clinked softly against the stone. There. Nat could not escape until she willed it. She smiled to herself, well pleased. She had known there was no need to involve anyone else in the plan. She could handle an abduction unaided. It was easy.

She went out into the hall. Nat was standing at the top of the stairs, the candle in his hand. The flickering light threw a tall shadow. He looked huge, menacing and angry.

Actually, Lizzie thought, he was huge, menacing and angry, but he would never hurt her. Nat would never, ever hurt her. She knew exactly how he would behave. She knew him like a brother.

“Lizzie? What the hell’s going on?”

He was drunk as well, Lizzie thought. Not drunk enough to be even remotely incapacitated but enough to swear in front of a lady, which was something that Nat would normally never do. But then, if she were marrying Miss Flora Minchin the next morning, she would be swearing, too. And she would have drunk herself into a stupor. Which brought her back to the point. For Nat would not be marrying Miss Minchin. Not in the morning. Not ever. She was here to make sure of it. She was here to save him.

“Good evening, Nat,” Lizzie said brightly, and saw him scowl. “I trust you have had an enjoyable time on your last night of freedom?”

“Cut the pleasantries, Lizzie,” Nat said. “I’m not in the mood.” He held the candle a little higher so that the light fell on her face. His eyes were black, narrowed and hard. “What could possibly be so urgent that you had to talk to me in secret on the night before my wedding?”

Lizzie did not answer immediately. She caught the hem of her gown up in one hand and made her careful way up the stone stair. She felt Nat’s gaze on her face every moment even though she did not look at him. He stood aside to allow her to enter the chamber at the top. It was tiny, furnished only with a table, a chair and a couch. Monty Fortune, having created his miniature fort, had not really known what to do with it.

When she was standing on the rug in the center of the little round turret room Lizzie turned to face Nat. Now that she could see him properly she could see that his black hair was tousled and his elegant clothes looked slightly less than pristine. His jacket hung open and his cravat was undone. Stubble darkened his lean cheek and the hard line of his jaw. There was a smoky air of the alehouse about him. His eyes glittered with impatience and irritation.

“I’m waiting,” he said.

Lizzie spread her hands wide in an innocent gesture. “I asked you here to try to persuade you not to go through with the wedding,” she said. She looked at him in appeal. “You know she will bore you within five minutes, Nat. No,” she corrected herself. “You are already bored with her, aren’t you, and you are not even wed yet. And you don’t give a rush for her, either. You are making a terrible mistake.”

Nat’s mouth set in a thin line. He raked a hand through his hair. “Lizzie, we’ve spoken about this-”

“I know,” Lizzie said. Her heart hammered in her throat. “Which is why I had to do this, Nat. It’s for your own good.”

Fury was fast replacing the irritation in his eyes. “Do what?” he said. Then, as she did not reply: “Do what, Lizzie?”

“I’ve locked you in,” Lizzie said rapidly. “I promise that I will release you tomorrow-when the hour of the wedding is past. I doubt that Flora or her parents will forgive you the slight of standing her up at the altar.”

She had never previously thought the Earl of Waterhouse a man who made a display of his emotions. She had always thought he had a good face for games of chance, showing no feeling, giving nothing away. Now, though, it was all too easy to read him. His first reaction was stupefaction. His second was grim certainty. He did not even stop to question the truth of what she had said. If she knew him well, then the reverse was also the case.

“Lizzie,” he said, “you little hellcat.”

He turned and crashed angrily down the spiral stair, taking the candle, leaving her in darkness but for the faint moonlight that slid through the arrow slits in the wall. Lizzie let her breath out in a long, shaky sigh. She had only a moment to compose herself, for once he realized that there really was no escape he would be back. And this time he would be beyond mere fury.

She heard him try the thick oak door-and swear when it would not even give an inch. She saw the candle flame dance across the walls as he checked the guardroom and the passageway for potential exits. The swearing became more colorful as he acknowledged what she already knew-there was no way out. The tiny water closet opened onto the equally miniature moat and was far too small for a six foot man to squeeze through. The room in which she stood had a trapdoor that led up to the pretend battlements but she had locked it earlier and hidden the key in a hollow tree outside. She had wanted to make no mistakes.

He was back and she had been correct-he looked enraged. A muscle pulsed in his lean cheek. Every line of his body was rigid with fury.

When he spoke, however, his voice was deceptively gentle. Lizzie found it more disconcerting than if he had shouted at her.

“Why are you doing this, Lizzie?” he said.

Lizzie wiped the palms of her hands surreptitiously down the side of her gown. She wished she could stop shaking. She knew she was doing the right thing. She simply had not anticipated that it would be quite so frightening.

“I told you,” she said, tilting her chin up defiantly. “I’m saving you from yourself.”

Nat gave a harsh laugh. “No. You are denying me the chance to gain the fifty thousand pounds I so desperately need. You know how important this is to me, Lizzie.”

“It isn’t worth it for a lifetime of boredom.”

“That is my choice.”

“You’ve made the wrong choice. I’m here to save you from it.” Lizzie kept her voice absolutely level despite the pounding of her blood. “You have always cared for me and tried to protect me. Now it is my turn. I’m doing this because you are my friend and I care for you.”

She saw the contemptuous flicker in his eyes that said he did not believe her. Lizzie’s temper smoldered. She had always been hot-blooded, or perhaps just plain belligerent depending upon whose opinion one sought. It seemed damnably unfair of Nat to judge her when she had his best interests at heart. He should be thanking her for saving him from this ghastly match.

Nat put the candle down on the little wooden table beside the door and took a very deliberate step toward her. He was tall-over six-foot-broad and muscular. Lizzie tried not to feel intimidated and failed.

“Give me the key, Lizzie,” he said gently.

“No.” Lizzie swallowed hard. He was very close now, his physical presence powerful, threatening, in direct contradiction to the softness of his tone. But she was not afraid of Nat. In the nine years of their acquaintance he had never given her any reason to fear him.

“Where is it?”

“Hidden somewhere you won’t find it.”

Nat gave an exasperated sigh. He flung out an arm. “This isn’t a game, Lizzie,” he said. She could tell he was trying to suppress his anger, trying to be reasonable. Nat Waterhouse was, above all, a reasonable man, a rational man, and a responsible man. And she supposed it was unreasonable of her to expect him to see the situation from her point of view. She was in the right, of course. She knew that. And in time she was sure he would acknowledge it, too. But at the moment he was annoyed. Disappointed. Yes, of course. He would be angry and frustrated to lose Flora’s fortune. He had cultivated the heiress, courted her and flirted with her, which must have been a dreadfully tedious business. He had invested time and effort in landing his prize. And now she was queering his pitch. So yes, she could see that he would be cross with her.

“What you are doing is dangerous,” Nat said. He still sounded in control. “You have locked yourself in with me. Is this some ridiculous attempt to compromise me so that I am obliged to marry you instead of Flora?”

Lizzie’s temper tightened another notch. She was starting to feel genuinely angry now in addition to feeling afraid. She was infuriated by his presumption in thinking she wanted him for herself. “Of course not,” she said. “How conceited you are! I don’t want to wed you! I’d rather pull my own ears off!”

Nat’s smile was not pleasant. “I don’t believe you. You have deliberately compromised yourself by locking us in together.”

“Rubbish!” Lizzie said. “I don’t intend to tell anyone. I only want to keep you here until it’s too late for the marriage to take place, and then I will let you go.”

“Handsome of you,” Nat said. “You wreck my future and then you let me go to face the ruins.”

“Oh, do not be so melodramatic!” Lizzie snapped. “You should not have become a fortune hunter in the first place. It does not become you!”

“There speaks a woman with fifty thousand pounds and a judgmental attitude,” Nat said. “You know nothing.”

“I know everything about you!” Lizzie flashed. “I have known you for over nine years and I care about you-”

“You aren’t doing this out of disinterested friendship, Lizzie,” Nat interrupted her scathingly. “You are doing this because you are selfish and spoiled and immature, and you do not wish another woman to have a greater claim on me. You want to keep me for yourself.”

Lizzie gaped. “You are an arrogant pig!”

“And you are a pampered brat. You need to grow up. I have thought so for a long time.”

They stood glaring at one another whilst the tension in the room simmered and the candle flame flickered as though responding to something dangerous in the air.

Somewhere inside, Lizzie was hurting, but she cut the pain off, cauterized it with the heat of her anger.

“When have I been spoiled and immature?” she demanded. She had not wanted to ask, to twist the knife in her own wounds, but she found she was unable to keep the words inside.

Nat laughed, a harsh sound that ripped at her soul. “Where shall I start? You have no interest in anyone or anything beyond your own concerns and opinions. You flaunted yourself brazenly at the assembly on the very day that my engagement to Flora was announced, and that could only have been to take attention away from her. You flirt with anything in trousers. You have kept both Lowell Lister and John Jerrold dancing on a string for months when you have no interest in them other than in the way they feed your vanity. And if we are talking about serious lack of consideration for others, you bought some of Miles Vickery’s most valued possessions at the sale of Drum Castle and never had the generosity to give them back to him-”

Lizzie covered her ears. Nat caught her wrists and dragged her hands away.

“You wanted to know,” he said. His voice was hard. “I knew you would not be able to take the truth.”

He dropped her wrist as though he could not bear to touch her, and they fell apart. Both of them were panting. Lizzie felt as though her skin had been flayed bare by his words. Her eyes prickled with hot tears. She forced them back.

After a moment Nat raked his hand through his hair again and made a visible attempt to keep calm.

“Give me the key and we’ll forget this ever happened,” he said.

It was too late for that and they both knew it.

“No,” Lizzie said. She crossed her arms. “I don’t have it.”

“You are a pampered brat. You need to grow up. You are spoiled and selfish…”

She told herself that she did not care what he thought. She knew she was lying. It hurt horribly. Something precious, something she had cherished, had been broken beyond saving. Nat’s opinion had always mattered to her. She had respected him. Now she felt as though she hated him.

Nat’s gaze stripped her, suddenly shockingly insolent. “I suppose you have hidden it about your person.”

“No, I have not!” Lizzie was taken aback both by his tone and the look in his eyes. He had never looked at her like that before, as though she was some Covent Garden whore displaying her wares for the purchase. She felt humiliated; she told herself she was livid. Yet something in her, something shocking and primitive, liked it well enough. The blood warmed beneath her skin, the heat rolling through her body from her cheeks down to her toes and back up again, setting her afire.

Nat grabbed her so quickly she did not even see him move. His hands passed over her body; intimate, knowing hands, seeking and searching. The goose bumps rose all over her skin, following the path of his touch. The heat intensified inside her, burning hotter than a furnace. She squirmed within his grip, protesting against the humiliation of his restraint and her body’s response to it.

“Let me go! I don’t have it, I tell you!” There was more pleading than she liked in her tone.

“But you know where it is.” He let her go, breathing hard. There was some expression in his eyes, something feral, something different. It made her tremble. She remembered for the first time that he was a man who habitually, ruthlessly and coldly hunted down criminals in the course of his duty. She did not think about that often for that was the side of Nat’s life that she seldom saw, but she thought about it now because she could sense the rage in him and the desperation. She remembered that he had said he needed Flora Minchin’s fifty thousand pounds very badly indeed. She knew that he had wanted to restore Water House and provide for his family-his parents were old and his sister Celeste an invalid-but recently it had seemed there was an added urgency to his actions as though something else had happened to make his pursuit of the money even more pressing. She did not know what it was. She had never asked. Perhaps Nat was right that she was always wrapped up in her own concerns. The thought disturbed her.

She searched his face for the Nat Waterhouse she recognized and saw a stranger.

It chilled her so much that she teetered on the brink of capitulation and Nat saw her hesitate on the very edge of defeat-and he laughed.

“That’s right, Lizzie. Act like an adult for once. Go and fetch the key.”

It was the contempt in his voice that decided her, that and his laughter ringing in her ears. She could imagine him telling his friends Dexter Anstruther and Miles Vickery all about her plan, how she had thought to put a stop to his marriage because she was so young and immature and spoiled, and because she was harboring a not-so-secret tendre for him. She burned with humiliation to think of him ascribing such feelings to her and laughing over them with his friends because, she told herself fiercely, it simply wasn’t true. She had tried to rescue him and he had scorned her efforts and for that she would make him pay. The need to make him suffer-to make him hurt the way she was hurting-ached in her chest and ran through her blood like poison.

She drew herself up and stared him in the eye.

“No. I am not going anywhere and neither are you.” She spun away from him across the tiny chamber.

“You’re bloody mad.” Nat was furious and had given up any pretence of courtesy now.

“And you are bloody rude.” She whirled around to look at him, heady with power now. “And arrogant and conceited to think that I care for you.”

“Don’t you?” His eyes glittered.

“Of course not. I detest you. Especially now, after all those wicked things you have said about me. What do you think this is, one of Monty’s ridiculous medieval laws?” She flicked him an impertinent smile even though her heart felt, oddly, as though it was breaking. “The droit de seigneur? Surely you don’t imagine that I kidnapped you in order to have my wicked way with you on the night before your wedding?” She allowed her gaze to slide over him with an attempt at the same insolence with which he had looked at her earlier. It was more difficult than she had thought. She had little experience in eyeing up a man as though he was a commodity for sale.

“You wouldn’t have the nerve to carry off something like that.” Nat’s arrogant assumption twisted the knife. “Come on, Lizzie. You are out of your depth. Admit it. This is one of your childish games that has gone too far.”

Don’t dare me…

Their eyes met. The air between them seemed hot, heavy and pulsing with tension. Lizzie put a hand on his arm.

“You think I could not seduce you, Nat Waterhouse?”

His hand closed hard about her wrist, holding it still. Beneath his fingers, her pulse jumped. “Don’t be absurd.” His voice was rough.

Lizzie stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips inexpertly against his. He remained completely unresponsive beneath her touch even though she knew-she knew-he was not indifferent to her. She could feel the conflict in him for his body was tense, tight as a whip, but his response was battened down now, held under iron control. She moved her lips against his, willing him to react, to grab her, kiss her back, thus proving that she had won, but he stood completely immobile. Damn him. She was starting to feel foolish, reaching up, kissing him, and he as still as a marble statue. He wanted to embarrass her and he was succeeding. Perhaps she was no good at kissing; she did not really know. Several men had kissed her and it had been a severely disappointing experience each time, though whether that was because her expectations were too high or her suitors too incompetent, she was not sure.

She stood back a little and looked at Nat through half-narrowed eyes. Perhaps he was not as restrained as he wanted her to think. She was inexperienced, but some knowledge, deep and instinctive within her, told her that Nat was closer to the edge than he pretended. He was breathing fast and a pulse beat in his cheek. The knowledge that she was pushing him so hard made Lizzie feel heady, as though she had drunk too much wine. The thrill of danger blotted out the pain of the bitter words they had thrown at one another.

“Have you quite finished?” Nat’s politely disdainful voice cut through her thoughts. So he wanted to make her feel naive and humiliated. Anger and desperation surged in her blood. She was not going to let him win; not when he was a great deal less composed than he pretended.

“No,” she snapped. “I have not.”

She came close to him again, so close she could feel the heat emanating from his body. She looked up into his hard, unyielding face. What would it take to shock him? She did not have to go too far, just far enough to force him to admit he had been wrong in underestimating her. She was no child and she was not going to be dismissed as one. She put her hand on his chest and could feel the thunder of his heart.

“Lady Ainsworth was your mistress, was she not,” she whispered in his ear. She skimmed her hand down his shirt, pulling it loose from the band of his pantaloons. “I heard the maids talking about it. They had it from her dresser that you were mightily well endowed. Huge, so they said. They made me very curious about you…”

Nat’s whole body shuddered. “Lizzie. Stop this.” His tone was violent. “You don’t understand what you are doing.”

“Oh, but I do,” Lizzie said. “I’m no child.” She tugged his shirt free and slid her palms over his bare stomach. He felt smooth and shockingly delicious. The exquisite sensation distracted her for a moment. She had had no idea…She heard him gasp and felt the muscles jump and quiver beneath her fingers. A reaction at last…Emboldened, she turned her face into his neck and pressed her lips against the skin of his throat. He tasted of salt and heat and he smelled of bergamot cologne and of leather and of something she recognized as Nat’s own scent. It was familiar to her yet intensely exciting.

He turned his head slightly. Their lips were only inches apart now. She could feel how close he was to the edge of the precipice. Her senses spun with triumph and something else so strong it made her tremble. He was not so indifferent to her now. She had won. She slipped her hands around his back, reveling in the hardness of muscle beneath her questing fingers. She dug her nails into him and felt him flinch.

“Lizzie, for Christ’s sake-”

She liked the note of desperation in his voice. It soothed her wounded feelings to think she had driven him to this. She knew she should stop now, draw back, but she allowed one hand to drift to the fastening of his pantaloons, then a little lower. She felt light-headed, drunk, and a little mad perhaps. Her hand brushed the front of his trousers, tracing his erection. The hard, huge bulge of his arousal shocked her even through the straining material of his pantaloons. She heard Nat suck in his breath and swear harshly, and she paused for a second and stepped back, heated anger and passion abruptly doused by the cold realization that she had gone far too far. Bravado and fear struggled in her but beneath her apprehension was a fast, wicked current of feminine curiosity that was so powerful that it stole her breath and made her heart race.

They stared at one another for one long, laden moment then Nat grabbed her, moving so fast that Lizzie did not even have time to anticipate the action. His mouth came down hard on hers. Clearly the other men had not known how to kiss and equally clearly, Nat did. It was Lizzie’s only coherent thought before she went under and was submerged in a surge of sensation so violent that she almost fell.

As kisses went, it had little in it of love or even liking and a great deal of lust and anger. The pressure of Nat’s lips forced hers to open and then his tongue slid across hers, taking ruthlessly, with no consideration or gentleness. Lizzie did not know if he meant it to punish her, but it did not matter because suddenly she wanted whatever he had to give. She felt breathless with excitement, driven far beyond sense or rational thought. She forced a hand into Nat’s hair so that she could keep his mouth on hers, and she nipped his lower lip and felt him pull in a breath before he plundered her mouth ruthlessly. Her lips felt swollen and ravished from the assault. The heat pooled low in her belly and she ground her hips against his enormous erection. Nat made a sound in his throat that was half-groan, half-snarl.

He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled apart her riding habit and her chemise, stripping her to the waist. The laces tore and the hooks went flying across the stone floor. His hand was on her bare breast. Her mind reeled. She heard a moan and knew it was hers. Nat pushed her down onto the window seat and then his mouth was at her breast and she felt his teeth and his tongue on her, and she cried out, the sound echoing off the stone of the folly walls. Her body was shuddering with a need that threatened to devour her. She felt simultaneously shocked and excited and so desperately wicked and wanton that she almost screamed with the pleasure of it.

Nat pulled up the velvet skirts of her riding habit. She reached for the fastening of his pantaloons and their hands bumped. They were both shaking. The material gave and then she felt him hot and hard in her hand and she gasped with astonishment and wonder, and Nat covered her mouth roughly with his again. His hand was on her thigh, pushing her legs apart; she felt him at the very core of her and then he was deep inside her with a single thrust. The pain of it was sharp and violent. She gasped but he did not stop.

She was braced against the window embrasure and he pushed her back and back each time he took her. The stone was cold against her bare back but the friction of Nat’s body was fierce and heated between her thighs and the sensation of it was too overwhelming and too insistent to escape. The pain faded and blissful tremors rippled through her, gathering pace, building, exquisitely intense. She screamed as her body seemed to come apart with blinding pleasure. She heard Nat call out, felt him hold her even tighter, plunge even deeper and pulse as he emptied himself completely into her.

There was silence, a moment when time seemed suspended, when Lizzie could neither breathe nor think, nor feel anything but the most perfect sense of rightness. It felt heavenly. Her body felt ripe and sated and her mind felt a deep content, as though at last she had come home and was at peace. For Nat had spoken the truth when he had said that she loved him-she could see that with utter clarity now, all pretence and pride torn away in the honesty of their lovemaking. Nat was hers and he always had been, and now she was truly his.

And surely Nat must love her, too, because that was the way it was meant to be.

Lizzie opened her eyes and blinked a little. The candlelight seemed too harsh and bright, stinging her eyes. Nat had withdrawn from her. He had turned away, fumbling with his clothes. His face was in shadow. Lizzie waited for him to speak, to tell her he loved her. And then suddenly he turned to look at her fully and her heart leaped in anticipation of the words she would surely hear and the love she would surely see in his eyes. The moment spun out and she searched his face, and saw bewilderment and disbelief and a dawning horror there.

“Lizzie…” He said. His voice shook. The horror in his expression was raw and painful.

Lizzie felt cold. Something inside her seemed to shrivel and die, shredding like petals falling from a blown flower.

Nat did not love her. He had never loved her.

She could see it in the appalled dismay in his eyes.

She pushed down her skirts, dragged the fragments of her bodice together and tried to stand. Her legs were shaking and she stumbled and almost fell. Her weakness horrified her. Nat was coming toward her now and she felt panic clogging her throat. She could not talk to him now. She could not even look at him. She felt too shamed as though every last defense had been stripped away leaving her emotions as exposed and naked before him as her body had been. She had to get out. She had to get away from him before he guessed the truth of her feelings, before he put it into words and made her humiliation intolerable.

She overturned the table, blocking his path and sending the candle flying, and then she was running down the stone spiral stair, reeling off the wall as she almost fell in the darkness. She heard Nat swear and saw a flare of flame behind her as the wall hangings caught fire from the candle, and then she was in the guardroom, groping for the key on its ledge, and for a split second she could not find it and the panic clawed at her chest. She heard Nat beating the flames out and hoped it would hold him for a precious few seconds. The door…It seemed to take forever for her to open it, whilst her cold and shaking fingers slipped on the key, and then she was out in the night and she could hear Nat’s steps on the stair behind her and smell smoke on the air.

Where to run? Where to hide…

The wood closed about her. It was dark, deep and anonymous. That comforted her. She could hear Nat calling her name and there was an edge of fear to his voice as well as anger, but the sound was fading as he moved away from her. The relief washed through her. He would not find her now; would not find her again until she was ready to be found. She did not need anyone to help her. She could put herself back together, good as new. She could pretend that this had never happened.

Nat did not love her. He had never loved her. She had made a terrible, terrible mistake.

The thoughts jostled through Lizzie’s head, dark and menacing like monsters in a nightmare. She pushed them away. She had to forget what had happened. And now that Nat was at liberty to attend his wedding, he, too, could join in the pretense. He could marry Flora, just as he had intended, he could gain the fortune he needed, and neither of them would say a word about this night ever again.

Except that Nat had never been very good at pretending. Lizzie had always said it was because he had no imagination, but Nat had always had a nasty habit of facing his demons and of making her face hers as well.

Not this time…

“Nothing happened,” Lizzie said aloud. She smoothed the torn remnants of her bodice and wondered why her fingers were still shaking. “Nothing happened at all.”

CHAPTER TWO

NAT WATERHOUSE STOOD in front of Fortune Hall, stared up at the darkened window of Lizzie’s bedroom and tried to think. What would Lizzie do now? Would she run? Would she hide? Where would she go? He should know the answer to these questions. He had known Lady Elizabeth Scarlet for ten years, since she was eleven years old, and he a youth of eighteen. He had seen her grow from a child into a woman. He had thought he knew everything there was to know about her. How wrong he had been.

Where was she?

His mind did not seem to be functioning as clearly as usual. He could not seem to focus on the practicalities of his situation, what to do, how to put matters right. All he seemed capable of thinking about was Lizzie.

What the hell had he done?

Pointless question. He knew precisely what he had done. He had seduced a woman who was not his fiancée on the night before his wedding.

He had ended over a year’s celibacy by making love to the one woman he should never, ever have touched.

He had ravished a virgin.

He had been too weak and too lacking in self-control to resist.

None of the above actually did justice to the heinousness of the situation, though. He faced it squarely.

Lizzie. Hell. He did not love her. He had not even liked her very much for the past few months. Once upon a time they had been friends but she had been getting under his skin recently, trying to persuade him not to marry Flora, provoking him, using him, taking him for granted. He had already been aggravated almost past bearing when he had received her note that night. He had almost ignored the summons and only habit and that damned sense of responsibility he had always felt for her had prompted him to go to meet her. He wished he had not.

Regret speared him, painfully sharp. That was pointless, too. It was done. Lizzie had goaded him, pushed him beyond bearing but he was not going to blame her. The truth was that she could not have provoked him into doing anything unless he wanted it, and he had wanted to make love to her. He had been desperate to make love to her. He still was. It shocked him that he could be in such a godforsaken mess and all he could think about was Lizzie’s beautiful silken white skin beneath his hands and her body, unbearably hot and tight about him, and the dazzling, blinding pleasure of taking her. He was no saint when it came to women, but nor was he a rake. And Lizzie was the last woman whom he would ever have imagined wanting. How could he when he had always seen her as in need of protection? From the moment he had first known her he had sought to make up for the fact that the two men who should care for her-her half brothers Montague and Tom Fortune-were a feckless idiot and a dangerous wastrel respectively.

He was worse than both of them.

Damn it all to hell and back.

The chimes of the church clock wafted over the fields from Fortune’s Folly village. One o’clock. Less than an hour for his whole life to change…

Where was she? He had to know she was all right.

Anxiety ran through his blood. Of course she was not all right. How could she be? He had ravished her, ruthlessly seduced her. He had known that she must be a virgin, still innocent despite her wild, wayward behavior. What gently bred debutante of nearly one and twenty was not? And she had shown her inexperience when her shameless provocation had disintegrated into shock and she had run from him, appalled and fearful in the end. It was true that Lizzie was outrageous. She frequently went too far but this time she had frightened even herself. And she was no longer innocent and it was his fault.

He had to speak to her.

He looked again at the blank, dark windows of Fortune Hall. He could raise the whole house, of course, and wake everyone up looking for her. It would cause outrage, scandal. If she were found to be missing that would cause even more. Lizzie was already known to be wild. If word went around that she was not in her own bed in the middle of the night, gossip would simply speculate on whose bed she was in. Her reputation would be in tatters.

He laughed mirthlessly. Reputation? Lizzie was ruined. If there was to be a child…

His blood ran cold. He could not leave her to face that alone. He had never abandoned her before and he would not do so now. For the first time he thought about his rich marriage of convenience. He should have thought about it before since he was so desperately in need of money, but somehow his concern for Lizzie had blotted out all other thoughts. His marriage had been the perfect solution to all his financial problems. And Miss Flora Minchin would have been the perfect refined, biddable wife. She was Lizzie’s opposite in almost every way. He had never had the remotest desire to rip Flora’s clothes off and make love to her. No doubt she would have been utterly aghast if he had expressed such a desire. But Flora was rich-so very, very rich-and he needed the money so desperately. He was in a trap. People depended on him, his parents, his sister Celeste…The anger and fear tightened within him when he thought what might happen to Celeste if he let her down. He would never in a thousand years have thought himself the kind of man to succumb to blackmail and yet when his sister’s life, her future and her good name, were in the balance, he had not even hesitated. He knew he could not. It was his responsibility to protect those who relied on him. So he needed a fortune…

Lizzie was rich, too.

The thought slid into his mind and the relief flooded through him.

He had to marry Lizzie.

It was the perfect solution. It would put matters right. It would save her reputation, solve his need for money…

Lizzie would be the wife from hell.

The thought came swift on the heels of the others. The devil was in Lizzie, always had been, since she was small. Perhaps it was because she had had such a ramshackle childhood with a neglectful mother who had run off with a groom and a father who indulged her like a pet for half the time and forgot she was there the other half. When her father had died and she had come to Fortune Hall at the age of eleven to live with her half brothers, the sons of her mother’s first marriage, matters had barely improved for her. Neither of her brothers had any interest in her. Monty Fortune had engaged a governess for her to absolve his conscience. Lizzie had put mice in the woman’s bed and the governess had left. None of her successors stayed long, stating that Lizzie was unruly, undisciplined and out of control, a state of affairs that Tom Fortune in particular encouraged. Nat could still remember the first time he had met Lizzie when, as a university contemporary of Tom’s, he had come to Fortune’s Folly and seen a truculent girl in a grubby white dress, all tangled red hair and huge green eyes, climbing the trees in the home park like a tomboy. She had fallen out of an old oak tree and Tom had laughed and Nat had been the one to offer her a hand to help her get up again. And so it had started, with Nat easing Lizzie out of the scrapes she had got herself into, always there for her because neither Monty nor Tom cared a whit.

But this…This was more than a scrape. This was a full-blown disaster. Yes indeed, Lizzie would be the most difficult, intractable, headstrong wife imaginable, the most unsuitable countess and in the fullness of time the least appropriate duchess in the kingdom. Marriage to her might well be a living hell. But hell was precisely where he was heading. He knew there was no escape.

LIZZIE HAD CLIMBED IN at her bedroom window, scaling the ivy, reaching for the handholds that only she knew were there in the old stone of Fortune Hall. She had climbed in and out of the house this way for as long as she could remember, coming and going as and when she pleased, avoiding the discipline of her chaperones, such as it was, and with her half brothers in blissful ignorance of her behavior. Tonight Monty was still awake-when she had slipped past the window she had seen him drinking on his own in the library. There had been no sign of her other half brother, Tom, although the presence of another glass beside Monty’s on the table suggested that someone else had been there earlier that evening. Lizzie’s half brothers had patched up their quarrel now that Tom was no longer a wanted man. Monty had conveniently forgotten that he had disowned his brother and Tom had seemed prepared to forgive him. Lizzie thought that their rapprochement was largely convenience, since no one else in the village of Fortune’s Folly would give either of them the time of day now. Everyone hated Monty for his unscrupulous greed in applying more and more of his medieval taxes to fleece the populace, but people hated Tom more for his ruthless seduction and abandonment of Lydia Cole. Lizzie would not have set foot back in her brother’s house if it had not been for the fact that Monty had threatened legal proceedings against anyone else who gave her shelter. He had then neglected to find a chaperone for her with the result that Lizzie had no one to account to on nights like this. Or alternatively, Lizzie thought, one could say that no one actually cared what she did.

She desperately wanted a bath. She was aching, her body sore there, between her legs, and sore inside. Not so raw as her heart, though. She could smell smoke on her clothes and in her hair. She could also smell Nat’s scent on her body like an imprint, but perhaps that was a trick of her imagination. She did not want to remember him holding her close enough to put his mark on her. She did not want to remember him inside her. She shuddered, closing her eyes, closing her mind.

Cold water would have to do. She would have jumped into the moat when she had got back had it not been for the fact that she was terrified Nat would find her. Instead she lit one pale candle, making sure that the curtains were drawn so close that no light would show outside, and then she stripped off her tattered clothes. Usually she dropped her gown and underclothes on the floor for the maid to pick up but these were ruined, the laces torn, the hooks ripped out. That would cause gossip. That would be difficult to explain.

Such passion. Such pleasure…

She had thought that she would die from such pleasure. She had never imagined it, never dreamed it. Such bliss at Nat’s hands…She had felt as though her very body would melt, honey-soft, with satisfaction and fulfilment.

She had felt a soul-deep contentment as well, but that had fled fast enough when she had seen the expression on Nat’s face. Some pain stirred deep inside her and she soothed it quickly back to sleep. No need to think of that. It was over. It was her secret and it would remain so.

She bundled the clothes up carefully and hid them under a pile of blankets in the chest. She would take them out and burn them when she could, and watch the memories drift away on the smoke and ash. Nat would be married by then and gone from Fortune’s Folly with his bride.

Avoiding her reflection in the long mirror, she started to wash herself with the cold water from the ewer and the cloth that was on the dresser. Her hair would have to wait until the morning. There was nothing she could do about that. She started with her face, the ice-cold water from the bowl shocking her a little, wakening her. Neck, shoulders, the curve of her arms…She paused as she raised the cloth to her chest, the irresistible memory intruding of Nat’s mouth at her breast, tugging, nipping, licking…Her body tightened, aching inside, wanting him again. It was impossible to erase that knowledge now. The hand holding the cloth fell to her side and she turned slowly to examine her body in the long pier glass.

She did not look the same. There were marks on her body, faint bruises that indicated the intensity of their lovemaking and also showed the loss of her innocence, the extent of her experience now. She stared at them whilst her body resonated with the knowledge of what she had done. She waited for feelings of shame or regret. None came. That must prove she was as wild and brazen as everyone claimed. She had no shame for the act of making love. All her regret was saved for the terrible mistake she had made in loving where her feelings were not returned. That humiliated her beyond bearing.

There was a small smear of blood on her inner thigh. She scrubbed it away, vigorous now. Her virginity was lost. This was the proof. Some faceless, unimagined future husband would probably cut up rough about her lack of chastity. Men were so often odiously hypocritical about such matters. She found she did not care. Perhaps she should. But she had never been able to imagine herself married. Marriage required compromise and maturity and she was painfully aware that she was not very good at such things. Truth was, she had never wanted to be. Now the possibility of marriage seemed more remote than the moon.

She put on her nightdress but rather than getting into her bed she sat down on the velvet cushioned window seat. Was Nat out there in the shadows of the darkened garden? She felt an almost irresistible urge to pull the curtain back and look. The thing that stayed her hand was the knowledge that if he were there it would be for all the wrong reasons. He would not have followed her because he loved her. He would have followed her because of a sense of responsibility. He would want to make sure that she was safe home and to put matters to rights.

He could not.

Nat cared about her. She knew that. But caring was so mild an emotion compared to the wild love she had for him. Caring was for infants and the old and the sick. Nat did not share her passion. He had shown her lust and she had confused it with love. It was an easy mistake to make, a naïve mistake, she supposed. She felt a boundless love for him. He cared for her. She had poured out her feelings in their lovemaking. He had met her love with his desire. The disparity between their feelings for one another was enormous.

Her hand had crept up to pull back the curtain, driven by the need she had to see Nat again and the crumb of comfort that his caring would offer her. She deliberately let it fall. For her it was all or nothing. Crumbs were not good enough.

She went to bed. She tried to sleep and tried to ignore the ache within her body and the greed with which it grasped after the pleasure it had experienced just the once. Her body, it seemed, did not care whether she loved Nat or not. It wanted him and it did not like to be denied now that it had been wakened. She tossed and turned and when she did sleep she dreamed about her mother, the notorious Countess of Scarlet, wilful, reckless runaway wife. She could smell her mother’s perfume and feel the softness of her arms about her. In her dreams Lizzie grasped after the absentminded affection her mother had shown her on the rare occasions that Lady Scarlet remembered she had a daughter. It comforted her but when she woke in the morning she remembered that Lady Scarlet was long lost and she was alone.

CHAPTER THREE

MISS FLORA MINCHIN stood in the drawing room of her parents’ elegant home in the village of Fortune’s Folly-new, shiny, spacious, everything that money could buy, no converted medieval building for them-and studied the Earl of Waterhouse, who was standing on the Turkish carpet in front of the fireplace in the exact same spot as when he had proposed marriage to her four months before. Four months had been the engagement period prescribed by Mrs. Minchin as the shortest possible time in which to assemble Flora’s perfect trousseau. That self-same trousseau was now packed and ready for the wedding trip-Windermere and the Lake District, so pretty, so fashionable-and for the removal after that to Water House, the Earl’s ramshackle family estate near York, which was to be restored with Flora’s lovely money.

It was not yet past breakfast and they had in fact been roused from the table by the butler disapprovingly imparting the news of the Earl’s arrival. It was a shockingly early hour at which to call. It was also the morning of the wedding and Mrs. Minchin had therefore been even less disposed to let Flora see her betrothed.

“Flora, I forbid it,” she had snapped, even as her daughter had put down her napkin and allowed the footman to draw back the chair so that she could rise. “It is quite inappropriate and dreadfully bad luck. Humphrey-” She had appealed to Mr. Minchin, who was reading the Leeds Courier at the breakfast table. “Tell Flora that she must not speak to Lord Waterhouse until after the vows are made. Whatever he has to say cannot be so important that it cannot wait.”

“I rather think it is, Mama,” Flora had said.

She had been surprised to find that her heart was beating quite fast. Sitting there, sipping her hot chocolate and nibbling on her toast, she had had a moment of quite frightening prophecy. She had known that Nat Waterhouse was there to break their engagement. And she had felt nothing but the most enormous relief.

Now she glanced at the clock. At least the wedding was not until two in the afternoon. That should give her enough time to inform everyone that it was not taking place after all. She would have to do so herself, as her mother was likely to fall into the vapors and be of no use to anyone.

She looked at Nat. He was looking exceptionally well dressed that morning, almost as elegant as on the day that he had proposed, almost as elegant as he would have looked in church when they came together for their marriage. She was not sure how she felt about him taking so much trouble with his appearance when his purpose was to break rather than make a commitment to her. His boots had a high polish, his cravat was immaculately tied and he was wearing a jacket of green superfine that fitted without a wrinkle. He was not, Flora thought, a good-looking man in the conventional sense, for his features were too irregular to be considered handsome. His nose was slightly bent as though it had sustained a sporting injury and his chin had a cleft to it that lent his face both authority and obstinacy. But even though he was not classically handsome, he had something else, something about him that many women might consider strikingly attractive. He was taller than average and filled his clothes well without the need to resort to the padding and buckram so many men used. His face was lean and there was a hard, watchful look in his dark eyes that had made more than one young lady of Flora’s acquaintance shiver soulfully as she commented that did not Lord Waterhouse appear just a tiny bit dangerous? Ruthless perhaps, durable most definitely…Tough in adversity, Flora thought suddenly. That was Nat Waterhouse. He was very strong. She would not care to pit her will against his and she knew of only one woman who ever had done…

She looked at him and her heart did not miss a single beat. She had once thought it unfortunate that Nat did not move her when she had been going to marry him. She had wondered idly if she was missing out on something important, consigning herself to a passionless life. Now she merely felt thankful that she had never loved him and so was spared the pain of loss. And she felt an extraordinary relief that somehow she was going to escape the dutiful marriage that she had been bred to accept.

“I should have been braver from the start,” Flora thought. “I should have acknowledged that I did not want to do as my parents wished. But now I have been given a second chance…”

Suddenly she felt very brave.

“Lord Waterhouse.” He had not spoken, so it seemed it was down to her to move matters along and make things easy for him. Flora sighed, wishing she were not quite so generous by nature. If he wanted to end their engagement it seemed only fair he should suffer a little.

“Flora.” He took her hands in his and drew her to sit beside him on the love seat. “I have something that I must ask you.” He hesitated, frowning. The expression in his eyes was so painful, so at odds with his immaculate outward appearance, that Flora felt quite shaken to see it. She had never, ever seen Nat Waterhouse display strong emotion but now he looked grim and unhappy.

She knew exactly what she had to do.

“You wish me to release you from our engagement,” she said.

Shock flared in his eyes. “How did you know?”

She freed herself from his grasp. What was she to say now? It could not be anything that remotely resembled the truth. The truth was too personal and they had never spoken of intimate things. Their relationship had been entirely superficial.

What she wanted to say was:

“I know we cannot marry because I have always been aware that there is something between you and Lady Elizabeth Scarlet that is too powerful to be ignored, and I do not wish to play second fiddle to it for the rest of my life. I am sure she is in love with you and that you desire her in a way you never desired me…”

No indeed, the perfectly judged, beautifully behaved Miss Flora Minchin could never utter such words to her betrothed, no matter how much she knew them to be true.

“I think that we would not suit.” She smiled brightly at him. “I have thought it for a little while.”

He was looking at her as though she had taken leave of her senses, which in all probability it must seem she had. Not suit? How could they not suit when there was not sufficient emotion in their relationship for them ever to disagree on anything? How could they be anything other than perfectly matched when he had the title and she the money? He was a fortune hunter and she an heiress looking to be a countess. She knew that marriage was a business arrangement, or so her parents had told her, with their banking fortune that had bought everything they had ever wanted except, it seemed, an Earl as a son-in-law and the prospect of a dukedom, almost the highest estate imaginable, once Nat’s father died.

Flora got to her feet and moved away from him, smoothing her immaculate skirts as she walked across the room.

“It is fortunate that you called this morning,” she said, “and that we have had the opportunity to resolve this before it was too late.”

Nat was shaking his head. He raked his hand through his hair. “I ought to explain to you-”

Flora raised a hand to stop him. This would never do. The last thing she wanted from him was that he should explain. “Please do not,” she said.

“But I cannot let you take the sole responsibility for this.” Nat sounded anguished. “It isn’t right that you should bear that.”

It was Nat Waterhouse’s tragedy, Flora thought, that he was too honorable a man to do what many other men would do in his position and cravenly accept the lifeline she was throwing him. Many a man, she was aware, would have crept out by now, abjectly grateful that she had absolved him of all responsibility.

“If you are to be free, my lord,” she said gently, “you cannot have it any other way. A lady is allowed to change her mind. A gentleman is not in honor. It is as simple as that.”

“I don’t deserve for you to make it so easy for me,” Nat said. He sounded grim. He came to her and took her hand in his, pressing a kiss on the back. Once again Flora’s heart did not flutter, but stayed beating as calmly as it always had.

“You are an exceptional woman, Flora Minchin,” he said. “I had no idea.”

“Which rather illustrates why we should have been badly suited,” Flora countered dryly. “Let us leave it at that.”

She could tell he did not want to go and leave her with the unconscionable mess of canceling a marriage on the wedding day itself. She could tell that every muscle in his body was straining to tell her the reason for his defection and to take the blame. She could even tell that he wanted her to lose her temper, to rant at him, scream and cry, because in doing so she would somehow lessen the intolerable guilt he was feeling.

It gave her a small amount of satisfaction to appear totally calm and to deny him that relief. She was human, after all.

She waited until he had gone out and Irwin, the butler, had closed the front door very firmly behind him, and then she went to find her mother and father and to tell them that their most cherished dream of seeing their daughter as a countess was over. And the relief to have been given a second chance at the future swelled in her heart until she felt as though she was going to burst.

“YOU WILL HAVE HEARD the news, of course,” Mrs. Morton, the draper, said as she wrapped up a parcel of blue spotted muslin for Lizzie. “Miss Minchin has cried off from her wedding this very morning!” She reached for the string and tied an expert knot. “I feel most distraught-a number of ladies have purchased gowns and bonnets from me for the event and now no one will see them! It is very unfortunate and most inconsiderate of Miss Minchin. And why whistle an Earl down the wind when one is only a banker’s daughter? Do you think she has had a better offer? A Duke? Are there any dukes newly arrived in the village? That is thirty-six shillings and sixpence, if you please, Lady Elizabeth. Have you taken up dressmaking? You never buy cloth here.”

“Yes,” Lizzie said. She fumbled in her purse for some coins. She felt a little strange. I am tired, she thought. I did not sleep well. That is all. She tried to concentrate on finding the money but her head was buzzing.

Flora had cried off from the wedding. That was not meant to happen. Nat was supposed to be getting married in three hours time. He was going to the Lake District and from there to Water House near York, and she was never going to have to see him again, and she could keep on pretending that the events of the previous night had never occurred…

“Thirty-six shillings, Lady Elizabeth,” Mrs. Morton said, a little sharply. “And in ready money, if you please, rather than notes. I don’t trust the banks.”

“Of course,” Lizzie said numbly. She put some coins randomly on the counter. She was feeling very hot. Perhaps it had been a mistake to come into the village. She had not wanted to sit around at Fortune Hall in case Nat had called to see her, but neither had she wanted company. She was not sure why everything felt so difficult and complicated this morning. Her mind felt weighted with lead.

“I hear that most of the fortune hunters have left the village now that almost all the heiresses are wed,” Mrs. Morton said, counting out her change. The soft clink of the coins seemed very loud and made Lizzie’s head hurt. “A pity. Your half brother’s plan to fleece all the ladies of their money was good for many businesses here because it brought in so much new custom. I suppose it is not worth a gentleman the cost of a journey from London now that there are no more fortunes to be had.”

“I imagine not,” Lizzie said. “And good riddance to them. I am glad,” she added, “that Monty has been thwarted in his plans to use the Dames’ Tax to take half of our dowries. His money-grabbing ways are a total disgrace.”

“The man’s a greedy whoremonger,” Mrs. Morton said, with great relish, “and his brother’s no better! The way young Tom treated little Miss Cole…Well, she’s never going to be able to make a respectable marriage now, is she?” Mrs. Morton shook her head. “And now Miss Minchin as well-I wonder what the scandal is there? For there has to be some, Lady Elizabeth. No girl calls off her wedding on the very morning of the ceremony unless there’s scandal afoot. You mark my words!”

Scandal afoot…

Something sharp and painful twisted inside Lizzie. She thought of Nat and of the previous night and pushed away the memory violently. When she had woken that morning she had resolved never to think on it again. But that had been before she had heard about the canceled wedding. Why had Flora cried off? Surely Nat could not have told her what had happened? It was impossible. Lizzie was desperate to know but in order to find out she would be obliged to face Nat, to talk to him, and nothing could be worse when her emotions were still so raw. Panic rose, suffocating, in her throat.

Nothing happened, she told herself. There is no scandal, for nothing happened at all.

She tried to gather up the change from the counter, but the coins slipped and scattered on the floor. Mrs. Morton was looking at her with curiosity in her darting brown eyes. “Are you quite well, Lady Elizabeth? You seem a little distracted this morning. I wondered-” she gave a little artificial tinkle of laughter “-whether you knew aught of the broken betrothal. After all, you are a great friend of Lord Waterhouse, are you not? A very great friend indeed.”

Lizzie bent to pick up her money. She did not answer. The shop felt airless. She felt a little dizzy.

“And you are the richest heiress left,” Mrs. Morton’s voice continued, above her head. “A very rich prize indeed. Will you wed, Lady Elizabeth, before your half brother steals your fortune?”

There was a ping as the door of the shop opened and the bell rang loudly. Lizzie jumped. She stood up abruptly. Nat Waterhouse had come in and was standing only a few feet away. Lizzie’s head spun with the sudden shock of his appearance when she had been thinking about him only a moment before. She put a hand out to steady herself and the smooth wood of the counter slipped beneath her fingers. Damn it, if only she did not feel so strange about everything…

Nothing happened…

Nat looked so tired, she thought. There were deep lines about his eyes, as though he had not slept, and a grim set to his mouth, but he still looked fiercely intimidating enough to make her legs feel weak.

“Lady Elizabeth,” he said, bowing.

He looked the same, Lizzie thought. He looks exactly the same as he did last week, so why do I see him differently? Why do I see him as my lover and see an answering knowledge in his eyes when I do not want to think of him like that because I still love him and it hurts…It hurts as though I am wearing all my feelings on the outside and have no protection against him.

“Lord Waterhouse!” Mrs. Morton was fluttering around. “I was so very sorry to hear about your broken betrothal-”

“Thank you, Mrs. Morton,” Nat said. He did not take his eyes from Lizzie. Nor did he offer any explanation whatsoever.

He was standing between Lizzie and the door. She realized that she could not get out-and that he had done it deliberately in order to force her to confront him. Suddenly she felt as though the walls of the shop were closing in on her and all the bolts of cloth Mrs. Morton had swathed so artfully about the place to display her wares were swooping down to smother her.

“Are you quite well, Lady Elizabeth?” Mrs. Morton sounded excited. “You look very pale. Are you going to swoon?”

“Of course not,” Lizzie said. “I never faint. It is a hot day. That is all. Thank you, Mrs. Morton. Good day, Lord Waterhouse.”

She found she could not look at him. He had moved closer to her and his very proximity seemed to hold her still, unable to speak, unable to move. Her awareness of him was overwhelming. She could sense Mrs. Morton looking from one of them to the other with an expression of most gleeful curiosity on her face.

“May I escort you somewhere, Lady Elizabeth?” Nat murmured. He put out a hand and took her by the elbow. The shivers skittered along her nerve endings. Her heart raced, bumping painfully against her ribs. Nat’s touch had never stirred her before. He must have touched her a thousand times in the past when she dismounted her horse or when he acted her friend and escorted her to a ball or on endless other occasions. Only now did he make her body ripple with responsiveness even as her mind despaired.

“Thank you, but no,” Lizzie said rapidly. “I have errands to run.”

“Then I will accompany you.”

“No, indeed-”

“I would like very much to speak with you,” Nat said. There was an undertone of steel in his voice now that brought Lizzie’s eyes up sharply to his. His dark gaze was implacable. “I believe we have matters to discuss.”

“No-”

“Indeed we do.”

Mrs. Morton’s gaze was avid. Lizzie felt the panic flare inside her and blossom through her whole body, setting her shaking. Then the door chimed again and two ladies came into the shop, and Lizzie pulled her arm from Nat’s grip, diving through the open door and out into the street.

Where to run? Where to hide?

She knew she had only a split second before Nat extricated himself from the shop and came after her.

She could not speak to him. Merely thinking about it turned her so cold that she shivered as though she had the ague. She had made a terrible, terrible mistake and the only way in which she could deal with it was to pretend that it simply had not happened. If she spoke to Nat he would make her confront it and that she could not do.

Run away, Lizzie thought. She had always run, all her life. She had seen her mother do it, too. It was all she knew.

“Lady Elizabeth!”

She spun around. Nat was coming toward her as briskly as the crowded street would allow. Saturday mornings in Fortune’s Folly were always busy. The road was crowded with carts and horses, with women carrying marketing baskets, children clinging to their skirts, with gentlemen strolling and ladies browsing the windows. Nat ignored them all, cutting a path toward her with ruthless determination. Lizzie dashed down the first arcade that she came to, past the wigmaker and the perfumery, into the china shop, where her flying skirts caught the edge of a display of fine Wedgwood plates, newly arrived from London, and sent them crashing to the floor. She didn’t stop, even at the shopkeeper’s cry of outrage, but hurried out of the back door, down a passageway, tripping over a rotten cabbage, sending a chicken running for its life. She imagined Nat stopping to pay the china merchant and knew that would buy her a few minutes. He would have to take responsibility for her breakages. That was the sort of thing that he always did.

She had a stitch. She leaned on the edge of the stone parapet of the bridge over the River Tune and tried to catch her breath. There were cabbage leaves stuck to her skirts. Across the other side of the river she could see her brother’s land agent collecting payment from the coachmen who had their carriages drawn up on the green whilst the occupants shopped, visited the spa or walked on Fortune Row. This was Monty’s latest money-spinner following the tax on dogs he had instigated the previous month. She saw a carriage with the Vickery arms drawn up outside the circulating library. Perhaps Alice was in town and was intending to call on her after she had been to the shops. For a moment Lizzie longed desperately to see her friend and then she realized that it was not possible. Alice knew her too well. She would know instantly that something was wrong and then Lizzie would tell her the truth and that would be a disaster because she simply had to pretend. If she did not pretend-if she told all, and Alice sympathized with her-then all would be lost because she would disintegrate in misery and blurt out her love for Nat and the humiliation and loss would drown her.

“Lady Elizabeth!”

Lizzie straightened abruptly. There was Nat, wending his way between the carriages on the bridge and looking cross and disheveled now-he had cabbage leaves on his jacket, too-but still very, very determined. Oh dear. Time to run.

“I don’t want to talk to you!” Lizzie yelled, startling several coach horses. “Go away!” She saw Lady Wheeler’s startled face staring out at her from one of the carriages and felt the hysterical laughter bubbling up within her.

“Hoyden!” Lady Wheeler’s lips moved. Lizzie did not need to be able to hear her to know the words. “Wild, ungovernable, a disgrace…”

If only they knew just how disgracefully she had behaved.

Would they be kinder to her because her heart was broken?

“Lizzie!” Nat bellowed.

Lizzie took her life in her hands and dived between two carriages, hearing the coachman swear and feeling the heat of the horses’ breath against her face. Over the parapet, under the bridge, along the water’s edge, up into the village on the other side of the river, into the cabinetmakers where her unkempt reflection stared back at her from an endless line of mirrors for sale, the scent of beeswax in her nostrils, the gleam of the wood dazzling her…Someone caught her as she was about to trip on the pavement outside, but even as the panic grabbed her she realized it was not Nat but another gentleman, raising his hat, an appreciative gleam in his eyes. She could see Nat pushing through the crowd. Would he never give up?

She grabbed a hansom cab. “Fortune Hall, quickly!”

The coachman whipped up the horse and they were away before Nat could haul himself up into the cab beside her. Lizzie saw his furious expression as they pulled away. It was twice as expensive to take a hansom these days because Sir Montague taxed half of the drivers’ charges. Well, her brother could pay his own taxes this time, Lizzie thought. Her purse was empty anyway and she had dropped the bolt of blue spotted muslin somewhere in the street. She would not go back for it. She was not really sure why she had bought it in the first place.

The important thing was that she had outrun Nat again. She did not look back.

CHAPTER FOUR

DAMN THE WOMAN! He had chased her through every back street and alley of Fortune’s Folly. He had had to pay the china merchant and soothe the outraged coachman and calm some skittish horses, and he was sick and tired of acting as Lizzie’s conscience and wallet. She was spoiled and headstrong and she never faced up to her responsibilities. She had been running away for as long as he had known her.

She was running away from him now.

Nat smoothed his hair, calmed his breath and watched the hansom cab disappear over the cobbles with a clatter of wheels and a cloud of summer dust. Lizzie did not look back. The tilt of her head, even the back of her spring straw bonnet, looked defiant. But he had seen her eyes and they had looked terrified.

He bent to retrieve the parcel of blue muslin that was resting in the gutter. Goodness only knew why Lizzie had bought it. She was the least accomplished woman in the world with a needle and had always scorned embroidery and dressmaking.

Nat felt a pang somewhere deep in his chest. He knew Lizzie so well. They had been friends for years. He cared for her. It hurt that she used to run to him for help when she was in trouble and now she was running from him. He did not even understand why she was running though he imagined that it must be because she was so shocked and scared and mortified by what had happened that she simply could not face him. But he could put all to rights if only she would let him. The first step was taken. He was free of the engagement to Flora, free to marry Lizzie instead. He could give her the protection of his name and he could claim her fortune in place of the one he had lost.

If only he could make her stay still long enough to hear his proposal.

If only she accepted it.

With Lizzie one never knew.

He twisted the brown paper parcel in his hands and heard the covering rip. He could deliver it to Fortune Hall in person and demand that Lizzie see him. Except that she would probably climb over the roof and run away into the woods again sooner than speak with him.

For a moment he toyed with the idea of going to one of Lizzie’s friends, to Laura Anstruther or Alice Vickery, and asking for their help. He rejected the idea reluctantly, for that would involve some sort of explanation and his friends were already curious about the canceled wedding. He had received notes from both Dexter and Miles, his groomsmen, demanding to know what the hell was going on. If he asked their wives to intercede with Lizzie on his behalf the speculation would explode and although none of them would ever spread gossip or scandal, he could not expose Lizzie to such conjecture. No, he would have to sort this out unaided. That was appropriate since the disaster was of his creation. If only he had been stronger, had more self-control, more restraint. If only he had not found Lizzie so damnably physically attractive, if only he did not still ache for her with a devouring carnal need that was as shocking as it was misplaced. But again, if he married her that desire would no longer be inappropriate-or unfulfilled. He could make love to her every night and all day if he wished, as much as he wanted, sating his unexpected lust in the respectable marriage bed.

Fortune Street at midday on a Saturday was an inappropriate place to be sporting a huge erection. Nat moved the muslin parcel to provide strategic cover. He had to stop thinking about bedding Lizzie until he had secured her hand in marriage. He had to do everything properly. Better late than never.

AFTER MRS. MINCHIN HAD finished having hysterics and Mr. Minchin had finished raging, Flora had summoned the hall boy, the footman and as many of the maids as could be spared, and sent them out with notes for all the wedding guests telling them that the nuptials were canceled and she deeply regretted the inconvenience. She then informed her parents that she was going out for a walk, alone, and such was their stupor at what had happened that they did not oppose her. It was the first time in Flora’s life that she had made them angry and she could tell that they were baffled as well because until now she had never given them a moment’s cause for concern, yet suddenly she had turned into a stranger to them.

She went out of the house and turned away from the village toward the moors. She did not walk with any particular destination in mind, but simply followed where her feet were taking her. She noticed that it was a beautiful early summer day, perfect for a wedding. The skylarks were calling overhead, their song fading as they rose higher and higher into the blue. The wildflowers bobbed on the verge beside the track. Presently she found herself up on the hill, high above the village. Fortune’s Folly was spread out beneath her with the church spire piercing the sky and the lazy curl of the river and the old abbey ruins and the bridge, and Fortune Row where people strolled and gossiped in the sun. She was beyond the reach of them all, even if they were all talking scandal about her canceled wedding.

She looked down. Her shoes were ruined. It was so stupid of her to have come out without putting on stout boots for even in summer the tracks were dirty and rutted. She supposed that she could at least afford another pair, or a hundred pairs, since she wasn’t giving all her money away to Nat Waterhouse anymore. She tried to examine her feelings. She was not sorry that the wedding was canceled. She would have married Nat, of course, and she would have made him a good wife because that was what she had been brought up to believe in. It was what she had thought she was going to do with her life. Yet it was odd, because all along she had known that there had to be if not something more, then something different. A dutiful marriage was one path, true-the path that society in general and her mother in particular had decreed for her and she had not struggled against it. But now…Well, suddenly she felt free and it felt rather strange.

She sat down on the wall. The sharp corners of the stone dug into her bottom and thighs and she wriggled to try to get comfortable. She was out of breath. The morning was hot and the sun was climbing high in the sky and she had come out without a bonnet or parasol as well as in her flimsy shoes.

There were men working the fields away to her right. She recognized one of them as Lowell Lister, Lady Vickery’s brother. She had seen him escorting his mother and sister to assemblies in Fortune’s Folly before Alice was wed. He had never asked her to dance, of course. He was a farmer and she was a lady and it would not have been suitable, despite the fact that his sister had inherited a fortune and gone on to marry a lord.

Flora watched idly as Lowell and his men worked the field, cutting the hay. Lowell was as fair as Alice, and deeply tanned from so much time spent in the outdoors. There was a fluid strength about the movement of his body, a supple smoothness in the way that he bent and used the scythe. Flora could see the muscles in his arms cording as he worked methodically down the field. He led his farmhands by example, she thought. He was not the sort of employer who sat watching whilst other men toiled.

Lowell straightened and pushed the fair hair back from his brow. He raised a stone flask to his lips and drank deep, his throat moving as he swallowed. Then he let the hand holding the flask drop to his side and looked straight at Flora. His eyes were the same deep blue as the summer sky. Flora’s heart skipped a beat. Suddenly she felt very, very hot indeed.

He started to walk slowly toward her. A sort of panic rose in Flora’s chest and she scrambled to her feet, catching her skirts on the sharp stone, and hearing something rip. She slid down onto the track and hurried away down the path toward the village without a word. She could sense that Lowell was still watching her-every fiber in her body told her it was so-and after she had gone some twenty paces she turned to look back. He was standing by the wall and in his fingers was a scrap of yellow muslin torn from her gown.

“Wait!” he said.

Flora hesitated. Lowell came down the line of the wall and when he had almost reached her he jumped over in one lithe movement and was standing beside her before she had barely time to draw breath. He seemed so vibrant and alive, so different from any man that she had ever known, that her senses were stunned for a moment. She could smell the grass and the sun on him and when he smiled at her she felt her heart lurch strangely in her chest.

“It’s a hot day to be walking up on the hills,” he said. He had more than a hint of the local accent in his voice. Unlike his mother and sister he had never erased it. “Would you like a drink?” He held out the flask.

Flora took it from him and looked at it dubiously. After a moment Lowell laughed and unstoppered it for her and passed it back. She placed her lips where his had been and drank deeply. The liquid was cold and deliciously refreshing and tasted of apples. She swallowed some more and saw that he was watching her with the laughter still lurking in his eyes. She felt self-conscious then and passed the bottle back to him, wondering if she should have wiped the neck first.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Miss Minchin, isn’t it?” Lowell said. “Flora?”

She liked the way that he said her name. It sounded very pretty.

She nodded. “You are Lowell Lister.”

He sketched an ironic bow. “What are you doing up here alone, Flora?” he said.

“I wanted to think,” Flora said. She was starting to feel rather odd. The sun was filtering through the green leaves of the ash tree beside the wall and dancing in patterns across her eyelids. She wanted to sit down and rest her heavy head against the solid trunk. She looked suspiciously at the flask that was still in Lowell’s hand.

“Is…Is that…cider?” She had heard that cider was dangerous.

Lowell smiled. “It is. Would you like some more?”

“No, thank you,” Flora said. “You should have stopped me. Cider isn’t a suitable beverage for a lady.”

Lowell laughed. “Why should I stop you? Can’t you decide for yourself what it is that you want?”

Flora looked at him. His eyes were the deepest blue but flecked with specks of green and gold and fringed with the blackest lashes.

“Of course I can decide,” she said, offended. She sat down on the bank. “I canceled my wedding today. That was my decision.”

Lowell’s eyes widened. He nodded slowly and sat down beside her. “Was that what you wanted to think about when you came up here?” he asked.

Flora looked sideways at him. His sleeves were rolled up and his forearm, resting beside hers, was tanned dark brown and sprinkled with hairs that gleamed gold in the sun. Flora’s throat felt dry. Perhaps, she thought, I will have some more cider after all.

“Yes,” she said. “I wanted to think about my wedding and about…other things, too.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Lowell said.

“Yes,” Flora said, looking at him and realizing that she wanted to talk to him very much indeed. “Yes, please.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“DEAREST LADY ELIZABETH!” Lady Wheeler gushed. “Such a pleasure to have you with us tonight! So unexpected but so very welcome!” She wafted about Lizzie like an enormous moth, all fluttery arms and flapping draperies. Lizzie hoped that she would not go too near the fire or there might be a disaster.

“You never normally grace our functions,” Lady Wheeler continued. “This is most magnanimous of you!”

“Not at all,” Lizzie murmured. Many of the residents of Fortune’s Folly considered her to be a terrible snob who seldom condescended to join in their events because she was an earl’s daughter and therefore too good for them, but it was in fact because so many people toadied to her so shamelessly that Lizzie tended to avoid their dinners and balls. That, and the fact that Sir Montague neglected his role of guardian so thoroughly and did not give a damn about what she did or did not do.

Lizzie had not in fact had any intention of accompanying her brothers to Lady Wheeler’s dinner that night. She barely spoke to Tom these days, despising him for his treatment of Lydia, and she found Monty little better since all he seemed to do was drink like a fish and plan his next assault on the finances of his villagers. But when Lady Wheeler had called to deliver the invitation in person, her daughter, Mary, had grabbed Lizzie’s arm and dragged her into a side room and begged her to attend.

“You know how much Mama and Papa despise me since Lord Armitage jilted me,” Mary had said, her brown eyes pleading. “They are ready to countenance any suitor now and I cannot bear it. I am sure they will force me to marry Tom or even Sir Montague himself if he makes an offer. I feel like a prize heifer-or perhaps not even the prize one but the one left over at the end of the market that no one wants to buy.”

Lizzie had privately thought that Mary looked rather like a heifer as well, with her big brown cow eyes, but for once she had been kind enough not to make the comparison aloud. “Well, I doubt that you need to worry about Monty,” she had said, trying to sound comforting. “He never had much desire to wed once he had realized he could fleece everyone of their fortunes in other ways. Tom, though-” She had sighed, for it was quite true that Tom would probably marry anything rich in a skirt. He had already called on Flora Minchin as soon as he had heard she was free.

“Please come on Tuesday night,” Mary had pleaded again. “I need you to protect me, Lizzie!”

Lizzie had grudgingly agreed. She had felt sorry for Mary, who had lost her fiancé somewhat abruptly when he had run off with a courtesan. Mary had been hopelessly in love with the worthless Stephen Armitage and his defection had hit her terribly hard. In Lizzie’s opinion Armitage had been a scoundrel and Mary was a fool for languishing with love for him, but that did not make Mary’s pain any the less. With the insight that her feelings for Nat had given her Lizzie could see how much Mary was suffering.

At least she was unlikely to meet Nat at the Wheelers’s house, she thought, as she followed Lady Wheeler into the salon. The Wheelers did not tend to socialize with her set so neither Nat nor any of her other close friends were likely to be present, which was a blessing because it gave her the breathing space she needed. It enabled her to develop the pretense that she was heart whole, helped her to build a new carapace, little by little, step by step, so that she could forget what had happened with Nat and reinvent Lizzie Scarlet, who looked the same on the outside but felt so vulnerable on the inside because she had made a terrible mistake that had rocked the foundations of her world.

Lizzie had not seen Nat for over a week. After she had run away from him that day in Fortune’s Folly, he had called at the Hall every day for five days. Lizzie had pleaded indisposition twice, lied and said that she was not at home a third time and had hidden on the fourth and fifth occasions. Finally Nat had ceased to call and Lizzie had heard from the servants’ gossip that he had been summoned to Water House for a few days because his father was ill. She had felt hugely relieved. She was still quite unable to face him with any composure, her feelings raw, the hurt of loving him and mistaking his feelings for her so painful that it was barely beginning to ease.

She had been less happy to refuse to see her friend Alice Vickery. Alice, too, had called on her several times and Lizzie had wondered if Nat had asked her to visit. She doubted it; Nat would not have told anyone what had happened, of that she was sure. Lizzie missed her friends and hated denying them but all she wanted to do was curl up and hide from anyone who knew her. Alice knew her so well. She would instantly be able to tell that there was something wrong, no matter how much Lizzie pretended. She could not let her friends get close, for it was not in her nature to confide. She had always nursed her grief alone because for most of her life there had been no one to help her bear it. Nat, whom she would once have turned to in her misery and loneliness, was forbidden to her now.

How accommodating Lady Wheeler was, Lizzie thought now, as her hostess led her, along with Monty and Tom, into the salon. Lady Wheeler had disapproved violently of her the week before and called her a hoyden, yet now it seemed she had quite forgotten her censure because Lizzie was still an earl’s daughter, very rich, beautiful and a valued addition to any dinner party. The Wheelers had a debauched son-George-who was hanging out for a rich wife. Lizzie knew that such considerations would far outweigh any criticisms of her behavior. Indeed if she decided to bestow her fortune on George Wheeler her conduct would be applauded as spirited rather than condemned as wild. And sure enough Lizzie could see George waiting to greet her, with his friend Stephen Beynon at his side, and there was Mary, looking rabbit-scared, and a few other of Fortune’s Folly’s gentry and…

Nat Waterhouse.

The Earl of Waterhouse, who, as far as Lizzie knew, had never set foot in Sir James Wheeler’s house before, was standing by the long terrace windows. He looked darkly elegant and austere in his evening clothes and the look he turned on her was cool, with a dangerous edge to it. Lizzie realized suddenly that if she had thought everything over between them she had made a very big mistake. Nat’s look said that they had unfinished business.

Not, Lizzie thought, that Nat had been eschewing female companionship in the meantime. He was making conversation with a willowy blond woman who looked divinely beautiful in an evening gown of soft turquoise adorned with some truly dazzling sapphires. Jealousy hit Lizzie like a thump in the stomach, driving the breath from her body and leaving her sick and dizzy. She vaguely heard Tom make some lewd and appreciative remark to Monty as his gaze took in the Beauty. Sir Montague’s gaze in turn took in the Beauty’s sapphire necklace and a small, gratified smile curled his lips, too.

The jealousy churned in Lizzie’s stomach like poison. Her love for Nat still felt as raw as it had done the previous week. The edges were not even slightly blunted. And seeing him with another woman felt like running a file over that raw emotion, rubbing it to an excruciating pain.

Once before, she remembered, she had been jealous of a woman who had Nat’s attention and she had set herself to eclipse her. That had been poor Flora Minchin, whom she had outshone on the very night Nat and Flora’s betrothal had been announced. Nat had accused her of it that night in the folly and it had been true. It had not been difficult to take the attention from Flora. Flora was quiet and quite plain, a couple of years Lizzie’s senior but in no way Lizzie’s equal except in fortune. But this woman…Fair of hair and brilliant of complexion, with sapphire-blue eyes that perfectly matched her jewels, and a long, sinuous figure swathed in that sensuous, almost transparent fabric, and such town bronze…

If Lizzie had felt jealous of Flora, whom she had always known was no real threat, the pale moon to her own dazzling sun, it was nothing compared to the vicious flare of fury and resentment she felt now. For this woman was not her equal. She was so far out of reach that Lizzie felt smaller than she had done since she was a child, down from the nursery and paraded before the grown-ups for a few brief moments of approval. Her fingers tightened nervously on her fan. Suddenly she felt as though she was in a complicated game she was too young to play. She felt insignificant and anxious but there was no one to bolster her, for Tom had already drifted away to speak to an unwilling Mary Wheeler and Sir Montague was halfway down his first glass of wine and looking around for more. Lizzie wished, oh how she wished, that she had taken out her mother’s jewels that night-the famous Scarlet Diamonds-and flaunted them on her own rather less opulent cleavage.

Lady Wheeler was urging her forward. “Might I introduce my cousin, Lady Priscilla Willoughby? She was widowed last year and is staying with us for a space.”

Lizzie’s feet moved forward automatically. Beneath her jealousy was a cold, empty feeling. She had thought that not having Nat’s love was the worst thing in the world. Now she realized that she had got that wrong. Seeing Nat bestow his love on another woman would be a great deal more painful.

She looked at Nat and saw that he was watching her, his gaze as dark and direct as ever, and she raised her chin and tried to compose her face into a look of perfect indifference rather than one that reflected the rawness she felt inside.

Priscilla Willoughby was still laughing at whatever remark Nat had made to her a moment before and now she turned away from him with obvious reluctance in response to her cousin’s words:

“Lady Elizabeth, may I introduce Lady Willoughby? Priscilla, this is Lady Elizabeth Scarlet.”

“Oh, yes.” The beautiful Priscilla smiled, displaying perfect teeth. Her voice was perfectly modulated, her laugh a perfect little musical tinkle of sound. “How do you do, Lady Elizabeth? Nathaniel-” she turned to smile at Nat “-was telling me that he has known you since you were a child. What a cozy little village you have here!”

Nathaniel, Lizzie thought, not Lord Waterhouse. Informal enough to indicate intimacy but not “Nat”, which was what all Nat’s platonic friends called him. Oh, no, Lady Willoughby had to be different.

“How do you do, Lady Willoughby,” Lizzie said. “Have you known Lord Waterhouse since he was a child?”

Lady Willoughby’s sapphire gaze hardened slightly and she laid one white hand on Nat’s sleeve, squeezing affectionately. “Oh gracious, we are old friends, are we not, Nathaniel? One might almost say old flames!” She gave her little tinkle of laughter again and leaned confidingly toward Lizzie. “Nathaniel and my late husband were great rivals for my hand in marriage.”

“How close the three of you must have been,” Lizzie said. “I trust you made the right choice.” She was aware of Nat’s unwavering gaze on her and conscious too, of the fact that she was in danger of behaving very badly indeed. She could feel the wickedness, her hoyden tendencies, as Lady Willoughby would no doubt call them, building up inside her, seeking a release. But then, surely Nat would not care, would he? Not now that he had the lovely Priscilla, someone of his own age, an old friend, to play with.

“Who knows,” Priscilla said, with a little toss of her perfectly manicured head, “that I may have a second chance anyway?”

“A second chance, or a second choice,” Lizzie said sweetly. “Good evening, Lord Waterhouse. How do you do?”

“I am very well, I thank you, Lady Elizabeth,” Nat said. He took her hand even though she had not offered it.

“And how are you?” he asked. His gaze swept her face and she felt the hot color sting her cheeks as much from the look he gave her as the incendiary burn of his touch. His eyes held a spark of amusement far in their depths; he understood what she was doing with Priscilla, knew she was jealous just as she had been of Flora. She hated herself for giving so much away and she hated him for knowing. For the first time, she was grateful that he thought her to be no more than a spoiled brat who had never been denied the things she had wanted. It saved the further humiliation of him realizing that actually she was so deep in love with him that it ate at her like a canker to see him with someone else. There was a subtle difference there, but in it lay her salvation.

“You were indisposed when I last called,” Nat said. “I trust you are better?”

“Oh, ladies are always suffering from trifling indispositions,” Priscilla Willoughby said brightly. “It means nothing, does it, Lady Elizabeth? We only do it to appear more mysterious.”

“I never trifle,” Lizzie said, removing her hand from Nat’s grip. “Excuse me. I will leave you to renew old acquaintance.”

“I did not expect to find Lord Waterhouse here tonight,” Lizzie said as Lady Wheeler steered her on to greet the next group of friends.

“He came because Priscilla invited him,” Lady Wheeler gushed. “They are such good friends. Is she not the most charming creature? They called her Perfect Priscilla when she was a debutante, you know, Lady Elizabeth, for she was considered so very beautiful and accomplished.”

Perfect Priscilla.

Lizzie ground her teeth. Why did that not surprise her? Perfectly hateful Priscilla.

“Everyone was given a sobriquet like that in those days,” Lizzie said, “or so my mother told me.”

Even Lady Wheeler was not too slow to take the meaning of that remark. She flushed quite red and excused herself.

“It would be cleverer of you to befriend her, you know,” an amused masculine voice said in her ear, and Lizzie turned to see John, Viscount Jerrold, at her elbow, a lopsided smile creasing his good-natured features, his brown eyes bright with mirth. “You have no need to be envious,” he added. “You’re rich, ten years younger and a peerless beauty. Now-will you marry me?”

Lizzie burst out laughing and her sore heart eased a little. Six months before Jerrold had proposed to her and she had turned him down, but it had not been the end of their flirtation. She had sometimes wondered if she had made a mistake in rejecting him. He made her laugh the way that Nat had once done in the days when their friendship had seemed easy and uncomplicated. But on the other hand she had never longed for John Jerrold’s touch the way she ached for Nat in every fiber of her being.

“No, Johnny,” she said. “Not even your title can persuade me. You know I like you too well to wed you. I would be the worst wife in the world.”

Jerrold’s smile widened. “You’re right, of course, Lizzie. You aren’t cut out to be a wife, mine least of all. But I had to ask.”

“Why?” Lizzie sighed. “Are you poor, too? No money with that pretty title you’ve just inherited?”

“None,” Jerrold agreed.

“There’s a rich widow,” Lizzie said, nodding toward Priscilla Willoughby, whose little white hand seemed to have crept up Nat’s arm and was now resting on his lapel in a confiding gesture as she spoke in his ear. “Though she’s probably too proper to be good in bed.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Jerrold said, giving Lady Willoughby a thoughtful look. “Maybe she was called Perfect Priscilla for quite another reason. That gown of hers is not designed for modesty.”

Lizzie smothered her laughter in her glass of wine. “Thank goodness you are here, Johnny,” she said. “I was blue-deviled tonight but now I can have some fun. I believe that you are just as badly behaved as I am.”

“Worse,” Jerrold said. “You are only talk, Lizzie, but I…Well, I follow through.” His eyes narrowed on her face. “What is it? What have I said?”

“Nothing,” Lizzie said hastily. She shivered, rubbing her gloved hands over her bare arms where the goose bumps showed. What was it that Nat had said to her on that secret night in the folly? That she did not have the nerve to carry through the droit de seigneur and seduce him? She had proved that false. She, with her bodice ripped apart and her skirts pulled up, spread open and wantonly giving herself to him with all the wildness that was in her nature…Oh, she had followed through, all the way, through and through. She shuddered. “Nothing,” she said again.

Jerrold was watching her, a frown between his fair brows, and Lizzie turned away from that observant gaze and pointed rather randomly at Mary Wheeler. Tom had briefly left Mary’s side in order to cultivate her parents-clever Tom, Lizzie thought-and Mary was standing looking a little forlorn and gazing into her wineglass. “There is an heiress for you,” she said. “You would be doing her a favor if you snatched her from beneath my brother’s nose before he ruins her. See how Tom is conversing with Sir James and flattering his opinions? And how he is not neglecting to make discreet eyes at Lady Wheeler, too, so that she forgets she is a faded middle-aged woman and thinks herself beautiful again? That is all so that he may gain Mary’s money.”

“Your brother,” Jerrold agreed, an edge to his voice, “could charm almost anyone into forgetting that he is a cad and a scoundrel and a deceiver.”

“He has a talent for it,” Lizzie said. “I think he inherited his charm from our mother. She was accounted the most fascinating woman in England.”

“What happened to her?” Jerrold asked.

“She drank herself to death,” Lizzie said briefly. She did not want to think about Lady Scarlet. Whenever she did those memories of her mother’s warm arms about her were tainted by the equally strong memory of the mingled scent of perfume and strong alcohol.

“If Mary does not please you as a future bride,” she continued, “and I’ll allow she is a little dull, although her money is not, you could make up to Flora Minchin. I hear she is on the market again.”

“You have such a vulgar way of expressing yourself,” Jerrold said, smiling, “but I like you for it.”

The butler announced dinner and Lady Wheeler immediately started fussing around about who should escort whom into the dining room. “Lord Waterhouse!” Her fluting tones were shrill. Matters of precedence always made her nervous. “Should you not escort Lady Elizabeth-”

“Oh, let us not be so formal!” Lizzie interrupted brightly, grabbing Jerrold’s arm. She moved toward the doorway, leaving her hostess irresolute. “Come along, Johnny.”

“Riding roughshod,” Jerrold murmured, but he followed her all the same and Lizzie did not need to linger to see that Nat Waterhouse had offered Priscilla Willoughby his arm.

At dinner Lizzie had Jerrold on one side and George Wheeler on the other. Lizzie suspected that Priscilla had called in a favor from her cousin when it came to the table setting, for she was seated beside Nat and seemed vastly pleased with the arrangement. Nor did Nat seem discontented. Lizzie could not help but notice how engrossed in conversation the old friends seemed to be and the way in which Priscilla’s tempting little hands crept to touch Nat’s wrist or his arm as though to emphasize the points she was making. It made Lizzie’s heart lurch to watch them and yet she did not seem able to pull her gaze away. Time and again she would glance down the table and see Priscilla leaning toward Nat so that her milky-white breasts were bracketed by the tantalizingly ruffled neckline of her gown. Damn her, Lizzie thought. She gave her own discreet debutante bodice a tug downward and saw John Jerrold torn between laughter and appreciation.

She drank some wine and then some more. It was very rough. Sir James Wheeler was known for his parsimony when it came to his wine cellar. The food, in contrast, was rich and fussy. Lizzie picked at it. She flirted with John Jerrold. She felt miserable, but after a few glasses of wine even George Wheeler’s gallantries seemed charming enough.

“Lizzie, you have been drinking,” Mary Wheeler hissed reproachfully when the ladies were obliged to retire at the end of the meal. “And flirting! I saw George kissing your wrist!”

“Mr. Wheeler was merely acquainting himself with my new perfume,” Lizzie said airily. She accepted the cup of tea that Lady Wheeler passed to her. It was very strong. Clearly Lady Wheeler felt that she needed to sober up. Lizzie looked at her and thought what a foolish old buzzard Lady Wheeler was. Like everyone else, she wanted to make Lizzie into a person she was not, a pattern card debutante, perhaps, like Perfect Priscilla. Lizzie felt reckless and angry. She knew this to be a sure sign that she was about to behave very badly. But how was she to misbehave, and with whom? The opportunities were rather limited in Lady Wheeler’s staid drawing room.

“Let us have an impromptu dance,” Tom suggested when the gentlemen rejoined the ladies. “We could push the carpet back and have a little piano music. Lizzie-” he smiled at his sister, a wheedling smile “-plays very well.”

It was true, but Lizzie wanted to dance rather than to play. However, she could see that Lady Wheeler was already seizing upon the plan as a way to confine her and a very naughty idea started to form in her head. She took her place meekly at the pianoforte, waited for the servants to roll back the carpet, and then started on a very sedate minuet. Lady Wheeler’s face relaxed into a relieved smile. Nat and Priscilla trod a stately measure. Lizzie could see Tom taking advantage of the slow steps of the dance to woo Mary. He threw Lizzie a grateful, conspiratorial smile and Lizzie smiled grimly back. She moved into a rather livelier country-dance. The mood in the room lifted, the dancers smiled, those who were sitting out started to chat. The wine circulated again and the candles glowed. At the end there was a smattering of applause and the servants brought in more refreshment. Lizzie had managed to slip a glass of wine from under Lady Wheeler’s nose. She took a gulp and started to sing, very demurely:

“As Oyster Nan stood by her tub

To show her inclination

She gave her noblest parts a scrub

And sighed for want of copulation-”

“More refreshments!” Lady Wheeler bellowed, clapping her hands. She seized Lizzie by the elbow and almost dragged her from the piano stool.

“Mary, dear!” she caroled. “It is your turn to play now. We really must not trespass too much on Lady Elizabeth’s good nature!”

“Splendid singing, Lizzie,” John Jerrold said, whisking her into the country-dance as Mary struck the first chord. “I was disappointed not to hear verse two.”

“I will give you a private rendition of it one day,” Lizzie promised, and he looked at her, brows raised, his brown gaze suddenly speculative.

“Careful, Lizzie. I might hold you to that.”

Lizzie was enjoying herself. The room was spinning, the candles dancing in beautiful golden leaps and curves. Mary was a far better musician than she was and was playing very nicely indeed. Lizzie executed a turn, lost her footing and almost tripped. Jerrold grabbed her in his arms to prevent her from falling. It was rather nice to be in his arms. He felt strong. Lizzie could see Nat watching her-he and Priscilla were not dancing such an energetic country-dance, of course-and there was a heavy frown on his forehead now. Priscilla was whispering to him secretively behind her fan. And close by Sir James Wheeler was not even bothering to lower his voice.

“The chit is a hoyden, Vera! How you can possibly consider her suitable for George is quite beyond me.”

And Lady Wheeler’s reply: “James, when a rich, titled heiress behaves like a hoyden then she is merely displaying high spirits.”

“I don’t think that they should get their hopes up for George,” Lizzie hiccupped in Jerrold’s ear. “He has no chance of securing either my fortune or my person.”

“Hush,” Jerrold said, putting a hand over her mouth. “You do not want to offend Lady Wheeler too deeply.” He bent closer to her. “Would you like to take some air on the terrace?”

Lizzie looked at him. He was not inviting her outside so that she could sober up. She knew that. They would go out into the dark and he would kiss her and she…Well, she would respond because she was curious to know if he was any good at kissing and after all it did not really matter who she kissed now because Nat did not love her…She might even go further if she liked the way Jerrold kissed, because everyone would know anyway that she was a flirt and a wanton so why not? Perhaps it would make her feel less miserable. She felt the edges of her mind starting to fray with despair and jumped when someone spoke from close by.

“Jerrold.” It was Nat’s voice, very hard and very cold now. “If I might cut in?”

Lizzie saw the smile wiped from John Jerrold’s face like a candle blown out. The sudden tension in the air made her spine prickle as the little shivers ran down it.

“Of course, Waterhouse.” Jerrold conceded gracefully, with a bow. “Lady Elizabeth…”

“Do you mind?” Lizzie snapped as Nat’s hand closed about her wrist and he drew her inexorably to the side of the room. “I was enjoying myself-”

“That is all too evident,” Nat said grimly.

“It is Monty’s job to take care of me, not yours,” Lizzie said, nodding toward where her elder brother was dozing before the fire, face flushed, the inevitable glass of wine in his hand. He might not have inherited their mother’s fabled looks and charm, she thought, but he had certainly inherited her taste for drink. The misery twisted in her again.

“Not that I need anyone to protect me,” she finished, and hated the forlorn tone that had somehow crept into her voice.

“Can we talk about that?” Nat asked. His gloved hand still rested gently on her wrist and Lizzie looked from it up into his face and found that she could not seem to look away. Had she ever looked at Nat properly before, she wondered. She knew what he looked like, of course. She had seen him so many times during her childhood and youth that she could describe him with her eyes closed. But had she ever stopped to think about the way in which his features had changed as he, too, had grown older, developing from the youth she had known into the man he was now; how the curves and planes of his face had grown leaner and hardened with experience, how the lines had deepened about his eyes and his hair had darkened to the ebony it was now in the firelight?

Had she noticed when first the stubble had started to shadow his cheeks and chin and when the expression in his eyes had changed from the bright eagerness of youth to this watchful calculation? She did not think that she had detected the precise moment. She did not remember why Nat had changed nor how. He was just Nat and he had been there for her from the moment she had arrived at Fortune Hall, a lonely child who had lost both her parents and had been forced to start a new life in a new place with people she did not know.

But now Nat was no longer simply a youth she had once known or a man who had become her friend. She felt a pang of loss although she was not exactly sure what it was she had misplaced. Perhaps she mourned losing the easy friendship they had once had, for despite the disparity in their ages they had been close and their friendship had been warm and valuable and precious to her. Or perhaps what she regretted was that she had not seen until it was too late that her respect for Nat, her need to hold his good opinion, had been so important to her. She wished she had realized sooner how deeply she had fallen in love with him. Instead she had been blinded by her pride; she had been in denial about her feelings, pretending that her jealousy was disinterested friendship and that she was acting from the purest of motives when really she wanted Nat for herself with the fierceness of a tigress.

“Lizzie?” Nat’s voice had softened now. Perhaps he had seen the bewilderment in her eyes and heard that unhappy tone in her voice. He wanted to protect her. She knew it. Damn it, protecting her was what he had always done. But now it was only a part of what she wanted from him. If she did not have his love then to offer her his protection out of a sense of duty, was simply not enough. She wanted his passion and his wildness and his primitive anger and possession and all the things she had seen in him that night in the folly. But she wanted his tenderness and his love as well, to meet and match with hers, and that was not what he was offering.

“No,” she said, meeting his eyes, “there is nothing to talk about.”

She freed herself from his touch and walked quickly toward the door. She was tired now and the reckless edge the wine had given her was ebbing from her blood. She wanted to go home. She would send the carriage back for Tom and Monty, send, too, a gracious note of thanks to Lady Wheeler in the morning to prove that she was not entirely bereft of good manners.

Nat was still standing where she had left him. Even as she thought that he would not make a scene in a public place by demanding to accompany her or to speak further with her she realized that she had made a serious mistake. There was a single-minded resolve in Nat now that would not baulk at causing a scene. She saw him start to move toward her with absolute determination-and then Priscilla Willoughby drifted across to him and claimed his attention with a hand on his arm, and Lizzie whipped though the door as quickly as a cat and slipped away, her heart beating fast.

It was warm in the carriage and she was alone and she felt unhappy so she reached for the hip flask that she knew Monty kept concealed there. Actually it was not very well concealed, merely shoved under a cushion. She took it out and drank from it and the brandy was villainously strong and almost made her choke, but she could feel her body relaxing, too, and her mind turning numb again. It made her happier. For a little while.

CHAPTER SIX

HE WAS SO ANGRY he thought that he would explode. He was angry with a special sort of fury that only Lizzie could arouse in him, a mixture of protectiveness and complete exasperation.

Nat had made his excuses to Lady Wheeler, and given his apologies to Priscilla Willoughby, whom he had shed with a ruthlessness she deserved. When had Priscilla become so shockingly persistent? He did not remember her being so pushy as a debutante, but then he had been fathoms deep in love with her in his salad days and so had probably not minded her draping herself all over him and claiming his attention at every possible opportunity. Now her clinging only served to irritate him when all he wanted was to talk to Lizzie. He had to confront her. The need to do his duty, to offer Lizzie the protection of his name, drove him. So did the need to have her in his bed.

He had followed Lizzie back to Fortune Hall and seen her tumble out of the carriage. He had been prepared to accost her on the doorstep, but then she had bidden the coachman and groom good-night and had started to walk away from the house and toward the woods instead. Nat did not approve of her strolling around in the dark on her own, of course, but it did at least give him the opportunity to speak with her alone and he had been waiting for that for over a week. He had called; he had looked everywhere for her. The servants had told him that she was sick, she was out, no one knew where she was. Nat had not believed a word of it and if he had not been called back so abruptly to visit his family he would have forced Lizzie to see him before now.

“Lizzie!” He caught up with her on the edge of the wood and as soon as she turned toward him he could smell the brandy on her and see the flask dangling from between her fingers, gleaming silver in the moonlight. His heart sank. He knew that Monty Fortune had a problem with alcohol; he knew, too, that Lizzie’s mother had died abroad, an old soak, people said, disgraced and abandoned. He could not bear to think of the same thing happening to Lizzie herself if she turned to drink in her unhappiness.

“Nat.” He had expected her to run away from him as she had done before, or at least to tell him to leave her alone, but she did neither. She stood blinking at him whilst the light and the shadows played around her and turned the rich auburn of her hair to dark.

“You’re drunk,” Nat said taking, the flask from her and throwing it into the bushes. “You took too much wine tonight and now you’re on the brandy.”

“You are a spoilsport.” She pouted. So she was sweet drunk not angry drunk. It did not appease him. Fear for her mingled with his exasperation. It was as though she lived on a high wire. He did not understand what it would take to bring her safely back to earth.

“There wasn’t any left in the flask anyway,” she said. She turned and walked away from him, into the moonlight. It sculpted her face in silver making her look pale and fey, a fairy from another world. Nat looked at her with her bodice slipping and her shawl sliding off her shoulders. She had pulled the neckline of her gown down too far earlier and the curve of one small breast showed now. He wanted to trace the line of it with his finger. He wanted that quite badly. Lizzie did not have Priscilla’s opulent curves. He had noticed them since Priscilla had been thrusting her breasts in his face all night. It had not attracted him. He had wanted Lizzie’s delicacy instead. He wanted her so much that he ached.

“John Jerrold wouldn’t have thrown the flask away.” She was taunting him now. “He would have fetched me more brandy.”

“Jerrold is a bad influence on you,” Nat said. She was surrounded by bad influences, her dead parents, her drunkard elder brother, her profligate younger one, now John Jerrold. He had wanted to hit Jerrold and it was not solely for his lack of judgment in encouraging Lizzie’s drinking. If she had gone outside with Jerrold would he have found them with Jerrold’s hand down her bodice or up her skirt?

“I was only flirting with him,” Lizzie said. Her smile was sweet, her eyes wide and bright.

“You were playing reckless games.” Nat sighed heavily. She looked so young in the moonlight with her gown falling off her like a child let loose in the dressing up box. “You don’t know how dangerous it is,” he said coldly. “Jerrold wanted to kiss you-”

“I’ve kissed other people before.” Lizzie sounded cross, defiant. “It is not just you, Nat. I know how to go about it.”

Dear God, he didn’t want to think about it. Other men kissing Lizzie, plundering that soft, sweet mouth of hers as he had done…And tonight she had been flirting as though her life depended upon it, tempting them with other liberties far beyond mere kissing. There was knowledge in her eyes and the promise of temptation. How far would she go? As far as she had gone with him? He would kill any man who took her up on that offer because it was his fault that she had the experience to follow through.

“You must marry me,” he said, following that train of thought. “It is the only way to put matters right.”

“No.” She swung away from him. “What you mean is that it is the only way to make you feel better.”

Devil take it, he thought, she was right. He felt all manner of emotions, of which guilt was only a small part. Self-loathing, disgust at his lack of control, regret at the way in which he had obliged Flora to free him and now an equal regret that he and Lizzie were trapped by their situation…And then there was the almost paralyzing fear over the need to gain a fortune and quickly, for his sister’s sake if nothing else, to end the blackmail…

But there was also that deep and undeniable sensual attraction to Lizzie, too, which seemed undiminished by the guilt and reproach, a wicked, dangerous desire that tempted him to take her again because he wanted her. He wanted her with a hunger so sharp and so deep that it made his breath catch. Lizzie had made love in the same way that she did everything else in life-with hunger, with recklessness, with an appetite that left no space for caution or care.

“Lizzie,” he said, “what if you have a child?”

Her face seemed carved from stone in the moonlight. “I won’t.”

“Do you know that or are you just being wilfully stubborn?”

She made no reply and suddenly he realized with a pang of the heart that the blank look on her face was not obstinacy but fear, that her persistent refusal to face the truth sprang from terror. Lady Elizabeth Scarlet might be twenty years old yet she was still little more than a child herself in temperament. It was one of the reasons why he had always taken care of her, because she had seemed so dangerously careless of herself.

“I won’t,” she said again. “There will be no child.”

“Do you know that for sure?” Nat pressed, wondering as he did so why he was asking. It made no difference to him or to what he had done. Even if there were to be no obvious consequence of their mad, mindless passion, it had still happened and he still had to put it right.

“I don’t feel any different,” Lizzie said. She sounded very young. “I am sure that if I were pregnant I would be able to tell.”

Nat almost laughed but he had heard the edge of fear in her voice again, the note that betrayed her.

“I do not believe one can always tell at first,” he said carefully.

She shot him a look that was full of defiance. “How would you know? You are a man.”

She had a point, Nat thought. But even so…

“How long is it until you expect your courses?” he said, very careful again. He saw her blush pink even under the pale gilding of the moonlight. She might be wild but she was not so immodest as to be familiar discussing intimacies with a man.

“I…in about five days time, I think. Perhaps a little less…I never pay much attention to them.” She raised her chin. “I think it stupid to let such matters govern one’s behavior.”

Well, quite. He could imagine that Lizzie would not let such a trifling matter interfere with her riding or her other activities as many women did. Nevertheless it would have been useful if she had paid more attention to them because by his calculations that put their night of mad passion in exactly the most dangerous time of the month.

“Then I think it essential we wed by special licence as soon as possible,” he said.

“And I think it better that we do not wed at all,” Lizzie said.

Nat looked at her, wondering if she was trying to deny both what had happened and what the consequences might be. He wondered if she wanted children. They had never talked about it. He had thought that they were friends and yet there were so many things that they had never discussed. He wanted children-with the right mother. He had always imagined that he would marry someone like Flora, or Priscilla Willoughby, who were dutiful and well-bred and would surely give birth to dutiful and well bred offspring. Was it wrong to think that Lizzie could not be a good mother, twenty years old and yet still behaving like a child herself? The only real example of motherhood she had had was the Countess of Scarlet, who had been selfish and neglectful.

Lizzie had walked away from him again, graceful as she dipped in and out of the shadows. The leaves rustled in the night breeze and it spun tendrils of her hair.

“You are free,” she said, over her shoulder. “There will be no child. I am sure of it. So no one will know what happened and we can pretend that nothing did.”

“We can pretend…”

Nat was shocked to realize just how tempted he was to turn his back on what had happened and join in the pretence. A marriage made in hell, not heaven, with the possibility of a child that had never been planned…

How easy it would be to put honor aside and agree with her, play along with the charade.

“No one will know…”

He had thought from the first that Lizzie would make the devil of a wife. They were not well suited. In point of fact they were not suited at all. A marriage between them would probably be a disaster. Yet how could he, in honor, join her in her pretense?

It was not just honor, he acknowledged. It was greed for the money. He had to have it. And it was lust. Having once tasted Lizzie’s tempting beauty he was tormented by her. It was not a good reason for marriage, in his opinion, but it was better than asking her to be his mistress. He wanted her here, now, against this tree, or on the grass beneath them. He had never felt like this before, had never been possessed by such single-minded desire. It still shocked him because he simply was not a man driven by his lusts. Except that he evidently was.

“No.” He caught her arm. She felt warm beneath his touch. “I know,” he said roughly. “You know. Even if there is no child, even if no one else ever found out, we two would know what happened.”

“So?” She raised her chin. “I can forget.”

Nat thought about how impossible he found it to erase the memory of how she felt in his arms. He could not forget that. There was a tumult of intense emotion within him, the desire, the need, and the longing. He slid his hands up her arms, drawing her toward him. He moved with unmistakable deliberation so that she had time to escape him if she wished, but she stood quite still, watching him with those huge, clear eyes.

“Have you forgotten this?” he asked, in the second before his mouth covered hers. “Do you want to forget it?”

Delicious. Hot. Urgent. She matched his passion effortlessly and for a moment Nat felt the world spin and he was in danger of losing control in the same way that he had done the week before. She tasted so sweet, a mixture of brandy and something that was her own essence, fiery, tempting and yet poignantly innocent. She held nothing back and that was almost his undoing. With a fierce effort he reined himself in and kissed her more gently, teasing her tongue with his, courting her response rather than demanding it. Her tongue slid against his, seeking, a little hesitant in her inexperience and all the more seductive for it. And suddenly, helplessly, they were sliding toward heated passion once again and reality splintered around him and he was aware of nothing but his driving need for her as he gathered her closer and the feelings consumed him alive.

It was Lizzie who drew back this time. She was panting for breath. For a brief moment the moonlight shimmered on some expression in her eyes that he did not recognize and could not read and then she moved away from him and the shadows fell across her face and swallowed her up.

“No,” she said. “I have not forgotten it.”

He came after her, still driven by need, and caught her hand. “Then marry me, Lizzie.”

“So that we can make love again?” Her tone was light, unrevealing. “It isn’t a good enough reason, Nat.”

In that moment it felt like the best reason in the world to him. Devoured by his lust for her, single-minded in his desire, he could think of none better. But Lizzie had freed herself. Her hand slid from his and once again she slipped away.

“I do not wish to marry you,” she said. “You know we would not be suited. Even as friends we fight like cat and dog. It would be willfully foolish to make matters worse by marrying each other.” She sighed. “This isn’t like the time I fell from my horse when we were out riding together and you carried me home, Nat. This time you cannot rescue me. We made a mistake, I provoked you and you were angry with me and it should never have happened.”

Nat could not dispute a single thing that she said, except that he knew that mistakes of that magnitude could not simply be brushed aside.

“You must marry me,” he said. “It will put matters right.”

“So now you give me a different reason,” Lizzie said. “First the possibility of a child, then lust, now reputation.” She looked at him, a mocking half smile tilting her lips. “And you have not even mentioned my money yet.”

She was so cynical, Nat thought. It was experience of life that had made Lizzie such a skeptic for she had seen from an early age the things men-and women-did for money. And the hell of it was that she was absolutely right. He had not mentioned the money because out of all of his motives it seemed the least honorable, yet to him it was becoming the most pressing need. He simply had to pay off his blackmailer before the truth of his sister’s disgrace was spilled before the world like an ugly stain.

“There are lots of reasons why we should wed,” he argued.

“I do not see it like that,” Lizzie said. “I see lots of reasons why we should not.”

She was so stubborn that Nat wanted to shake her. “Lizzie,” he said. “It will give you the protection of my name. Someone might know what happened. They might have known you were out that night…the servants…You know how they gossip. You would be ruined if it came out, even if you are not pregnant.”

She looked up. Her eyes were bright, vivid in the moonlight. Her words were an echo of his thoughts a moment before. “You are always seeking to protect me, Nat Waterhouse.”

“And never has there been greater need.”

Lizzie stood looking at him thoughtfully, head on one side as though he were a specimen for examination. Nat was not sure he liked it.

“Always you seek to care for people,” she said. “Your family, me, even the work that you do for the Home Secretary to keep the country safe…” She left a question hanging in the air. Why?

Nat knew full well what it was the drove him, but he did not want to discuss it. Once, years before, he had failed to protect those who depended on him and he had resolved that it would never happen again. Which was why he needed not only to keep Lizzie safe from the consequences of their reckless passion but also to gain her fortune so that his family and Celeste were secure, too. It was his absolute duty and he would not fail in it.

“It is what I do,” he said stubbornly.

Lizzie shook her head, disappearing between the trees, almost as though she were slipping through his fingers like water. He followed her, realizing even as he did so that it was always like this. She always ran away; he always followed. The knowledge irritated him. Was he so predictable, so reliable? It seemed so. And yet he could not simply let her go to face the consequences of their actions alone.

“Lizzie.” He caught her and held her. She did not pull away from him and yet she did not feel willing in his arms, either. It was as though she was enduring his embrace and waiting for it to pass. He wanted to force a response from her to prove that the desire had not only been on his side that night. A moment ago, when they had kissed, he had been sure that she had been as eager for him as he was for her. Yet there was nothing in her now to indicate that she wanted him. He looked down into her face, so beautifully etched in black and white in the moonlight, and felt again the need that he had for her slam through his body with each beat of his heart.

“No,” she said again. She smiled at him. “Marriage should be about the future, Nat, not just the past.” She stood up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his. It was a wistful kiss. He could taste the brandy on her lips again and beneath its smell catch an elusive hint of Lizzie’s own scent. It went straight to his head-and his groin. “But I do thank you,” she whispered as she slipped from his arms. “You are a good man, Nat Waterhouse. You try to do the right thing.”

It sounded, Nat thought with grim amusement, like an epitaph. And it was far more than he deserved. Not all his motives were pure. Most of them were not.

He watched as she crossed the meadow toward the house. The carriage was returning from the Wheelers now and Sir Montague was being helped down by one of the footmen. He seemed too drunk to stand. Nat watched as Lizzie called for Sir Monty’s valet, Spencer, to assist them and calmly organized the removal of her half brother from the gravel sweep into the house. Of Tom Fortune there was no sign. The one brother was insensible with drink, Nat thought, and the other was probably in bed with the serving wench from the Morris Clown Inn. Of the three of them, Lizzie was by far the strongest, most courageous, and most admirable.

He wondered how he was going to persuade her to marry him. She might think that she had a choice. She might even be more mature, more sensible than he, in seeing that to marry would be to condemn them both to a life of misery. Unfortunately he could not let that weigh with him. The letter he had received that morning, reminding him of his financial obligations, threatening his sister Celeste, had helped to seal Lizzie’s fate. She would be his bride. He had no other alternative.

“DID YOU ENJOY THAT?” Tom Fortune asked. He propped himself on one elbow and trailed a lazy finger down the bare back of the woman who was lying next to him. She gave a sleepy purr of total satiation and rolled onto her side. The bed sheet lay tangled about her thighs, revealing the dark triangle of hair at the juncture of her legs, and she made absolutely no effort to cover herself. Tom liked that. He liked a woman who was shameless in her sexual needs. This woman, he thought, might hold his interest for several weeks. He suspected she knew all the whore’s tricks and would not be slow to use them.

He reached out and started to toy with her breast. She was extremely well endowed, her flesh curving into his hand as he played with her. He liked that as well. He wanted her again already, even though they had only just finished making love. He corrected himself. They had not made love. There had been nothing of love or tenderness in their coupling, nothing but a raw greed and sensuality. Which suited Tom fine. At last he had found someone to play with who matched him perfectly in terms of her lack of moral scruple.

“I hear,” he said, touching a finger to the sapphires that were still about her neck, “that you are very rich.”

She laughed. “And I hear that you are a fortune hunter.” She trailed her hand down his chest. “Tom Fortune,” she said. “How inappropriate when you are penniless.”

He kissed her, hard and deep, one hand covering her breast the other tangled in her long blond hair. “Perhaps we could share your money?” he suggested when they broke apart.

“Are you proposing to me?” Her sapphire eyes mocked him. “Here, now? How romantic.” Her languid gesture swept over the tumbled sheets and the frowsty little tavern room. “No, dear Tom-” she took his erection in her hand, stroked, rubbed, fondled him with such ruthless efficiency that he struggled not to come there and then “-you are good for one thing-” She squeezed his cock to make her point. “and at that you are very good indeed, my dear-but not to marry. I have other plans. Don’t come,” she added sweetly as he struggled with both his anger and his arousal, and the fusion of both of them into a mad desire, “I need you.”

With a swift, voracious movement she straddled him and took him inside her. He gasped aloud.

“Your plans-” he said, grabbing her hips to control the tantalizing pace she set. “Do they involve Nat Waterhouse? Do you want to be a countess?”

She checked for a second and her eyes narrowed. He felt a flash of triumph and a return of a modicum of control. With this woman, he suspected, it would always be a battle.

“They might,” she said, punishing him with the most shallow of movements atop him. “I might. Why do you ask?”

“Because-” Tom was struggling to keep his mind clear against the onslaught of sensation. “Because if so you should know that your gallant earl is not as honorable as you might think.”

She was so surprised that she stopped moving altogether. Her palms rested on his chest. Her thighs pressed closely against his. He was captured, encased, held still.

“Whatever can you mean?” she said.

“I can’t tell you that,” Tom said, savagely pleased to be able to thwart her. “Trust me, though-he is not as worthy as you think.”

She squeezed him tight and he writhed beneath her, groaning. “Do you have some sort of hold over him?” she asked. “Are you extorting money from him?”

“I wouldn’t tell you if I was,” Tom panted.

“I suppose not.” She started to move again and Tom felt relief and a renewed hunger. “Perhaps it just makes him more exciting,” she whispered. “Perhaps he would not be as boring in bed as I suspected-”

Tom rolled over suddenly, impaling her beneath him. “Are you thinking about him now?” he demanded, his mouth hot against her breast, biting hard, wanting to mark her white skin.

She gasped, but not with displeasure, and arched upward to his mouth.

“I might be,” she whispered.

Tom pulled on her nipples until she screamed.

“You think about your plans,” he taunted, “and I will think about mine.”

“Not my frumpish little cousin Mary,” she gasped as he started to drive into her with ferocious strokes. “She’s so dull.”

“But her money is lovely,” Tom said. He forced her legs further apart. “I worship it. Lovely,” he repeated as the violence of his thrusts almost lifted her from the bed. “Lovely.”

LATER, MUCH LATER, Sir Montague Fortune awoke in his bedroom at Fortune Hall. Lizzie had instructed the servants to put him to bed but Spencer, his valet, had done the bare minimum of work and merely removed his jacket and cravat, not even bothering to take off his boots. Nor had the man closed the curtains and it was the moonlight, falling across his face, which woke Sir Monty up. For a moment he lay quite still, for his head hurt vilely and there was an unaccustomed sickly sweet taste in his mouth. Then he realized that he needed both the jakes and a drink of water, and he groaned. His whole body felt soft and leaden at the same time, too heavy to move. He knew he should not have had that last glass of claret, but he had been celebrating the advent of yet more money into his coffers. He had never planned to wed, but now he could see what a splendid and enriching idea it was…

The moonlight flickered as a shadow crossed the room and Sir Monty turned his head. His heart jumped. Just for a moment he thought that he had seen the figure of a woman there; a woman in a cloak with her hood up carrying, most bizarrely, what looked like an umbrella in her hand. But there was no one there. The moonlight rippled across the room and Sir Monty groaned again and closed his eyes.

He did not see the blade and only opened his eyes a second before the knife slid silently between his ribs and by then it was too late to do anything at all.

CHAPTER SEVEN

LIZZIE WOKE with a headache from the brandy and a bad taste in her mouth. The house was silent. Monty, she knew from past experience, had taken so much drink that he would not wake until past noon. Tom was probably not even home yet though the bright yellow of the sun cutting through the gap between the curtains told her that it must be late morning.

What had happened the night before? Her evening gown and shawl were lying in a puddle on the floor. Her evening slippers, resting in a patch of sunlight, looked discolored and spoiled. She stared at them and the memory flooded in, pushing back the tide of brandy-induced forgetfulness. Of course-she had walked into the wood, amongst the dew-stained grass. That was why the hem of her gown and slippers were ruined.

Other memories were impossible to ignore. Nat had followed her and had proposed marriage to her and she had turned him down. He had kissed her and it had been as deliciously seductive as before. The temptation to melt into his embrace and promise to wed him had been so strong. But instead she had found the strength to reject him. She loved him too much to condemn them both to half a marriage. She knew that he did not love her, and marriage, to her mind, should be about the building of a future relationship, not about regrets over a past one. Love should be overwhelming and all consuming, the type of love she felt for Nat and that he so manifestly did not feel for her. Otherwise there was too much inequality in it.

Nat had kissed her with lust and this time she had not confused it with love. Desire was delicious, hot, strong, seductive, but she had been burned so badly that night in the folly, confusing lust with love in her naïveté, that she was never going to make the same mistake again.

She thought of her mother then, as she so often did when she was unhappy. The Countess of Scarlet had been reviled for her unfaithfulness, but the truth, as Lizzie well knew, was that her mother had been a victim of love not a heartless wanton. She had run away from a husband who gave her everything in a material sense and nothing in an emotional one. Lizzie had only been young when her mother had fled but she had sensed Lady Scarlet’s unhappiness with the acute sensitivity that children can possess. She had known that her mother wanted nothing other than her husband’s love and had been driven to despair by the lack of it. People thought that her mother’s bad example should be a warning to Lizzie and it was, but not in the way they imagined. All it had taught Lizzie was not to give her heart when there was no prospect of seeing her love returned. She had forgotten that, briefly, that night in the folly. She had loved Nat and thought she was loved in return. She had been wrong and now she was never going to forget that painful reminder.

So it was over. She felt miserable. Nat had proposed and she had refused and that was an end to it. Now she really was free to forge that pretence, to remake her memories, wiping out that night in the folly whilst the days, weeks, months passed and after a while the new memory became the truth.

Nothing happened…

She sat up and hunted about for her underclothes. There was no point in calling for a maid. Tom had tried to seduce her most recent lady’s maid and the girl had left in high dudgeon a week ago. There was only Bridie, the housemaid, left to do everything. Besides, she could manage perfectly well on her own. She always had done.

What if there was a child…

Nat’s words echoed unbidden through her head and she froze for a second, her blood feeling stone-cold despite the warmth of the summer morning. That was one aspect of her situation she had blindly refused even to consider until Nat had put it into words the previous night.

She allowed her hand to slide down over her night rail, following the flat planes of her stomach. She looked the same. She felt the same. In fact she felt sick, but that was the brandy rather than anything else. She could not be pregnant. That truly would be a disaster. The thought of it terrified her. It was all very well for Laura Anstruther, for example, to have a child. Laura was old-at least thirty-and already had a daughter and anyway, she was a grown-up. And Lydia Cole-well, Lydia’s pregnancy had caused a most terrible scandal but Lydia herself would be a wonderful mother because she was so sane and so calm and so loving that she could surely look on her baby and feel all the right emotions rather than the sheer terror that Lizzie would feel if only she permitted herself to think about it for a second…Her thoughts ran wild like rats in a trap until she took a deep breath and calmed herself.

Nothing happened…

Her heart steadied. She would carry on as before. What to do today? Life felt strangely empty. All her tomorrows stretched out before her now and it was odd that she could think of nothing that she wanted to do with them. She realized that so many of her activities had been shared with Nat in the past. They had particularly enjoyed riding out together. A summer morning like this was made for a gallop on the Yorkshire fells. Except that she would be going out on her own in future.

She found a clean gown folded in the wardrobe and struggled to put it on, bundling her hair up with a ribbon. When she threw back the curtains the sunshine was bright and hot, pouring into the room and showing up the dust and cobwebs. Something had to be done about Fortune Hall, Lizzie thought. It was going to rack and ruin whilst Monty grasped after people’s money and spent it all on drink. Soon-in two months time, in fact-he would be entitled to enforce the Dames’ Tax and to take half the dowry of any heiress left in the village who had not wed. That included her, of course. She was the only heiress left, apart from Flora Minchin and Mary Wheeler. Monty’s money-grubbing ways really had to be stopped once and for all, Lizzie thought. She knew that Laura Anstruther had instructed her lawyers to start working on the case the previous year. She needed to talk to Laura and see what they could do about Monty. She would go to the Old Palace after she had scraped together some breakfast. She could see Laura and Lydia, too, and inquire after their health, for both were advanced in their pregnancy now. And she need have no fear that her friends would suspect that anything was wrong with her because all was settled.

Nothing happened…Lizzie remembered her childish nightmares, and how she would pretend that if she did not look at the monsters that would mean that they really weren’t there at all.

She went out onto the landing. The door of Monty’s bedroom was closed whilst that of Tom’s stood ajar with the light streaming out into the corridor. Dust motes jumped and danced in the sunlight. The plaster was peeling from the walls and the floorboards creaked beneath Lizzie’s feet. At times like this Fortune Hall seemed every one of its three hundred and more years old. It feels like I do, Lizzie thought, old and worn. She had come to Fortune Hall to live with her half brothers after her father had died. She had been eleven years old and to be plunged from the warmth, laughter and hedonism of Scarlet Park into the peeling and decrepit existence of Fortune Hall had been a terrible shock. Scarlet Park had been a bright, shining world. Fortune Hall was its opposite in every way.

Shivering, Lizzie hastened down the wide wooden stairs and into the kitchen, where a sullen youth was listlessly sweeping the flagged floor and the kitchen maid was peeling a pile of rotting vegetables and grumbling to the Cook at the same time. They all smiled as Lizzie came in though, and Cook pushed a plate of eggs and gammon toward her along the trencher table.

“There you are, pet,” she said. “Thought you might need something solid after last night. You should keep off the brandy,” she added, “or your head will be as addled as your brother’s.”

“God forbid,” Lizzie said, shuddering. She looked at the plate of congealing food and felt her stomach lurch. How on earth did the servants know of her drinking habits? Nat was right when he said they knew everything. She felt a little shiver of apprehension.

“Get it down you,” Cook said, slapping a beaker of strong tea down beside her. “Nothing’s so sovereign for the headache, in my experience.”

Lizzie managed to force some of the gammon down and drank the tea, then clapped a bonnet haphazardly over her head before setting off down the drive toward the village. None of the gardeners were about. The weeds grew plentifully through the gravel and even Sir Monty’s flower garden, for many years his pride and joy, was a tangle of nettles and dock now that he had abandoned gardening as a pursuit in favor of stealing people’s money.

Lizzie walked along the river to Laura’s house, The Old Palace. The day was hot and the water glinted appealingly in the sun. Lizzie’s spirits lifted as she contemplated a swim later on. As a child she had swum in the lake at Scarlet Park and then the moat at the Hall and she had no time for the shrinking of those who considered bathing to be unhealthy and unladylike.

She could hear voices on the terrace as she approached The Old Palace and coming up through the meadow gate she found not only Laura Anstruther and Lydia Cole but Alice Vickery as well. They were sitting beneath the shade of an enormous striped umbrella and taking tea. Laura and Lydia looked hugely pregnant for they were both near their time now and as Lizzie stood unnoticed in the shadow of the gate, she felt another pang of emotion like the one that had struck her earlier as she was dressing. The mysteries of motherhood were utterly unfamiliar to her and she was not sure that she could even begin to comprehend them, yet there was something about having a child that felt infinitely precious to her even as it terrified her. She took a deep breath. It would not happen to her. She was sure of it. It was better simply not to think about it at all and pretend once more that nothing had happened. She pushed open the gate and went forward onto the terrace, a smile firmly fixed on her face.

“Laura, you are blossoming!” she said. “I am so glad to see you well!”

“Lizzie!” Laura’s face broke into a warm smile and she grasped Lizzie’s hands and drew her forward to kiss her cheek. She had been sick for most of her pregnancy but now she was indeed looking extremely well, her skin glowing and a very warm and contented smile in her eyes. “We were worried about you,” she added. “Alice said that she had called several times but that you were either indisposed or from home. I would have come myself but it takes me a good half hour to move five paces!”

“I’m sorry,” Lizzie said contritely, going across to kiss Lydia and Alice before taking a seat back beside Laura on a long, cushioned bench in the shade of the parasol. “It was only a trifling chill and I am quite well now.” She did not miss the look that flashed between Alice and Lydia. She knew what it meant. They were her best friends and they knew her so well and they did not believe her. They knew she had never had a day’s illness in her life.

“Lemonade or tea, Lizzie?” Laura asked, breaking the rather odd moment. “And would you like some plum cake?”

“If Alice has made it then yes please,” Lizzie said, smiling at Alice. “And I shall have lemonade please, Laura.”

“We heard that you were at Lady Wheeler’s dinner last night,” Alice said, her blue eyes bright as they rested on Lizzie’s face. “Mary called this morning. She said that Viscount Jerrold was paying you a great deal of attention.”

“Oh, Johnny is an old friend of mine, as you know,” Lizzie said lightly. She noticed that Lydia had blushed a little at the mention of John Jerrold’s name and she wondered at it. Lydia had been completely ruined by not one but two love affairs with Lizzie’s half brother Tom and had sworn off men forever as a result, but Lizzie remembered that John Jerrold had paid Lydia considerable attention before Tom had trampled all over her heart and her reputation. Lydia had also lost her fortune and her parents had been arrested for murder and her life was utterly in tatters. Lizzie knew that no man of consequence was ever likely to pay Lydia any honorable attention in future yet she could not but hope that one day her friend would find happiness. She wondered how Jerrold felt about Lydia now.

“There is nothing going on between Johnny and me,” she said. “It was a dull evening and I drank more than I ought and now I have the headache, which I suppose serves me right.”

“Mary said that Nat Waterhouse was also there,” Laura said, passing Lizzie her glass of lemonade and cutting a slice of the cake for her. “I was surprised to hear it-I did not know that he was a friend of the Wheeler family.”

Lizzie felt the jealous bile rise in her chest as it had done the previous night. The others were all looking at her and she tried to keep her face blank. She had never been particularly good at hiding her feelings although she suspected she was getting better at it lately. She had certainly managed to deceive Nat as to how she felt about him. But she wished she could stop thinking about him. That would be a step forward.

“I believe that Nat was there at Lady Willoughby’s invitation,” she said. She stumbled a little over Nat’s name, which was odd. She could not call him Lord Waterhouse, of course, for they had been friends for years and everyone would think it odd. But nor could she apparently talk of him with the same casual carelessness she had always used. She felt very self-conscious, all the more so as Lydia’s steady gaze was on her and was making Lizzie feel horribly vulnerable.

“Lady Willoughby is Lady Wheeler’s cousin and I understand she is also an old flame of Nat’s,” she added hurriedly.

“I wonder then if Lady Willoughby had anything to do with Flora jilting Lord Waterhouse?” Lydia said. “Perhaps if he met her again before the wedding and they rekindled their romance-” she broke off. “That would not be like Lord Waterhouse, though. He is far too honorable to trifle with a lady’s feelings like that.” She turned her inquiring gaze back to Lizzie. “Has he confided in you, Lizzie? We are all quite puzzled as to why the wedding was called off.”

“He has said nothing to me,” Lizzie said. She stared hard into the depths of her lemonade glass. “I have no notion.”

“He won’t tell Miles or Dexter, either,” Alice said. “It is very odd.”

“Perhaps,” Laura said, “it is Flora who has another beau. I hear she has been walking up near High Top Farm lately, Alice.”

Alice laughed. “I have heard that, too. There is not a secret to be kept in this village! Lowell will not talk to me about it, though.” She turned to Lydia. “You do not mind, Lydia? I thought at one time that you and Lowell might make a match of it.”

Lydia laughed. “You must know that I will not make a match of it with anyone, Alice! Lowell is a dear friend to me and I value him enormously, but there is nothing more to it, I assure you.”

“Well, if Flora is the jilt here at least Lord Waterhouse is not lacking consolation,” Alice said, with a sideways glance at Lizzie. “What is Lady Willoughby like, Lizzie?”

“She is rich, widowed, spiteful and frightfully beautiful,” Lizzie said sharply. “May we talk of something else?” She realized from the arrested look on Alice’s face that she had sounded as irritable as she felt and tried to moderate her tone. “I am sorry. I feel preoccupied today. There are only two months left before Monty can take half of the fortunes of any ladies who are still unmarried.” She nibbled some of the plum cake and realized with surprise that it was so good that her appetite was coming back. “In addition to the Dames’ Tax, Monty is planning to extort ever more greedy and pernicious fees,” she added with her mouth full. “I heard him talking to Tom about a tax on chickens. People will have to pay or he will eat their livestock! His avarice is insatiable. We have to do something.”

Laura sighed. “I asked Mr. Churchward, my lawyer, to look into this months ago, but he tells me that unfortunately Sir Montague is within his rights. These taxes existed in Fortune’s Folly in medieval times and they were never repealed. The only way we could get them annulled is to go to parliament and that would take years.”

“He will pocket a cool seventy-five thousand pounds if neither Flora nor Mary nor I marry before the time is up,” Lizzie said. “That is bad enough, but it is the other taxes that are more burdensome where people have so little to start with. Mrs. Broad now has to pay a tax on her three chickens or see them in the cooking pot. Monty has already eaten her sheep! She has little income and can barely survive. When I see cases like hers it makes my blood boil!”

“I agree,” Alice said. “We must find a medieval law that frees us from the tyranny of Sir Montague! Either that or murder him!”

“I would do it myself, but it would not do any good,” Lizzie said, “for Tom would inherit both the baronetcy and the right to inflict his will on us and he is even worse than Monty. I would rather marry ten times over than give half my fortune to Tom!”

They were still laughing when there was the sudden sound of masculine voices and the quick rap of footsteps on the terrace and then Dexter Anstruther, Miles Vickery and Nat Waterhouse came around the side of the house and up the steps to join them. Lizzie’s breath caught and her heart did a ridiculous somersault. She realized that Lydia had noticed her reaction, and she looked away hastily, affecting indifference. Except that it was impossible to be indifferent to Nat. He looked so virile and alive, and in his casual sporting attire so dark and handsome. The jacket accentuated the broadness of his shoulders and his trousers clung to his muscular thighs. Lizzie found she was staring-staring at Nat Waterhouse whom she had seen a thousand times before. Her heart somersaulted again and she tried and failed to calm her fluttering pulse.

Nat’s gaze sought her out at once. Lizzie could feel him watching her with that long, intense scrutiny that was so disconcerting. She tried very hard to avoid his gaze but the harder she tried the more she found herself drawn back to him.

“Every chaperone’s nightmare,” Lydia was saying mischievously. “Aren’t they handsome, Lizzie, and almost too overwhelming to be allowed out together? Though it is touching to see how devoted Miles and Dexter are to their wives.” Lizzie caught the undertone of wistfulness in her voice and for a moment she was distracted from her own feelings. Her heart bled for Lydia, for Tom had never been devoted to anything other than money and his own pleasure and now it was Lydia who was paying the price for that.

“Dexter!” Laura was smiling as she beckoned to the footman to fetch some more chairs. “How charming that you could all join us. Will you take tea-” Her voice dwindled away and in the same instant Lizzie became aware of the curious tension surrounding the men. Alice caught Miles’s hand and gave him a questioning look, but Miles shook his head and turned toward Nat. As Nat started to move toward Lizzie she had the terrible conviction that something dreadful had happened. A feeling that was icy-cold and hard formed in her heart. Nat dropped to his haunches beside her and took her hand in his. Lizzie could feel the tension coiled within his powerful frame.

“What is it?” she said, her voice coming out as a whisper from between dry lips.

“It’s Sir Montague,” Nat said. His tone was very steady and there was tenderness in his eyes and gentleness in his voice that made Lizzie’s heart falter. “Lizzie, I am very sorry. He was found murdered this morning. He had been stabbed to death.”

There was absolute silence for a moment and then Alice gave a gasp and clapped her hand to her mouth. “We were talking of murdering him just now,” she said, “but only in jest!”

Lizzie shook her head. It felt muzzy, as though she was still suffering the effects of too much wine. “Monty dead? Murdered? But who-” She stopped, for even in her shock and horror she could see that it was more a question of who did not want Sir Montague dead rather than who did.

Alice came across to her in a rustle of silk and put her arms about her. “Lizzie,” she said, “I am so sorry. I know he was a difficult man-”

“He was loathsome and unpleasant and greedy and rude,” Lizzie said, her voice a little choked, “but I do not have many relatives and I did not wish to lose him.” Her eyes felt hot and hard with unshed tears. “Damn Monty for getting himself murdered like this!” she said unsteadily. “I would kill him for it if it were not already too late.”

Laura pressed a cup of tea into her hands and she gulped it down, feeling the hot strength of it steady her a little. Both her brothers were despicable men, she thought despairingly, but they were all that she had. She might have wanted them to be different, but she had not wanted to be without them. She had lost too much of her family ever to desire it.

“When did it happen?” she asked, looking up at Nat. His dark eyes looked tired, she thought. The lines she had noticed on his face the previous night seemed deeper still, grim and harsh.

“We do not know for sure yet,” he said. “Sometime in the night, we think.”

“But you will be investigating?” Laura looked at her husband. “Or is it a case for the constable?”

“We’re taking it on,” Dexter said. He looked at Lizzie. “The Home Secretary has been taking an interest in what has been happening in Fortune’s Folly and-” he paused “-forgive me, Lady Elizabeth, but we had already had reason to warn Sir Montague that he might be in danger. A great many people have taken against him as a result of the punitive taxes he has been inflicting.”

“He had received letters,” Miles put in. “Death threats.” His hazel eyes were grave. “Were you aware of this, Lady Elizabeth?”

“No!” Lizzie was shocked. “He said nothing to me,” she said. “But then, we did not talk much. He was usually either drunk or asleep.”

“We need to ask you some questions, Lizzie,” Nat said gently. He released her hand and straightened up and Lizzie felt shockingly bereft. She desperately wanted him to hold her so that she could take comfort from him but knew she could not without showing how much she needed him.

“Of course,” she said. “Here? Now?”

“That is up to you,” Nat said. “If you were rather it was in private-”

Lizzie looked at Laura and Alice and Lydia. “I would rather have the support of my friends about me,” she said, and saw Lydia and Laura smile. Alice squeezed her hand and sat down beside her.

“Tell us what happened last night,” Miles said. He glanced at Nat. “We know that you were at the dinner held by Sir James and Lady Wheeler.”

“We all were,” Lizzie said. “Monty, Tom and I.” She glanced unconsciously at Nat, wondering how much he had already told Dexter and Miles.

“Monty was drunk when he came back from dinner last night,” she said. “I asked Spencer, his valet, to make him comfortable and then to leave him to sleep it off.”

Dexter nodded. “Spencer told us the same. He said that he and the footman between them managed to get Sir Montague up the stairs and onto his bed. They did not attempt to undress him but left him to sleep.”

“Did you retire yourself after that?” Miles questioned.

“I did,” Lizzie said. She looked at him. “I’m sorry, Miles. I heard nothing. I can’t believe-” She stopped. “My room is at the end of the corridor,” she said, “so an intruder would not need to pass it to reach Monty’s chamber. That is probably why I knew nothing of it.” It almost beggared belief, though, that someone had crept along those uneven treads of the landing on their way to stab Sir Montague to death. Lizzie shuddered and felt Nat shift beside her. He was standing by her chair, one hand resting protectively on the back of it. Lizzie wanted to touch him in order to draw strength from him but once again she denied herself the comfort. She knew she could not do it, not without giving her feelings away not only to Nat himself but also to all her friends.

“You did not go to Sir Montague’s room this morning?” Miles continued.

“No,” Lizzie said. “The door was closed. I did not want to disturb him. It was not unusual for him to sleep until noon or beyond if he had had too much wine the previous night.”

Miles nodded. “And Tom?” He asked. “Did he come back with Sir Montague?”

“No,” Lizzie said. She flicked a look at Lydia. She did not want to add to her friend’s bitterness or misery if she could help it. Although Lydia had no illusions about Tom now, it was quite another thing to talk of his conquests in front of her.

“I do not think Tom came back last night,” she said quickly. “I do not know where he was or with whom.”

Dexter and Miles exchanged a look. Miles got up and walked across the terrace before turning back. Lizzie felt her nerves tighten further. She could feel the tension in Nat, too, wound tight as a spring.

“The servants,” Miles said slowly, “tell us that ten days ago, on the Friday, someone called on Sir Montague late in the evening. They could not tell us who it was but they heard raised voices in the library and thought Sir Montague might be quarreling with someone. Were you present, Lizzie?”

Lizzie closed her eyes for a moment.

Ten days ago, on the Friday night…

She felt Nat shift again and fiercely resisted the urge to look at him. On that Friday night she had been locked in the folly with him, lost to everything but the touch of his hands on her naked skin, the taste of him and the absolute searing need to make love with him…She swallowed hard.

“I know nothing of any visitors,” she said carefully. “I am sorry, I cannot help you.”

Miles’s hazel gaze was very keen on her face and Lizzie could feel herself blushing as though she was guilty of the murder herself.

“But you were at Fortune Hall that night?” Miles said.

“I…” Lizzie hesitated, unwilling to lie. “I was…I saw that Monty had had a visitor because there were two wineglasses on the library table, but…” Again she hesitated, seeing that the more she tried to help the deeper she was digging herself into trouble.

“Lizzie was with me that night,” Nat said. He took a deep breath. “She was with me last night as well, before Sir Montague returned home. I can vouch for the fact that after we talked she helped her brother inside the house.”

There was a very long silence. Miles looked at Dexter and raised his brows. Laura and Lydia and Alice also looked at each other and then, simultaneously, looked at Lizzie. The atmosphere was suddenly alive with speculation though no one said a single word.

Lizzie bit her lip hard. A wash of panic took her, depriving her of breath, followed by a second wash of fury. She looked at Nat. His expression was dark and unyielding.

“For pity’s sake, Nat,” she snapped, “there was no necessity for you to say that.”

“Did you want me to lie?” Nat snapped back. There was tension in the line of his shoulders and his expression was hard. He met Lizzie’s furious gaze with a fierce one of his own. “I don’t think you understand, Lizzie,” he said. “This isn’t a parlor game, it is a murder inquiry. Miles’s next question was going to be whether or not you killed your brother.”

“Well, not quite,” Miles said ruefully. He rubbed a hand over his hair. “May I clarify? Lady Elizabeth-” Suddenly he sounded extremely formal, “I apologize for the necessity of asking you this, but it is very important. Is it correct that you spent these two nights with Lord Waterhouse or is he merely trying to protect you?”

“Damn you, Miles-” Nat sounded absolutely livid. He took a step forward, but Dexter caught his arm.

“Nat,” Dexter said, “it seems that you are scarcely objective in this. Keep out of it.”

Nat set his jaw. He looked ready to explode, but he kept quiet. He was looking at Lizzie and his expression was dark and hooded, challenging her to deny the truth. Lizzie trembled beneath his gaze.

“To clarify,” she said. She cleared her throat. “I was with Lord Waterhouse on both occasions, although not all night.”

Miles inclined his head. “Thank you. The two of you were, I take it, alone?”

“We were,” Lizzie said. Her gaze slid to Nat’s furious face. He had himself under tight control now, but there was a pulse pounding in his cheek. He shook Dexter’s hand from his arm. “Lady Elizabeth is going to marry me,” he said.

“To clarify,” Lizzie said again, angrily, “I am not.” She looked at Nat. “We have had this conversation, Nat. You proposed. I refused.”

Nat swore under his breath. Lizzie sensed rather than saw the look that flashed between Alice and Laura. She knew that all her friends were absolutely desperate to brush the men aside and to ask her what on earth was going on. Alice knew-and no doubt Laura did, too-that she was in love with Nat. Alice had realized it before Lizzie had herself, and had challenged her about it months before. In fact everyone except Nat himself must know and she could only pray that he remained in ignorance, for she was not sure that her pride could take the blow.

“I am relieving you of your part in this investigation, Nathaniel,” Dexter said courteously. “You must see you have a major conflict of interest.”

Nat said something very sharp and to the point that made the ladies wince again and stalked over to the edge of the terrace.

“Lady Elizabeth,” Dexter said, turning to her, “I don’t think we need trouble you any further at the moment. Thank you for being so honest with us.”

“I don’t think Lord Waterhouse gave me much option,” Lizzie said bitterly.

“I will escort you back to Fortune Hall to start making the arrangements for Sir Montague’s funeral,” Nat said, coming forward.

“No,” Lizzie said. The panic clutched at her again. She did not want to be alone with Nat, not now that he had made their association public and would surely use it to press her to marry him. “No, thank you. I would rather do things alone.”

This time Nat swore aloud. “For God’s sake, Lizzie, must you always reject my help?”

They stood staring at one another as though the others were simply not there.

I cannot, Lizzie thought. I cannot take your help, Nat, I cannot rely on you as I want to, draw comfort from you, trust in you, love you as I want to do because it hurts too much. I will always want more than you can give.

She stood looking at him, seeing the puzzlement and the frustration in his face, seeing how much he cared for her and how that very deep concern and protectiveness only served to emphasize that he did not love her as she loved him. The pain of it felt like a red-hot coal against her heart. She had to send him away before he hurt her all the more, unknowing but none the less painful for that.

“Thank you,” Lizzie said again, wrenching her gaze from the burning demand of his, “but I would rather be alone.”

Nat swore again and walked off and Laura got ponderously to her feet and put a hand on Lizzie’s arm. Lizzie knew Laura must be able to feel her shaking.

“Lizzie,” Laura said gently, “would you like to come inside out of the sun for a little? You may lie down if you wish, or have a cool drink, perhaps…”

Miles kissed Alice’s cheek. “I will see you later, sweetheart,” he said. “We must try to find Fortune now.”

Lizzie realized with a shock to the heart that he meant Tom. Now that Monty was dead Tom would be Sir Thomas Fortune. She could think of no one less appropriate to be the squire of Fortune’s Folly. Worse, she would not even put it past Tom to have murdered his brother for the title and the potential riches that the Dames’ Tax and the other medieval laws would afford him. She shuddered at the thought. Then she saw Lydia’s face. It was a tight, white mask of misery. Lizzie felt dreadful. Lydia had been betrayed twice over by Tom. Bad enough for her that Tom had returned to Fortune’s Folly and was lording it about the place with his whoring and his gambling and drinking. Now he was Sir Thomas he would be intolerable.

She went across to Lydia and put her arms about her friend. “It will be all right,” she whispered, though she hardly believed it herself.

They went into the cool darkness of The Old Palace and Lizzie sank gratefully into one of the chairs in the drawing room. Alice poured her a glass of brandy and brought it over to her, pressing it into her hand.

“I know it is probably the last thing you want,” she said with a smile, “particularly if you took too much wine last night, but you probably need it.”

Lizzie forced some of the spirit down, recognizing as it bloomed inside her, hot and strong, that she had needed it. She shivered and Alice grasped her cold hands in her own.

“Lizzie,” she said. “Why do you not want to marry Lord Waterhouse?”

“You don’t have to tell us,” Lydia hurried to add. “We only want to help you and to be here if you want to talk…”

“And none of us will moralize,” Laura said. She looked down ruefully at her hugely swollen belly. “Goodness knows, I shall be producing what the matrons euphemistically call a seven-month baby which we all know was conceived before Dexter and I wed, and Alice was the talk of Fortune’s Folly when Miles seduced her-”

“And I am ruined twice over,” Lydia finished, “so who are we to criticize? We are the most scandalous ladies in the village.”

Lizzie tried to smile. It came out very lopsided. “Nat wants to marry me because he…because we…”

“We guessed that bit,” Laura said dryly. “You made love on the night before his wedding to Flora.”

“Yes,” Lizzie said dully. “We made love.”

Except that they had not made love. She knew that now. Oh, she had slept with Nat, had sexual intercourse with him; she had fornicated with him, as her old nurse, Mrs. Batty, would probably have put it, in her deeply disapproving way. But she had not made love with him because although she had loved him-and all the terrible hurtful things that he had said to her about wanting him for herself had been so shamefully true-he had not loved her in return.

“I asked Nat to come to me that night because I wanted to talk to him,” Lizzie said. “I told myself that I wanted to save him from making a huge mistake in marrying Flora, but the truth was that it was because I loved him and could not bear for him to marry someone else.”

“I remember that you were quite vehement on the subject of Lord Waterhouse’s betrothal when we discussed it a few months ago at the spa rooms,” Alice murmured.

“Then you will also remember that when we spoke of it you told me that if I had feelings for him I should do something about them before it was too late,” Lizzie said.

“I scarcely meant that you should seduce him,” Alice said wryly. “Perhaps you took me a little too literally.”

“Oh, I am not blaming you,” Lizzie said hastily. She knitted her fingers together, pressing hard. “I know that this whole affair is no one’s fault but my own. Not even Nat’s, for I goaded him beyond endurance and provoked him and made him exceptionally angry with my interference and all the time I was pretending that it was for his own good.” She sighed. “Anyway, it was a disastrous mistake, for he does not love me.” She looked up and saw Alice watching her with nothing but gentleness in her blue eyes, and saw Laura’s sympathy and Lydia’s kindness and wanted suddenly to cry.

“I am not naive,” she said. “I understand that men and women come together for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with love and in our case it was frustration and fury and lust-” She stopped and shrugged a little hopelessly.

“But you do love him,” Laura said softly.

“Yes,” Lizzie admitted. “I do. I love him so much…” She hesitated. “If you had asked me even two weeks ago I think that I would have denied I loved Nat,” she said. “I was trying to fool myself as well as everyone else.” She made a brief, impatient gesture. “Oh, it does not matter how I feel! What matters is that for one stupid, deluded moment I thought that Nat might love me, too, but the truth is that he does not, and that is what hurts.” She pressed her hand to her heart in an unconscious gesture. “I have been so foolish,” she said starkly, “but I will not compound my stupidity by marrying Nat when he does not love me.”

“But he cares deeply for you-” Alice began.

“Would you want to be married to Miles if he merely cared for you?” Lizzie said bitterly. “If you loved Miles, adored him as you do, with every fiber of your being, and in return he cared for you?” She saw Alice’s stricken look and felt terrible. “I’m sorry, Alice,” she said remorsefully. “But it would be such an unequal match. It would break my heart each and every day.”

“But love can grow,” Alice argued.

“And if it does not?” Lizzie said. She thought of her mother again. “What if you wait and wait and that never happens? What then?” She shook her head. “It would be the worst match in the world,” she said. “You all know that Nat and I simply would not suit.”

No one contradicted her and that, Lizzie thought, rather proved her point.

“So you are saying that Nat has proposed simply out of a sense of honor,” Laura said slowly, “and because he cares for you and wants to protect you? That sounds good enough to me.”

“I do not deny he is a good man,” Lizzie said.

“But you want more than that,” Lydia said.

“I do when the whole of the rest of my life is at stake.” Lizzie shrugged, uncomfortably aware that Lydia, betrayed by her parents and her lover, would probably feel she had nothing to complain about. “I could not bear it if Nat fell in love with someone else after we wed,” she said honestly, “someone like Priscilla Willoughby. Better to lose him now, when he is not truly mine, than to another woman after our marriage.”

“But if you were to have a child,” Lydia began hesitatingly, her hand resting protectively on her own stomach, “then surely it would be better for it to have a loving father?”

Lizzie felt humbled. There was a huge lump in her throat and a raging anger inside her for her feckless, libertine brother and what he had done to Lydia. “There won’t be a child,” she said. “It was only once and anyway I do not feel in the least bit pregnant-” Her voice broke a little.

“Oh, Lizzie,” Lydia said, reaching out to her. Lizzie could see pity in her eyes. “Don’t be afraid. Everything will be well-”

The fear and the misery fused in Lizzie’s chest in one tight, hot ball. She wanted to take comfort from her friends but she did not want them to see her cry. She had always preferred to be alone with her misery, ever since she had been a child.

“Please excuse me,” she said. “I must go back to Fortune Hall now. There is so much to be done.”

Alice put out a hand. “Would you like me to come with you, Lizzie?”

Lizzie shook her head. “Thank you, but no. I will manage quite well on my own.”

As she walked down the path to the water meadows she reflected that she knew what her friends would be thinking. Because Laura and Alice and Lydia knew her well, they would not ascribe her damned independence, as her brother Monty had called it, to snobbery, which many people did. They knew she often chose to be alone because she had been accustomed to solitude since childhood. It had become a habit for her. She preferred it.

She skimmed a stone across the swift flowing waters of the River Tune and thought about Monty’s death. He had been the second worst brother in the world, after Tom, but she still wanted to cry for him because she had lost him; lost both the real Monty, weak and worthless, and the brother she had desperately wanted him to be.

She thought of Nat Waterhouse, too, as good a man as Monty Fortune had been a bad one. Many women would settle for what Nat was offering her. She knew that. Many would think her mad, bad and foolish to refuse him simply because the one thing that he could not offer, his love, was the one thing that she wanted most in all the world. Yet when she thought of marrying Nat and the possibility of losing him to another woman, to someone he could love, like Priscilla Willoughby, her blood ran cold. She could not bear the thought. She had seen her mother run mad because her father had withheld his love from her. Society had called Lady Scarlet a bolter, because she had run away from her marriage, disappearing in a perfumed rustle of taffeta and lace to Ireland with her horse-master. She had been condemned as a faithless wife but Lizzie knew it was not love but a lack of it that had caused her mother’s downfall. She had seen her mother, day after day, neglected and alone whilst the Earl had pursued his mistresses and his Town entertainments. Lady Scarlet had waited and waited for the Earl to love her and when he had not she had taken second best and run and been damned forever for it, lurching from affair to affair, from men to the brandy bottle, until she died.

So she, Lizzie Scarlet, would not make the mistakes her mother had made. She had sent Nat away now, before it was too late. It hurt to love him and to make herself give him up but that was nothing to how much it would pain her to lose him if they were wed. She would not make Lady Scarlet’s mistakes. Not now. Not ever.

CHAPTER EIGHT

DESPITE DEXTER relieving him of any responsibilities in the investigation into Monty Fortune’s death, it was Nat who found Tom Fortune that afternoon in an advanced state of inebriation at the Half Moon Inn, some ten miles distant from Fortune’s Folly. Nat had not been able to sit idly by whilst his colleagues hunted Monty Fortune’s murderer. For Lizzie’s sake, if nothing else, he wanted to do whatever he could to help. He had seen her face, stricken and pale, when she had heard the news of Monty’s death. He knew how much she was hurting over the loss of her brother, even a brother as feckless as Monty had been. The scoundrel had not deserved a loving sister. It pained Nat that Lizzie would not turn to him in her misery and loss, but he knew that she had always been one to deal with her unhappiness in private. A girl who could also be spectacularly, publicly outrageous, Lizzie was nevertheless one of the most contained people he knew.

The landlady of Half Moon Inn, Josie Simmons, had just thrown Tom bodily into the courtyard when Nat arrived and Tom was shouting and swearing most horribly as the tapster, Lenny, poured barrels of cold water all over him in an attempt to sober him up. Nat looked down on Tom’s drunken and unkempt state and his heart sank. He would as lief leave Lizzie in Tom’s care as he would abandon her with a pack of wolves. Yet Tom was her guardian in law now-Sir Thomas Fortune, the squire of Fortune’s Folly.

“Take him away and good riddance to him,” Josie said as Nat hauled Tom to his feet and told him sharply that they wanted to question him over his brother’s death. “He’s been bragging all afternoon long about being Sir Thomas now and not a word of sympathy for his dead brother.” She rested her huge fists on her hips. “Not that Sir Montague deserves any sympathy, mind,” she added. “One’s as bad as the other, if truth be told. There’s terrible bad blood in that family. Makes me fair grateful we’re outside the parish here.”

Tom’s face had set in a mask of malevolence when he saw Nat. “Well, if it isn’t that worthy citizen the Earl of Waterhouse!” he taunted. He grabbed Nat’s lapels, almost lurching off his feet in the process, and stuck his face close to Nat’s own. His breath reeked of ale and smoke. “Don’t forget my money,” he slurred, turning Nat’s blood cold. “Did you get my letter? I’ll broadcast the truth about your sister, Waterhouse, unless you give me the twenty-five grand. I’ll go to your father. She’s a strumpet, Lady Celeste, and the world deserves to know her perversions.”

“I’ll get your money,” Nat said, through his teeth. He kept a tight grip on his temper. He had hated Tom Fortune long before the man had started to blackmail him over Celeste’s indiscretions. He hated Tom for the utter lack of care he had for Lizzie, for his dishonorable treatment of Lydia Cole and the fact that he was an all-round cad. He looked around to see if anyone had overheard Tom’s mocking words. He knew Lizzie’s brother could hardly be relied on for his discretion. If he spoke out, Celeste would be completely ruined.

“Don’t see how you’ll get my money now that Flora Minchin has thrown you over,” Tom sneered. “Keep away from Mary Wheeler. I have a fancy to wed there myself, though she is probably as frigid as a corpse. But you-” He prodded Nat’s chest, “You come up with the goods or Lady Celeste’s name will be bandied around through all the coffee shops in England. Men would pay good money to see what I saw. Perhaps they would offer her a job in a whorehouse if your father threw her out-”

Nat repressed a furious urge to hit him. He knew that Tom cared for nothing beyond money and now that he was squire of Fortune’s Folly he would be bound to extort all the taxes Sir Montague had charged and more. He would need it, Nat thought, to pay his drinking and gambling bills. And a little extra blackmail, holding the honor of the Dukes of Waterhouse in his hands, was an absolute gift to him.

“Give me one more month,” he said. He abhorred giving in to extortion, but with Celeste’s reputation at stake and no way out he knew he was trapped.

Tom laughed. “Two weeks,” he said. “I’ll give you two weeks, seeing as you are begging me. And then-” He laughed again. “I’ll go to your father and tell him all about his precious daughter and her sexual proclivities.” He put his head on one side. “That could be to your advantage, now I come to think of it. The news might kill the old man and then you’d be Duke of Waterhouse-”

Whatever else he had been about to say was lost as Nat’s fist made contact with his jaw and he fell over backward into the ordure from the stables. Josie and Lenny and half the occupants of the taproom, whom Nat was appalled to see had come out into the yard to watch the altercation, burst into a spontaneous round of applause.

“Nice one, Lord W,” Josie said. She lowered her voice. “Can’t pretend I didn’t hear about your sister, though. I’d kill him, if I was you. Never give in to blackmailers. That’s my motto. Kill ’em instead.” She slapped him on the shoulder in a blow Nat assumed was intended as encouragement and helped Lenny haul Tom back to his feet.

“You’re barred from Half Moon House,” she hissed to Tom. “I hope they convict you of your brother’s murder. I don’t care if you did it or not.”

Nat was of a similar mind himself. He was so blinded with impotent fury that it seemed the greatest pity to him in that moment that they had not been able to pin a single crime on Tom Fortune and rid the world of him, justice or no justice.

“Present yourself to the magistrate tomorrow morning or we’ll come looking for you,” he said to Tom, who now smelled of dung along with the drink and smoke. He ducked out of the way just in time as Tom tried to spit in his face.

From the Half Moon Inn Nat went to seek out Miles Vickery to report Tom’s whereabouts. As he rode he thought about what Tom had said.

“I’ll go to your father. She’s a strumpet, Lady Celeste, and the world deserves to know her perversions…”

Celeste had always been so gentle and frail. Nat still did not know what terrible error of judgment had put his younger sister in Tom Fortune’s power, for when he had tried to ask her about it she had broken down and he had feared for her sanity. He had known then that he had no choice other than to agree to Tom’s extortion, for it was unthinkable for the truth about Celeste to be revealed. Not only would it ruin her, but the scandal would almost certainly kill his father, who was old and infirm, and would devastate his mother. His entire family would be destroyed because of Tom Fortune’s greed. The only other alternative was to kill the man and Nat was very, very tempted. Tom Fortune was vermin, a blight on mankind. If it were not for Lizzie, Nat would have been even closer to murdering him, but he knew that for Lizzie’s sake he could never do it. She had the same desperate regard for Tom as she had had for Monty, an affection that was immune to sense or reason, a desperate need for family. Nat’s heart ached for Lizzie that she so longed to have about her a family she could love when all she was left with was Tom, who was an utter bastard, and a distant cousin who did not give a rush for her. It seemed monstrous unfair.

As it was, Lizzie was the one who would rescue them all. She did not know it, but she would save him and Celeste and his family. Nat’s only hope now was to marry her. Lizzie’s money would buy Tom’s silence. There was some irony in that, Nat thought. But Lizzie must never, ever know about Tom’s blackmail. Nat knew he had to protect her from this latest proof of Tom’s villainy. Monty’s death had hurt her profoundly. To show that her other brother was even more of a criminal than she suspected would devastate and disillusion her.

Nat rode into the stable yard of Drum Castle, left his horse with the groom and sought Miles out in his study. Although Miles was no longer Marquis of Drummond now that his errant cousin had been found still to be alive, he and Alice had taken a lease on the castle in order to stay in Yorkshire.

When Nat went into the study, Miles and Alice were standing in the window together and talking, their heads bent close, their voices low and intimate. Nat hesitated a moment on the threshold, because they looked so loving that he felt like an interloper and did not wish to interrupt them. But then Miles looked up and invited him in. Nat stepped forward into the room and noted wryly that Alice’s blue gaze was flinty and less than welcoming as it rested on him. He knew she was thinking of Lizzie.

“Lord Waterhouse.” Alice’s tone was almost as cold as the look in her eyes. She looked from Nat to Miles. “I will leave you to talk business,” she said.

“Lady Vickery,” Nat said. “Please…” Alice paused and Nat pressed his advantage. “You know that I wish to marry Lady Elizabeth,” he said. “If you have any influence with her…”

He thought Alice almost smiled. “You know as well as I do that no one can influence Lizzie once she has set her mind to a thing,” Alice said. Her voice softened. “I wish you good luck, though.”

She went out and Miles gestured Nat to a seat beside the fireplace. There was a fine carved wooden chess set on the games table between the two fireside chairs. The room was warm and smelled of beeswax and flowers. It felt like a home, Nat thought, remembering the cold emptiness of Drum before Alice had married Miles. Alice had wrought that change in the castle, and an enormous change in Miles, too. Marriage, Nat supposed, could be like that but it was a far cry from both the cold distance of the arrangement he had contemplated with Flora and the fiery quarreling he was already anticipating with Lizzie.

“I found Tom,” Nat said, without preamble. “I’ve told him to report to the magistrate and to you and Dexter in the morning. He’s too drunk to talk sensibly now.” He sighed. “Not that he is likely to be much more sober on the morrow.”

“Do you think he murdered his brother?” Miles asked.

“No,” Nat said. “Unfortunately not.”

“He had a strong motive,” Miles pointed out. “The baronetcy, the prospect of wealth under the Dames’ Tax. Everyone knows that Monty kept Tom on a tight allowance and Tom hated him for it.”

“Too many people had a motive to kill Sir Montague,” Nat said, shrugging, “though I will allow that Tom’s is one of the best. I imagine,” he added, “that he will be able to claim he was with someone last night.”

“A woman,” Miles said, nodding.

“Or several,” Nat said, ironically. He sighed. “Lady Elizabeth’s motive is less strong.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that,” Miles said, laughing. “In point of fact she was better off with Sir Montague alive.”

“Quite.” Nat shifted. “ Miles, I have a problem. You know that Lizzie is only twenty and therefore requires her guardian’s permission to wed?”

Miles nodded. “And her legal guardian is now Tom Fortune.”

“Precisely,” Nat said. “Tom will never give his consent, because he would thereby lose out on claiming half of Lizzie’s fortune under the Dames’ Tax. In two months’ time he can take her twenty-five thousand pounds.”

Miles grimaced. “I see your problem.”

“What can be done?”

“You could elope with her to Gretna,” Miles said, “or apply for a special licence and swear on oath that the guardian had given his consent, knowing full well that he had not.”

“I would have to perjure myself,” Nat said, nodding.

“Effectively, yes.” Miles moved a chess piece idly. “Or, if the guardian was clearly a man-or woman-of dubious moral stature, you might find another reputable family member who could give their consent.” He shot his friend a look. “In Lizzie’s case we know that her guardian is a blackguard, but she also has an irreproachably respectable third cousin in the current Earl of Scarlet.”

“A man who has taken not the slightest interest in her welfare since he inherited from her father,” Nat said a little grimly.

“He would take an interest soon enough if he heard his cousin would one day be Duchess of Waterhouse,” Miles said, “and he would, I am sure, do all in his power to assist the match.”

Nat smiled reluctantly. “You are so cynical, old chap.”

“But also so very correct,” Miles drawled. “Scarlet Park is less than a half day’s ride to the west of here,” he added. “It would be a simple matter to sound Gregory Scarlet out.”

Nat shifted. “One further complicating factor…If I cannot persuade Lizzie to accept me…”

Miles laughed. “I suspect I should be offended that you think me the expert, albeit theoretically, on the carrying off of unwilling brides.”

“I remember you once contemplated carrying Alice off,” Nat murmured, “before you resorted to blackmailing her into marriage, of course.”

“Touché,” Miles said. “Abduction is the answer. You would also need to bribe a crooked clergyman. Not ideal, especially for one of your rarefied moral principles,” he added sardonically, “but it depends on how much you want the prize.”

There was a short silence. “I want the money,” Nat said, after a moment. “I need it very urgently.” He had toyed on more than one occasion with the idea of telling Miles and Dexter of his predicament, but in the end he had kept silent because he knew that both of them would advise him to tell Tom to go to hell and take his blackmail with him. They could not approve-how could they when they all worked for the Home Secretary to protect against criminal activity and he was contradicting every principle that they held sacred? Yet moral dilemmas were seldom so easy to resolve, Nat thought bitterly. He appreciated that now.

“You want the money but not the bride who goes with it?” Miles’s expression was suddenly sober. “My advice? Don’t do it, old fellow. A lifetime is a hell of a long time to be tied to a woman whom you don’t love.”

“The ultimate irony,” Nat said, “is that you, the most cynical amongst us, are always preaching to marry for love, Miles.”

Miles shrugged elegantly. “What can I say? I am a convert.”

“I care for Lizzie,” Nat said slowly. “I may not love her the way that you love Alice, but I care a damn sight more than Tom Fortune does for her as a sister. Is that so bad?”

He saw some expression change in Miles’s face. “I cannot answer that, Nathaniel,” Miles said slowly. “Only you and Lady Elizabeth can resolve that between you and I think you have already made up your mind.” He stood up and Nat had the strangest feeling that Miles not only knew something that he did not but also that he had, in some way, disappointed his oldest friend. He struggled with the thought. In his day Miles had been the most ruthless of fortune hunters, prepared to take risks that Nat would never contemplate. Miles was no hypocrite, so why would he disapprove of Nat marrying for money?

Miles held out his hand to shake in an oddly formal gesture. “Good luck, old fellow.”

“Thank you,” Nat said, taking his hand and wishing he did not have a strange and superstitious belief that Miles thought he would need all the luck in the world-and more-to get him through.

IT WAS VERY LATE the following day that Nat rode up to Fortune Hall. He had been to Lancashire and spent some time with the Earl of Scarlet, a meeting that had been congenial and had ended in a most satisfactory outcome as far as Nat was concerned. He did not like the man particularly-Gregory Scarlet was selfish and lazy and self-interested-but the Earl had agreed that Tom Fortune was not fit to be any young lady’s guardian and had been pleased to give his consent to a match between Nat and Lizzie. Now all Nat had to do was obtain Lizzie’s consent, a task he was all too aware was of far greater difficulty and complexity.

As Nat approached Fortune Hall he wished that he had not been away for quite so long. He had felt uncomfortable leaving Lizzie to make the arrangements for Sir Montague’s funeral on her own-for Tom would hardly have put himself out to help-and he felt even less happy at leaving her at Tom’s mercy. As he rode up to the house his fear for Lizzie increased, for he could see the main door flung wide and the candles blazing in every room. Something was clearly afoot. Shadowy figures moved behind the windows. Nat wondered for a moment whether Tom’s finances were so parlous that the bailiffs had already moved in to take everything, and then he heard the music and voices and laughter and realized that this was no house clearance and nor was it a wake for Sir Montague, either. It was a party. Tom was celebrating his brother’s death and his inheritance of the baronetcy and the estate. Tom, the ultimate hedonist, was dancing on his brother’s grave.

Lizzie. Nat’s heart contracted. He could hardly bear to think how Lizzie would fare alone and unprotected whilst her brother caroused with his drinking cronies. God knew, Tom Fortune was capable of any degraded and degrading thing imaginable, but would he involve his own sister in his amoral games? Perhaps he would if the price was right…

Nat dug his heels into the horse’s side and galloped the remainder of the way up the drive. He swung down out of the saddle and strode into the hallway, almost stumbling over one drunkard who lay insensible and muttering to himself in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. There was a goblet lying near him on the flagstones and red wine spilling out of it across the floor. Remembering Sir Montague’s attachment to his wine cellars, Nat wondered whether there was anything left or if it was all gone already.

Where was Lizzie?

The anxiety tightened within him.

In the great hall he found even more bacchanalian pleasures and the remains of a feast scattered over both the table and the floor, empty bottles rolling, and one of Lizzie’s dogs in a corner gnawing on a chicken carcass. A couple were fornicating noisily on the shiny surface of the long dinner table, the man’s boots gouging deep scratches into the wood, and in front of the window a rowdy group of men were enthusiastically taking turns with a woman who was spread-eagled over the back of a sofa. Her breasts had escaped from her loose bodice; her skirts and petticoats were hitched up to reveal a pink garter, rounded thighs and plump buttocks. Nat paused, recognizing Ethel, the barmaid at the Morris Clown Inn, though he had never seen her in quite this position before. No, he thought, after a moment as he took in her dizzily blissful expression, Ethel did not require his aid in any shape or form. She was having as good a time as her partners.

Another man took his turn with Ethel, tumbling her over so that he could take her a different way and the girl screamed in pleasure. Nat moved on, stepping over the prone bodies of yet more drunks, avoiding a man who was being sick in the fireplace, looking for Tom, looking for Lizzie…

The fear he felt for her transcended every other emotion. This was like a scene from hell, so much worse than anything he had imagined. How could he have left her with this?

He went out into the hall again and caught a glimpse of a blond woman whisking through a doorway and out of sight. She was patting into place a sky-blue gown and the back of her head looked vaguely familiar. Dismissing the thought, Nat opened the door of the room she had vacated and found Tom Fortune in his brother’s study, lying back in a chair, booted feet up on the desk, pantaloons unfastened, a wine bottle in one hand, papers and books scattered about him. He had evidently been enjoying both the attentions of the woman and the contents of the bottle very recently. He raised the wine to his lips, took a long swallow and then wiped his mouth carelessly on his sleeve. His gaze was both inebriated and insolent as it rested on Nat.

“Delicious,” he drawled. There was humor deep in his eyes. “You have no idea, Waterhouse…”

“Where’s Lizzie?” Nat demanded, grabbing Tom by his cravat and pulling him up out of the chair. “Where is she?”

“What do you want with her?” Tom slurred. “My property, my business.”

“I’ve come to take her away,” Nat said. “I’m going to marry her.” He watched Tom’s face crumple with shock and anger.

“You?” Tom said. “Damned if you will. You won’t cheat me out of her money.” His eyes narrowed. “Lizzie is not yet one and twenty and I’m her guardian. Rich, isn’t it?” Suddenly he laughed uproariously. “She cannot wed without my permission and I refuse it.”

“I thought of that,” Nat said steadily. He patted his pocket. “Gregory Scarlet supersedes you. I have his written agreement. No one will quarrel with that, I think.”

Tom’s face twisted into a mask of malice and hatred. “Bastard!” he hissed. “I’ll see you damned. If you don’t pay me-”

“You’ll get your blackmail money,” Nat said, “as soon as I can borrow on the promise of Lizzie’s fortune.”

For a moment he thought Tom was going to hit him, but then Tom shrugged, reaching for the bottle again. “Take her, then,” he said indifferently. “What’s left of her.” He glanced at the clock. “Thought I’d let some of my friends have a turn with her. They were hot to bed her and I thought it was a good idea. Thought that no one was likely to want to wed her after they had all ploughed her, so I’d get to keep all her money. Even you might think twice, Waterhouse.” Once again his gaze was a narrow, malicious gleam. “Other men’s leavings…How much do you want that money?”

Nat threw him violently back into his chair but Tom’s laughter followed him out of the room. Terror gripped Nat’s heart. He took the stairs two at a time, slipping on the uneven oak treads, praying that he was not too late. He turned a dark corner and tripped over an entwined pair of lovers on the floor. Another blond woman…Not Lizzie, thank God.

“Lizzie!” he yelled. Someone swore at him.

“Lizzie!” He could hear the ragged fear in his own voice.

He tried a door. It was locked. He hammered on it. Several voices howled at him to go away. He steadied himself to break it down and then-

“Nat.” Lizzie’s voice, behind him. He turned and saw her standing in the pool of light from her bedroom. She was in her nightgown and the light shone through the transparent lawn of the material and illuminated her, hollows, curves and shadows, in a gentle glow. Her auburn hair was down and flamed in the candlelight. Nat’s mouth dried at the sight. He thought that if any of those jaded libertines even caught a glimpse of her they would die to have her.

“Tally ho!” Sir Wilfred Hooper, the magistrate from the next parish, was galloping down the landing brandishing a hunting crop as he chased a couple of squealing women. He paused when he saw Lizzie and his mouth dropped open. “I say!” he spluttered.

Nat grabbed Lizzie’s arm and bundled her into her bedroom, locking the door behind them.

“I say, Waterhouse,” Sir Wilfred said plaintively, banging on the other side of the thick oak panels, “share and share alike!”

“I’m sorry,” Lizzie was saying, grabbing a robe from the bed and flinging it about her shoulders, “I did not hear you calling me, Nat. If I had known you were here I would have let you in sooner.”

She scrambled back onto the bed and tucked her feet under the covers. Perched there in her swansdown-trimmed robe, with her hair falling loose about her shoulders she looked young, like a child in a fairy tale. Nat started to wonder if he was in a dream rather than an orgy. Everything that was happening seemed so unreal. Then he saw the pistol on Lizzie’s nightstand and saw that she was shivering and shaking like a dog left out in the rain. It was real enough; hateful, intolerable for her to be subjected to Tom’s loathsome whims like this.

Lizzie followed his gaze. “I judged it better to be safe than sorry,” she said. “I thought that if anyone tried to break in and rape me-” For a moment she looked so lost that Nat’s heart seemed to skip a beat. She turned her head and in the candlelight he saw the marks of tears on her cheeks.

“Lizzie,” he said. He sat down on the end of the bed. “What happened?”

She shrugged her slight shoulders under the robe. “Tonight? Just one of Tom’s orgies.” She met his gaze and sighed. “He did not come back until an hour ago. I had already retired.” She gestured to her nightclothes. “As you see.”

“Have you been locked in here all the time?” Nat asked. He tried to keep a grip on his temper. Every primitive impulse he had was directed on going back downstairs and tearing Tom Fortune apart, but every protective one he possessed forced him to stay with Lizzie.

“I went down to speak to Tom when he first returned,” Lizzie said. Her head was bent, her hair falling forward in a thick curtain to hide her face. “So stupid of me, but he was alone at first and I was tired and not thinking straight and I wanted to consult him about Monty’s burial. I did not realize he had invited all his cronies to join him-” She stopped, shuddering a little. “When I saw that he was drunk I asked him to show a little respect with Monty’s body still lying next door.” She shuddered again. “He said that Monty could rot in there for all he cared and then he-” She gulped. “He…”

Nat grabbed her hand. “What, Lizzie?”

“He killed Mrs. Broad’s chicken and threw it on the fire!” Lizzie wailed. “He said he had brought it in lieu of payment of tax and it was just the first of many fines he was going to inflict now he was squire and he might as well cook and eat it there and then!” She gulped in a breath, the tears shining on her cheeks again. “I hate him!” she said vehemently.

Nat drew her into his arms and stroked her back as she cried against his coat.

“Then he said he was going to hire me out-whore me out was the phrase he used-to his friends,” Lizzie finished, muffled. “He said he wanted all my money, so he had to be sure no one wished to marry me so they might as well make use of me. I ran up here and grabbed my pistol and barricaded the door. They came for me,” she added, “but they couldn’t get in and soon they got bored and turned to easier game.”

“Christ, Lizzie…” Nat pressed his lips to her hair. He was shaking with rage and with despair that she had had to suffer this. “He’s mad,” he said. “He has lost his mind.”

“Tom always was unstable,” Lizzie said. She was shaking, too. Nat could feel it as she lay in the curve of his arms.

“But this…” Nat soothed her, stroking his hands up over her gently. “He needs to be locked up.”

“He has not done anything illegal,” Lizzie said. “Not yet.”

Nat shifted. “You said that this was just one of Tom’s orgies,” he said. “Those were the words you used. Has he then done this before?”

“Not like this,” Lizzie said. She fidgeted, playing with the buttons on his jacket. “We all know Tom’s proclivities,” she said. “We all know he ruined Lydia twice over and she was hardly the first. Oh, he would bring women back here sometimes. So would Monty. I saw things…heard things. But not like this. It was never as blatant as this before.”

“You never said.” Nat was appalled. He had known Montague and Tom Fortune for years because his family lands had run with theirs, but he had never realized the scandalous truth of what went on at Fortune Hall. He felt obscurely ashamed now that he had not known about it or prevented it from touching Lizzie’s life.

“It must have been shocking for you,” he said.

Lizzie shrugged again. Her face was averted from his. “I was not naive, Nat. Not in that sense. When Mama ran away I knew exactly what she had done to earn her disgrace. People made sure that I knew all about her trysts in the stables. They told me so that I could be ashamed of her. And Papa…” Her mouth drooped, a beautiful curve. “Well, he was the most loving papa to me, but I understood about his mistresses. I heard things and saw things at Scarlet Park, you know.”

Nat stared at her wordlessly. His own introduction to the world of physical pleasure had been the straightforward one that, he imagined, was the experience of many youths of his class and generation. A willing courtesan or two, then various eager widows of whom Lady Ainsworth, the mistress Lizzie had mentioned that night in the folly, had been the most prominent. It was a world away from Lizzie’s vicarious, furtive and confusing experience of sex. Her true innocence had been stolen years before their night in the folly.

“I am so sorry it was like that for you,” he said.

She shrugged again. “I loved living at Scarlet Park,” she said. “It was warm and opulent and as I said, Papa doted on me. Until I was older I did not realize that not all men keep their mistresses accommodated openly in their homes. It seemed quite natural to me. Although sometimes I think Papa forgot I was there so I did see more than I ought…” She sighed. “And whilst Monty was alive I could bear living here. At least he had some sense of common decency-until recently. Tom has none.”

“No,” Nat said. The whooping outside the door grew louder, accompanied by the sound of the riding crop raining down on some eager person’s bare rump. “I have to get you out of here,” he added, “but I doubt we can go now or we shall probably both be overpowered and ravished indiscriminately, even with your pistol to protect us. We will have to wait until they drink and fornicate themselves into a stupor and then we shall be able to slip away.”

Lizzie looked at him. “You want me to leave with you?”

Nat held her gaze. “You cannot stay here, Lizzie,” he said. “Not now. It is impossible for you to live at Fortune Hall whilst Tom is here behaving like this.”

Lizzie’s shoulders slumped. “I suppose so,” she said. “Damn him.” She looked up, an angry spark in her eyes. “I will go and stay with Alice and Miles until Tom drinks himself to death.”

“A charming solution,” Nat said, “but sadly, one that might take some time.” He shook his head. “Alice and Miles are too much in love to wish for a permanent houseguest. You would be better off married to me.”

Lizzie was silent for a moment, but when she looked at him there was a spark of amusement in her green eyes that reminded him of the way things had once been between them before it all became so intolerably complicated.

“How neatly you have maneuvered me,” she said lightly, “until I can see I have no choice.” She sat up, out of his arms. “I don’t have a choice, do I, Nat?”

“No,” Nat said. “Not anymore. You owe me fifty thousand pounds,” he added, “and I know you always pay your debts.”

He saw her fingers pause in their fidgety pleating of the bedspread. She looked at him, head on one side. There was a different glint in her eyes now. She was surprised and a little taken aback. She had not been expecting this. Lizzie was accustomed to seeing the gentler side of him. Normally he kept the iron fist for his work and she saw the velvet glove. Not anymore.

“How so?” she said.

“I called off my marriage to Flora because of what happened between us,” Nat said. “I lost her fortune. So now I am claiming yours in its place.”

She chewed her lip. “I see. And what is in this arrangement for me?”

“You escape your brother,” Nat said, “and thwart his plans to steal your money.”

“So that you can steal it in his place?” She was cool, noncommittal.

“It’s the best offer you’ll get,” Nat said. “I’m tired of being nice about this, Lizzie.”

She gave him another sideways look from those slanted green eyes. He could see that his determination had intrigued her rather than repelled her. It excited her and appealed to the wilder side of her nature. Suddenly, violently, he wanted to kiss her. Tom’s orgy, whilst repellent in some respects, had, inevitably, aroused him and he did not resist the impulse. He took her by the shoulders, feeling the slippery slide of the swansdown wrap beneath his fingers and beneath that the slenderness of her. He laid his mouth against hers. She felt cool and sweet and her skin smelled of roses. Nat took a gentle handful of her hair and buried his face in it, inhaling the scent. It was soft, slipping in sleek threads through his fingers, catching against his lips like silken bonds. He raised his head and kissed her again and this time her lips parted against his and the hunger roared through him and he kissed her deeply, searchingly, desire leaping to further desire, and she reached for him and drew him down onto the bed beside her, her hands moving over him, encouraging him out of his clothes even as she kissed him with a feverish need.

“I want you,” she whispered and the robe slipped from her and Nat pressed his lips to the hollow at her throat and to the freckles that dusted her shoulders. He pushed down her nightgown and saw that she had freckles scattered across the swell of her breasts as well and for some reason that excited him beyond measure as he lowered his head to lick and kiss them and she writhed beneath the caress of his mouth and tongue.

He had shed his jacket and now she was tugging at his shirt so that she could slide her hands beneath it and touch his naked skin. She was wild, insatiable, nipping and kissing him, running her fingers over him in blatant curiosity, her nightgown long gone, her alabaster-white skin stung pink with passion and the effect of his kisses. He was enormously aroused, even more so as Lizzie’s hand closed about his erection, as curious and questing as she had been in her exploration of the rest of his body.

“Not now. Not this time…” He knew if she touched him he would explode and he did not want that. Not this time. Later there would be time for her to learn and discover and for him to study every inch of her.

When they were married he would keep her in his bed until they were both sated.

The thought almost sent him straight over the edge.

He eased back a little and ran his hands down the length of her naked body, over the curve of her breasts and the gentle swell of her stomach and the glorious arch of her hips. She felt soft beneath his hands, delicate and yet with a core of strength that he knew would never break. He cupped her small breasts, holding them up so that his lips and tongue could plunder and ravish them, and he heard her moan. His hands slid to her waist, then down again in greedy demand over her hips and thighs and he pushed her legs apart, readying her.

And then he felt her pause and go very still.

The hesitation in her, the fear he suddenly sensed, cut through his arousal like a knife. He drew back. She lay spread beneath him, tumbled and abandoned, her body utterly open to him in the pale flare of the candlelight. Her limbs were pale golden in the light except for where the touch of his mouth had nipped her skin to pink. The soft hair at the juncture of her thighs was even more defiantly red than the cloud of auburn that swathed her shoulders. She lay completely, strikingly still, not even pressing her thighs together to hide the petals of her sex that were so blatantly, temptingly exposed to him. Nat swallowed hard and forced his gaze to her face. The dizzy, unfocused, sensual look had fled from her eyes leaving something that looked like apprehension and alarm.

Understanding swept through him and with it a deep tenderness. The last time-her first time-had been fierce and mindless and intense. They had both been lost in the experience at the time but now, perhaps, Lizzie was afraid remembering the mutual violence and greed of their encounter. She had no comparisons to make, no experience on which to draw. He had to make it good for her and show her that making love was not always like that.

“Lizzie.” He gathered her to him, feeling the slick heat and the smoothness of her body, trying to ignore the arousing effect of her nipples pressing against his chest and the hot, sweet nakedness of her in his arms. He stroked her hair. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “I didn’t think last time, but now I will be gentle, I swear it. I won’t hurt you.”

He felt her shiver a little but he kept up the rhythmic, soothing stroke of her hair and after a few moments he felt her body shift a little and relax against his; a change came over her, the tension seemed to flow out of her leaving her feeling warm and soft and acquiescent. He drew back to look at her face and saw that her eyes were closed now. Her head rested against his shoulder and her hair spilled over his chest. Her lips were parted and her breath was coming a little more quickly now. Nat kissed her gently and felt her response with a kick through the blood that rearoused him in one second flat. He laid her back against the pillows and feathered kisses over her face and neck, working his way down her body with a light, teasing touch that soon had her squirming restlessly on the covers and reaching for him again. He evaded her. He wanted her to be so dazed with desire this time that she was aware of nothing but their mutual need. He swirled his tongue in her belly button and pressed a stealthy kiss in the sweet curve of her hip and another against her inner thigh. Her legs fell apart again irresistibly to the slide of his fingers and the glide of his lips. He could smell her scent and it almost drove him wild with longing but he held himself back, using his tongue on her very core, stroking, caressing, thrusting, blowing softly on her damp flesh, teasing her with tantalizing promise as he led her to the very edge of pleasure and then drew back. He watched her reactions, saw her entire body start to glow and burn up with sensual heat as he drove her closer and closer, then he sucked on her, gentle, harder, alternating the sensations as she hung helplessly at his mercy, as her hips twitched and she desperately searched for the surcease he kept just beyond her grasp. Her hands came down to pull his hair and force his tongue deep inside her and her hips arched and she gave a scream of pure, keening pleasure and fell sharp and fast into her climax.

After that there was no restraining her. She grabbed his shoulders, scored his back with her fingernails and dug her fingers into his buttocks as she pulled him inside her. He could feel the pulse of her climax still shaking her body and it almost destroyed his resolve but still he fought for control. He obliged her with a couple of inches and no more, and she swore at him in so unmaidenly a fashion that he would have laughed had he not been so desperate himself. He moved into her with infinite slowness and unhurried strokes until her silken walls gripped him even tighter and he knew that she was going to climax again and then he, too, was lost in a maelstrom of sensation as the pleasure crashed through him and everything was swept away.

LIZZIE LAY AWAKE IN Nat’s arms, her eyes open wide, her gaze following the shift and dance of the shadows on the wall. The house was silent. Tom’s cronies must finally have drunk themselves into oblivion.

Nat was asleep. Lizzie turned slightly in order to look at him and felt him shift and draw her closer against his body. The sight of him defenseless in sleep made her heart feel hollow with love and tenderness. He held her gently and the solid warmth of his body against hers should have comforted her but oddly it only made her feel more alone. The tears pricked her eyes.

Once could have been considered a mistake, Lizzie thought. Twice was not so easy to explain away. She must at least be honest with herself and admit that she had made love with Nat because she had wanted him. In her grief over Sir Montague’s death and all the memories it had unlocked for her, she had turned to Nat utterly as a means to block out the pain of the present and the uncertainty of the future. But then, in the moment when he had been about to take her, she had not been able to deceive herself any longer. She had remembered that Nat did not love her and she had drawn back, suddenly acutely aware that if she gave herself to him again, with all the love that was in her, it would only make her feel more cheated and hollow that he did not love her in return.

Nat had misunderstood, of course. He had assumed that she was nervous because the only previous time that they had made love it had been wild and elemental and violent in its feral intensity. He had thought that she was fearful of being hurt. It was an understandable mistake to make-it was gentle and generous of him-and she had not corrected him, for what could she say?

I am fearful because I know you do not love me as I love you and I am afraid that if I respond to you with everything in my heart you will see my love and see me in all my terrifying vulnerability…

She could not bear to expose that to him. Far easier to expose her body physically than to strip her feelings naked and tell Nat the truth. So she had pretended that she was scared and she had allowed him to lull her with his kisses and caresses, she had closed her mind and simply allowed her body to feel, and it had been magical and deeply pleasurable and yet at the end, even as her body ached with satisfaction, she was left feeling empty and wanting to cry. She did not want to feel so sad, so distant from Nat, but even as she sought the warmth of his body she felt her soul move further from him.

She would marry Nat now, of course. He had spelled the matter out to her in brutal detail. He needed her money and in return he would give her protection against Tom’s vicious, dangerous ways, the threat that Tom had demonstrated so clearly tonight. Oddly this bargain, with no emotion on either side, was more comfortable to her than any arguments about pregnancy or honor or reputation. It was a business arrangement now, pure and simple. Or-Lizzie looked down at their naked, entwined bodies-not so pure, perhaps. It was a business arrangement with insatiable lust as the sweetener, if only until they tired of one another.

Just for a moment she panicked because she knew in her heart of hearts that this was not what she wanted from Nat. She thought about escaping, about running away from Nat and the agreement they had tacitly made. She eased a little way out of his grip, putting her thoughts into action before they were even properly formed. Running away was a habit with her, after all. But then Nat’s hand snaked out and clamped about her wrist and she saw in the moonlight that his eyes were wide and steady and fixed on her face.

“Running from me again?” His tone was pleasant but brooked no argument. “You have made your bed, Lizzie, and now you must lie in it with me.”

As he spoke he was drawing her beneath him, pinning her with his body above and against hers, and Lizzie felt her bewitched and traitorous senses start to spin even before his lips came down on hers with renewed need and painful desire. He was hard for her again and the knowledge filled her with a wicked sense of power. She did not need to think about the things Nat could not give her. She knew now how much he wanted her and how much it tormented him. That would have to be enough. She could feel the edge of desperation in his touch-it seemed that as such a restrained and controlled man he could not quite believe what she could do to him. When he slid into her he groaned aloud and devoured her as though his very life was in her hands. Lizzie let the delicious sensations of mutual ravishment fill her and take her but as Nat came, racked by spasm after spasm, she held him and thought again, It is enough.

It would have to be enough.