Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Copyright

All their vows, physical and verbal, had been made.

Nothing important remained that needed to be given voice.

Mary put her hand over Nick’s sleeve, the tips of her fingers still shaded with berry juice. The crested ring he wore was briefly touched with moonlight. Seeing the glint, he slipped it off his finger and onto her thumb.

“Take it to my father if…” The sentence trailed off, unfinished.

She nodded.

“I love you, Mary Winters,” he whispered. “I will always love you. Dearer to me than my own soul.”

Again she nodded.

He felt the small tightening of her fingers over his forearm as she leaned to place her lips against the roughness of his unshaven cheek.

“God keep you safe,” she whispered, a prayer, and stepped away, releasing him, freeing him to fulfill other vows, as compelling to his honor, she knew, as these they had made here together….

Dear Reader,

His Secret Duchess is a heart-wrenching new Regency title from Gayle Wilson, a RITA Award finalist who is also making a name for herself with her spine-tingling mysteries for Harlequin’s Intrigue line. In this month’s title, a nobleman presumed dead returns home after seven years of war to discover his “secret wife” on trial for murder, and a son whom he must rescue from a vengeful merchant. Don’t miss this dark and extraordinary tale of love and redemption.

Linda Castle’s new book, Temple’s Prize, features a hotshot young paleontologist who discovers that his challenge to his former professor will be taken up by his daughter instead. And popular author Suzanne Barclay returns to her bestselling series, THE SOMMERVILLE BROTHERS, with her newest medieval novel Knight’s Rebellion, the stirring tale of the leader of a band of outlaws who finds himself unable to resist the mysterious woman whom he has rescued.

And when a homeless schoolteacher is taken in by the wealthy uncle of one of her students, falling in love is the last thing on their minds in Pat Tracy’s new Western, Cade’s Justice, the first book in her terrific series set in Denver, Colorado, called THE GUARDSMEN. Another great read from an author who always delivers a fast-paced and sexy story.

Whatever your tastes in reading, we hope you enjoy all four books.

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Harlequin Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

His Secret Duchess
Gayle Wilson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

GAYLE WILSON

is the award-winning author of ten novels written for Harlequin. Gayle has lived in Alabama her entire life, except for the years she followed her army aviator husband to a variety of military posts. She holds a master’s degree and an additional certification in the education of the gifted from the University of Alabama. Before beginning her writing career she taught at a number of schools around the Birmingham, Alabama, area.

Gayle writes historicals set in the Regency period of England for Harlequin Historicals and contemporary romantic suspense for Harlequin Intrigue. She was a 1995 Romance Writers of America RITA Award finalist for her first historical title, The Heart’s Desire. Her first contemporary novel, Echoes in the Dark, won the 1996 Award of Excellence presented by the. Colorado Romance Writers, and placed third in the Georgia Romance Writers’ prestigious Maggie Award competition.

Gayle and her husband have been blessed with a wonderful son, who is also a teacher of gifted students, and with a warm and loving extended Southern family and an ever-growing menagerie of cats and dogs.

For my friend and mother-in-love, Emma Lou, who also creates heroes, and who gave me the best.

Prologue

April 1815

The chestnut gelding, fresh and eager for the promised run, resented the sedate pace to which his rider was relentlessly holding him. That resentment had been subtly demonstrated to the man who competently, and without conscious thought, controlled the horse’s brief rebellion. To an outside observer, of course, it would have seemed that a flawless connection existed between the horseman’s hands and the magnificent animal they guided.

It was not until Lieutenant Colonel Lord Nicholas Stanton finally sighted the slender figure moving through the dappling shade the ancient oaks provided that he allowed his mount his head, and then only until they had closed the distance. The gelding was pulled up once again, and horse and rider sedately followed the strolling girl until, apparently hearing them behind her, she turned to look over her shoulder.

Her blue eyes, shaded by the wide brim of a style of straw bonnet that would certainly not have been seen in the fashionable city from which the Duke of Vail’s younger son had just returned, openly considered the rider a moment. Her gaze then returned to concentrate on the path she had been following along the edge of the shadowed country lane.

The horseman’s well-shaped lips tilted upward. Nick Stanton was unaccustomed to being snubbed. Especially by women. Indeed, the adulation of the marriageable ladies of the ton during his recent visit to London would have been enough to turn the head of many a man. Not only was he nobly born and extremely well-fixed, but he was an acknowledged military hero, as well, his exploits in Iberia having been remarked upon in dispatches by Wellington himself.

It didn’t hurt his standing with the fairer sex that his profile had, on more than one occasion, been compared to Adonis and his tailor was never forced to resort to buckram padding in the making of the well-cut uniforms Nick wore to perfection. The calm dismissal in the eyes of the girl in the outmoded straw bonnet was certainly not the reception Lord Stanton had recently been accorded by the London ton.

Perhaps in response to that obvious disdain, Nick touched his heels to the chestnut and guided him alongside the strolling figure. Again, blue eyes rose to his, their gaze far too direct for fashionable flirtation.

“Good afternoon,” Stanton said, holding his mount to the pace the girl had set. A finger of sun reaching through the overarching branches touched briefly on his hair, turning it gold. The fair hair was darkened now with perspiration, and slightly curling. What others of his set achieved with heated irons, nature had bestowed upon him quite naturally, another of her generous gifts for this favored son. His uniform jacket set off broad shoulders and a narrow waist, the tight pantaloons emphasizing the muscled strength of his long legs.

At his greeting, the girl’s eyes lifted again, slowly appraising both horse and rider. Her upturned face was classically heart-shaped, but her mouth was too wide for the current fashion and her nose straight rather than retroussé, and there was nothing the least bit simpering in her manner. Her assessment was unflinching.

The sprigged muslin she wore was at least two years old, its skirt rucked up in the country style to protect the fragile material from briars, revealing underneath a plain white petticoat. She carried over her arm a wicker basket almost half-full of red currants.

“My lord,” she said simply, and then the blue eyes returned to the lane before them.

Again, that upward tilt disturbed the line of the rider’s mouth, as his gray eyes, also, sought the shaded path that stretched ahead of them. The silence lasted for several moments as they moved side by side.

“Berrying?” he asked finally—a ridiculous question, given the evidence in the bottom of the basket.

The girl’s mouth, more used to laughter than to primness, flickered dangerously, almost losing its determined sternness. “Indeed,” she agreed.

Again silence descended, broken only by the plodding hooves of the gelding. The horse had finally relaxed into the pace his rider was keeping him to.

“May I give you a ride?” Lord Stanton offered, holding out his hand. His fingers were long and deeply tanned, despite the months he’d spent in England and away from his regiment. That had not, of course, been his choice, but the ball he took at Toulouse had proved to be far more troublesome than anyone suspected it might. There had even, at one juncture, been talk that he might lose the leg, but, thankfully, that danger was long past. Despite a slight, persistent stiffness in his right knee, Nick considered himself in fighting trim, and that had been the point of his recent trip to London—to convince his superiors at the Horse Guards of that.

“Thank you, but no, my lord. I’m sure you’re far too busy with your own affairs to bother with mine.”

“I promise I should be delighted to assist a lady.”

The girl’s eyes rose to linger a moment on the handsome face. “But surely you can see,” she said, “that I’m not—”

“A lady?” he said, interrupting her, his mouth controlled and his face a politely inquiring mask.

“In need of assistance,” she finished, without apparent rancor at his insult. She changed the heavy basket to her other arm, and from that sleeve removed a scrap of lace with which she touched the dew of perspiration on her upper lip.

“Making jam?” Stanton asked pleasantly, his eyes following the dabbing movements of the cloth along the beautiful bow of her upper lip.

The girl glanced at him, her dark lashes sweeping upward to reveal some emotion dancing in the. depths of her eyes.

“Pies, I believe,” she answered.

“For your sweetheart?”

“I have no sweetheart, my lord.”

“For a lass so beautiful, I find that difficult to believe. Are all the men here blind?”

“Perhaps. To my charms, at least. It seems there are always…other pleasures that distract them.”

“Then they’re fools,” Nick said softly. Unthinkingly, he slipped his right Hessian out of the stirrup and eased it into a more comfortable position, straightening the aching knee.

“So I’ve often thought,” she agreed, watching the procedure until he glanced down again. Then her gaze deliberately shifted from its focus on the man who rode beside her to the lane ahead.

“Do you have a name?” Stanton asked.

“Of course, my lord.”

This time Nick lost the battle to control his amusement, and the smile that had charmed the feminine half of the beau monde was unleashed in full force. Remarkably, it seemed to have no effect on the girl.

“Might I know it?” he urged.

“You might,” she said calmly, removing from her basket a berry that had apparently, on closer examination, proved unworthy for inclusion in the proposed pies. “And then, you might not. I’m sure I don’t know what you might know, my lord.”

“Has no one told you not to be pert with your betters?” Nick asked, laughing.

“No one but you, my lord. But I’m sure that was simply an oversight.”

“Gertrude,” he offered.

“I beg your pardon?” the girl said, but it was obvious, even to Stanton, that she didn’t.

“Since you seem so reluctant to share the information, I was attempting to guess your name.”

“My name is Mary Winters, my lord.”

“Do you live here in the village, Mary?”

“With my father in the vicarage, my lord.”

“The proverbial vicar’s daughter?”

“Indeed, my lord.”

“And have you finished gathering your berries, Mary Winters?”

“Oh, no, my lord. The very best spot, you see, is just through here.”

As she spoke, the girl stepped off the apron of the road and, pulling aside a limb that had blocked a small footpath, she disappeared into the shadowed undergrowth, the branch she had pushed aside returning to cover the hidden opening, as if by magic.

Horse and rider were left alone in the sudden quietness of the lane. Almost before the leaves had stilled, Stanton had dismounted. Displacing the same branch, he led the gelding into the clearing into which the girl had vanished. Once shielded from the road by the intervening hedges, he looped the horse’s reins over a branch and ran his hand soothingly over the shining chestnut of the horse’s neck.

Then the man’s gray eyes lifted to seek the girl. Surprisingly, she was standing on the gnarled trunk of an oak that had forked early in its existence. Something had bent the branch she stood upon, so that it now formed a natural platform about a foot off the ground. The basket rested on the grass beneath the other side of the trunk, which had grown straight and true. She balanced herself by holding on to a limb that protruded from the undamaged trunk of the tree. She had removed the straw hat, releasing a cascade of dark brown curls that seemed to lure all the leaf-diffused light of the clearing to glint in their richness. Her blue eyes watched as Nick Stanton crossed the clearing.

“You appear to be limping, my lord,” she said.

“I’ve just spent three days successfully not limping,” he answered, smiling, “so I should think you might try to be less critical.”

“A war wound, I suppose.”

“An honorable one, I assure you. Taken in the front.”

The girl’s mouth quivered, almost a smile.

“And heroic, no doubt?” she asked tauntingly.

“Not particularly.”

“Lord Wellington seemed to think so,” she said challengingly.

Smiling, Nick shook his head in denial, but his steps didn’t falter. Inexorably, he continued his approach to the oak.

“And foolhardy? Incredibly brave?” she suggested.

“A matter of opinion, I should imagine” he said dismissively.

He stood now directly below her, his height enough that their eyes were almost on a level. Blue met gray and held a moment, and then she touched him. She had turned her hand so that her knuckles trailed against the curling golden hair at his temple. He put his left hand up to catch her fingers, bringing them to his lips.

His mouth drifted slowly over the slender fingers, stained at the tips with the juice of the berries she’d gathered. Her free hand found his shoulder, the thumb caressing along the fine wool of his uniform and then upward along his neck until her palm cupped behind his head, her fingers lost in the warm silk of his hair.

Nick released the hand he’d captured and, putting his on either side of her slim waist, he lifted her from her perch into his arms. There was no resistance. She melted against his body, arms clinging around his neck, her mouth automatically opening and lowering to his. Familiar and practiced, his tongue slipped inside, as intimate as a lover’s. And as welcome.

The kiss was long and unhurried. Despite the limp with which he’d crossed the expanse between them, Stanton held her without effort, her body resting trustingly along the hard, masculine length of his. Slowly he lowered her until the toes of her kid slippers touched the ground, and still their mouths clung, moving against one another, cherishing, reluctant to let go. Finally she broke the kiss, her palms resting on either side of his face.

“Tell me that they refused you,” she entreated.

Smiling, he shook his head. “You know better than that, Mary. The Beau needs every experienced officer, every veteran, he can find. I told you that before I left.”

“And you convinced them you were fit.”

“To be truthful—”

“To be truthful, you lied about your leg,” she said accusingly.

“They were too glad of my offer to think of refusing. I suspect they’d have accepted me if I’d lost the leg,” he said, still smiling down at her. “Don’t be angry, Mary, my heart. That’s where I belong. It’s where my men will be. My regiment. It’s where I want to be.”

“Not again,” she whispered. “I can’t let you go to that hell again.” There was no answer for that plea. No comfort. Men were the warriors, and women those who wept. “How long?” she asked, and watched his lips tighten.

“Three hours. Less. I had to change horses. There were things I needed at the Hall, and I had to say goodbye to Charles and my father, in case…” His voice faded at the pain in her eyes, suddenly glazed with tears. “I came as fast as I could. But I have to be back in London to board the transport at dawn.”

“You just arrived. Surely—”

“Three hours, Mary,” he reminded, his mouth finding the small blue vein at her temple. “Shall we spend it arguing?”

“No,” she whispered, her lips lifting to his, her tongue seeking, fingers tangling through the golden curls. “No,” she said again as his mouth shifted over hers, turning to meld, to possess what was his. And always would be.

Nick had taken his cloak from his saddle pack and laid it on the ground, and now they lay together, watching dusk darken the sky they could barely see through the sheltering branches above their heads. He had removed his uniform jacket, and Mary’s fingers had long ago found the buttons of the soft lawn shirt he wore beneath it.

She had unfastened them, daringly, first one and then another, her lips exploring each inch of the hair-roughened chest as it was revealed. Her mouth had finally touched the smooth skin of his flat belly, tracing at last down the line of gold that disappeared into the top of his pantaloons.

His breathing had changed as she touched him, but he’d not protested the tentative exploration, except occasionally, his fingers locking suddenly in the spill of dark curls when her mouth found some previously unexamined area. Tortured by the sweetness of her lips, he was beyond conscious thought, beyond any remembrance of right and wrong. This was Mary, and it seemed that he had loved her so long. There was nothing about the gentleness of her kisses on his body that profaned what he felt for her. What he had felt almost since the first time he saw her.

He had come to service that Sunday morning only because his father insisted he leave the Hall, where he’d been secluded since his arrival from Spain. He’d been embarrassed then by the clumsiness of the crutches, by the villagers’ sympathetic stares and interested questions about his military exploits.

He and his father had taken their places in the ducal box pew, which was raised above the congregation and directly across from the pulpit. Nick’s eyes had remained downcast as he fought the humiliation of his body’s unfamiliar awkwardness. It was only when his father’s elbow admonished him that he’d looked down onto the congregation, his gray eyes rebellious, and found Mary.

She was sitting in the first row, her face rapt, listening to her father’s sermon, totally unaware of the fascinated attention of the Duke of Vail’s younger son. It was an experience that was new to Nick Stanton, and perhaps that was her initial appeal.

If so, it was soon overtaken by other, more conventional elements of attraction: the beauty of blue eyes fringed by long, dark lashes, the incredible clarity of her skin, the shining coils of brown hair demurely hidden under her Sunday bonnet. Stanton, long considered as one of the catches of any Season fortunate enough to find him spending a few months in London, quickly fell under the spell of a country vicar’s daughter.

Apparently, however, Mary Winters had no interest in his existence. Indeed, she seemed to be totally unaware that such an illustrious figure as Lieutenant Colonel Lord Nicholas Stanton had deigned to grace her father’s simple parish church that morning. And so, of course, motivated at first simply by boredom and his enforced inactivity, Nick set out to change that situation.

In the next few weeks, his father grew suspicious of Nick’s desire to attend service. The duke began to fear that the recently passed dangers of his wound or the disastrous influence of some Methodist evangelist might be responsible for his son’s unprecedented religious zeal.

It did not, however, take Vail long to realize that something more in keeping with Nick’s normal temperament had occurred. He had only to focus his lorgnette in the direction the straightforward gray gaze took each Sunday to find that the object of Nick’s devotion was not the promise of celestial paradise, but something more tangible, more earthly, and far more apt to cause trouble. He spoke sternly to his son and was surprised by the tenor of his answer.

“Trifle with her?” Nick repeated, incredulous at his father’s fear. “Good God, sir, look at her. Who would dare to trifle with Mary Winters?”

Recognizing the serenity of spirit and the cool intelligence in the girl’s blue eyes, attributes that Lord Stanton had already acknowledged, the duke was forced to agree.

“Mary,” Nick whispered finally, more plea than protest. But her lips lingered only a heart-shattering moment longer over the coarse hair that arrowed toward his achingly responsive body. He closed his eyes tightly at the sudden desertion of her mouth, knowing that her retreat was far wiser than his acquiescence had been.

Having spent three years on the battlefields of the Iberian Peninsula, he had come to find Mary today, well aware that he might never see her again, might never be allowed to make her his. Even now, he should be on his way to rejoin his regiment He had told her three hours, and under the untutored tenderness of her slender hands and the sweetness of her lips, those moments had slipped away, melting from his possession like snow in summer.

He lay, eyes still closed, listening to the sounds of approaching evening, the coo of the doves, the rising breeze disturbing the stillness of the leaves above his head, all the while desperately trying to will his body back to control.

“Nick,” Mary said softly, her voice coming from above him now. He opened his eyes, and then, despite the knowledge that there was only madness in the act, he found himself unable to close them again, unable to deny what she offered.

Mary had lowered the bodice of her gown and her chemise, holding the soft muslin protectively over her breasts with her fingers, the stains at their tips almost startling next to the pale delicacy of the fabric. Her eyes held his, her lips unsmiling, a tangle of dark curls over the bare ivory of her shoulders.

Then, as he watched, she lowered the garments, exposing for him the flawless perfection of her breasts. He lay unmoving, his breath stopped by wonder. Slowly, her eyes never leaving his, she raised the fingers of her right hand and placed them under one rose-tipped peak, her thumb stroking downward over the swell of smooth skin.

He was not aware of consciously directing the movement that brought his mouth to replace her trembling fingers. It was not planned or ordered by his brain. Something far more primitive was responsible for the placement of his lips over that small captive. Her breath shivered out against his hair, stirring in the golden softness, sobbing with the movement of his tongue, drawn slowly over and then around the nipple she had so trustingly given to his worship.

She hadn’t known that his mouth would feel like this, hot and moist and demanding, his teeth teasing the hardened bud his tongue created. Something was happening inside her body, moving, too, reaching toward him now, as her breast had sought out his caress. Unfamiliar and unknown, it responded to the incredible sensations of his mouth suckling the sensitive area no man’s eyes had ever seen before. No one but Nick. She was his, and it was right that he know before he left.

His tongue floated across the valley between her suddenly aching breasts, her heart fluttering underneath its heat and moisture, the trail it left branded on her skin by the very air. Her hands held his head, pulling it down against her chest, wanting his touch inside, where she ached. She made no protest when he turned her, laying her gently on his cloak, the coarseness of the wool against her bare back.

He leaned above her, propped on his elbow, the gray eyes studying the slender body before him. He touched the base of her throat, finding the small pulse. His long fingers were dark against her paleness, hard and callused against the soft translucence of her skin. They feathered lower, until, as hers had earlier, they stroked over the rose nipple that centered the milk-white globe.

Watching his eyes, she put her hands on his shoulders to urge him downward until the golden hair on his chest grazed over her too-sensitive flesh. Instinctively he moved above her, never allowing the hard muscles to contact her softness, choosing instead to torture them both, almost touching and then not, so close she could feel the heat of his skin beneath the softly tantalizing brush of hair.

It was not until her small hips arched upward into his, shockingly intimate, that he allowed his arms to close around her, locking her against the straining wall of his chest. She arched again, her body into his, demanding, this and more. Far more than she knew. Far more than he had ever intended. But not more than she wanted. And now, more than he could deny.

Her fingers, caught between their bodies, found, as he held her, the flap of his trousers, and frantic with need, she sought to free him from their restraint.

“Mary,” he said, his voice denying, but she didn’t listen.

He was leaving, and she, too, knew the dangers he’d face. Hers was a conscious decision, undeterred by all she had been taught, by all that she had truly believed until the reality of his danger intruded. Nick was hers, and her body demanded the fulfillment of that ownership, despite the denial of society’s mores, of her religion. This was hers and his. And might never be again.

She touched the unfamiliar contours of his body, desperate, urging him to finish what they had begun. What could no longer be denied.

“Mary,” he whispered again, his voice hoarse and agonized with need, with want, with pain.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

Again, her small hands entreated. Country-bred, she had no sophistication and no longer any hesitancy. She could taste the salt on his skin as the strong brown column of his neck rested over her lips. And finally, after she had touched him a long time, his hands joined hers to help with what she sought, to guide and to direct.

The air was shocking against her uncovered body, cold and invasive, but she wanted it, as she wanted the invasion that followed. Painful and tearing. She gasped her shock into the shoulder that strained against her mouth and heard his voice again whisper her name.

He turned his cheek against her face, the slight roughness of his beard burning her skin, his movements frenzied and uncontrolled. His hips drove above her a long time, and from within her pain, from its dark center, something began to form, to open like the tight-furled bud of a rose releasing into the afternoon’s sun.

She wasn’t sure of the feeling at first, at the edge of pain, and then beyond discomfort. Into something else. Pulsing and growing at the heart of his body’s driving caress. Expanding like the silk of the balloons she had watched them fill that summer in the London pleasure gardens. Filling with heat that couldn’t be denied, that couldn’t be contained by the pull of the earth’s gravity, until all at once, whatever had been there floated upward, soaring as the balloons had, out of her control.

She heard her own voice, crying out as the center released, and then Nick’s mouth was over hers, capturing the echo of the cry that had shattered the twilight stillness around them. His own release followed quickly, hot and powerful, roaring into the receptacle of her body like a torrent, shattering in its intensity. His body convulsed under her caressing hands. Once. Twice. And then was still. As still now as the clearing where they lay, still entwined. One.

Finally he moved, raising his chest away from hers on hard brown arms that trembled. He looked down into her face, which was touched with this great mystery», softened and exposed by what had happened.

“Mary,” he said again, the afternoon’s litany, and thinking that, she smiled at him. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

Her smile widened, blue eyes moving over the strong lines of his face. Beloved. This is my beloved. She watched her fingers touch his cheek, feeling, as she had felt before, the dear roughness. Too intimate and too private. Only hers.

“Oh, dear God, Mary, what have I done?” Nick said, his tone choked with despair.

“Hush.” She comforted him, her voice that of a mother whispering from the darkness of the storm’s rage to her frightened child. “It’s all right,” she promised. Her thumb moved against his lashes, which were gold tipped and darker at the root. Beautiful eyes. She had never really seen them before. Their color now was the same slate as the afternoon’s sky in winter. “I love you,” she said, and watched his face change again. Realigning. Finding the direction he had lost, the sure course of honor she had stolen from him.

“Where is your father?” he asked, and for a moment she couldn’t remember. Or think why he would want to know.

“With the dean. On visitation.”

“Will he be home tonight?”

“Not until Tuesday,” she said, thinking suddenly about her dear, frail papa. Of his unfailing gentleness with those who fell short of the grace so generously given. And thinking, finally, of the reality of what they had done.

“Come on,” Nick said, rising in one smoothly athletic movement and then reaching down to pull her to her feet.

Standing, she was embarrassed for the first time by their undress. She watched, unmoving, as he rearranged his garments, the action a matter of seconds. When he turned to her, the long fingers dealing competently with the last button on his shirt, his hands stilled at what was in her face.

“I have to go,” he said, trying to imagine what she must be feeling. “If I don’t, then I’ll be a deserter. It won’t matter that I’m Vail’s son. My regiment is going into combat, Mary. I have to go. I’ve been recommissioned.”

“I know,” she whispered, wondering why he was explaining. She had always understood he had to leave. That was why…

“Mary?” he said.

She would never see him like this again, she knew suddenly, the surety of her premonition so strong it took her breath. And so she let her eyes glory in him as he stood before her, young and strong and so beautiful. So alive. His hair disordered by their lovemaking, by her fingers. His tanned skin clean, its taste sweet and warm, salt-kissed under her tongue.

She closed her eyes, imprinting his image on her brain. To last forever. Nick. For one instant of time, he had belonged only to her, and she would cherish that in the dark future that lay ahead.

“Mary?” he said again, his tone questioning.

Her eyes opened, and she forced herself to smile at him. He crossed the small distance that separated them. He gently guided her hands through the openings in her chemise and then through the sleeves of the bodice of her gown, his fingers dealing with the intricacies of feminine dress with an ease that argued long familiarity. She wondered how many other women…and knew that it didn’t matter. Whatever they had been before, they were no longer. There was only now.

She stood and let him dress her as if she were a porcelain fashion doll. Or a child. It was not until his thumb had lifted to wipe away the tears that she even realized she was crying. She caught his hand, to lay the dampness of her cheek against its warmth.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said, feeling her smile begin against his palm in response to that apology.

“I know,” she whispered.

“Is it very bad, my heart?”

“No,” she answered, looking up to comfort his concern. His eyes were too serious, worried, a crease forming between the golden brows. “It doesn’t hurt.” A lie, but there was no need to add to the burden she’d already given him to bear, a guilt he would carry with him onto some battlefield in a place whose name she wouldn’t even know.

“We have to go,” he urged again.

“I know.”

But when he led her from the clearing, the gelding following as placid as a shepherd’s dog, and lifted her onto the animal, careful of her discomfort, it was to take her to a destination she did not expect.

The stones of the ancient monastic chapel blended into the fall of night’s shadows, almost hidden from the road. This was the oldest part of the benefice, seldom used since the newer church, much closer to the village, had been commissioned by the old duke, Nick’s grandfather. Built as a penance for his many sins, some had said. This small chapel was peopled now only by the ghosts of those who had prayed beneath its roof through so many centuries.

She didn’t question when Nick lifted her off Comet’s back and, taking her hand, pulled her toward the wooden doors. They creaked protestingly when he pushed them open. The interior was darker than the outside twilight, and they were forced to wait for their eyes to adjust to its gloom.

There was a tall stained-glass window behind the chancel, and in the light filtering through its gemlike panes they were finally able to see the simple stone altar in the shadowed darkness. The faint scent of incense seemed to permeate the silence. Nick again took her hand, leading her across the nave toward the altar. It was only at the realization of his intent that she shrank back, struggling to free her hand from his determined hold.

“No,” she said, her recoil from the sanctity of this place instinctive. “Not here.” She could not come here, could not stand in this place with him, her body wet with their lovemaking.

“Yes, Mary. Here.”

Wondering, she shook her head. Nick held her eyes a moment, and then turned to face the figure depicted in the central light, below the flowing tracery of the window.

“Here,” he said again. His eyes still raised to the image in the window, he began to intone the familiar words, “I, Nicholas William Richard, take thee, Mary…”

His voice faltered, and his gaze came back to the tearstreaked beauty of her face, lifted almost reverently, not to the window, but to his.

“Elizabeth,” she whispered. His gaze rested on her features a long time, and then returned to the figure portrayed in the stained-glass window above their heads.

”…take thee, Mary Elizabeth, to be my wedded wife. To have and to hold, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health…” The soft words faltered again. He was unable to remember the rest, and so he finished. “From this day forward. Forever more. Amen.”

He turned to her again, waiting, and fighting tears, she raised blind eyes to the jeweled lights of the window.

“I, Mary Elizabeth, take thee, Nicholas William Richard, to be my wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death us do part. And thereto I plight thee my troth.”

“Amen,” Nick demanded. A talisman, perhaps, a charm to make the spell complete.

“Amen,” she echoed obediently.

He released her hand. There was no kiss. She shivered suddenly, and he pulled her against the heat of his body, tall and strong, enclosing her in his strength.

“Where’s the register?” he asked, his lips against her hair.

“I don’t know,” she said truthfully, leaning back, sniffing, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.

“We have to find it,” he said, no longer the tender lover of the clearing or the ardent maker of vows. He was again the arrogant nobleman, Wellington’s officer, confident and demanding.

“Why?”

“To record the marriage.”

“But—”

“Think, Mary.”

Instead, again obeying him without question, she moved behind the altar to the small vestment cupboard. She struggled a moment with the stiffness of the clasp, and when she had succeeded in opening the door, she found only an ancient leather-bound register. Its vellum pages were filled, she knew, with the scrawling signatures of previous village priests recording the important events of the parish when this building had served as its spiritual heart. The current register, where any marriage should now be recorded, rested in the chancel of the new church.

“Everything was taken to the new sanctuary when it was consecrated,” Mary said, shaking her head. “There’s nothing here but the old.”

“Is there room, Mary?” Nick asked.

“Room?” she repeated, puzzled.

Stanton strode to the cupboard. Without hesitation, he lifted the massive book from its resting place and brought it to the fading light of the window. He laid it on the stone altar, opening it to the last page.

“Here,” he said, pointing to the blank space at the bottom. “Now all we need is pen and ink.”

“Nick…” she protested again, knowing in her heart that this was wrong, against all the church held sacred.

He didn’t listen. The point of the pen he found in the cupboard was sharp enough, but the blackened smudge of dried powder, which was all that remained in the well, was unusable.

He carried the pen back to where Mary stood, still watching. He smiled at her before he pushed its point into the pad of his thumb, squeezing the flesh to encourage the welling crimson drop.

Following the pattern of the previous entries, Nick began to inscribe the circumstances of this marriage that was no marriage. His signature first. Then he handed the pen to Mary, his eyes compelling her, and almost against her will she obeyed, carefully inscribing her name.

“This isn’t a marriage, Nick. There’ve been no •banns and no clergy. We can’t marry ourselves. And there must be witnesses.”

“Of course,” he agreed, the gray eyes calm, and again he began to write, using still his own blood.

She watched, horrified because she knew the penalties for what he was doing—counterfeiting a church record, falsifying the required documentation of a marriage.

“No, Nick,” she said, catching his hand as he finished the scrawling signature of his father, an arrogant hand he could copy out as well as his own, having seen it a thousand times. “This is felony.”

“Who will charge us? My father would never deny me, Mary. Nor Charles,” he said, freeing his hand from her clutching fingers to add the name of his brother, and then his title. “They would suffer a traitor’s death rather than betray me.”

“And the priest’s signature. Will you forge that, too? My father won’t lie. He would never agree. You don’t know his hand,” she added, glad she had thought of something to stop what he was doing.

“But you do,” Nick suggested softly. It was true, of course. She knew she could produce a reasonable facsimile of her father’s scholarly penmanship. “Would he deny you, Mary?”

Would her father condemn her to the cruelty of the courts if she falsified this record? Into her mind came the image of his well-loved face. “No,” she whispered, certain of the truth of that, no matter what the cost to his conscience. “No,” she said again, more strongly.

“For me, Mary, my heart. Have I asked you for so much?”

The words hung between them like the perfume of the incense. He had asked for nothing. What she had given him had been offered freely, born of her own love and her need.

“You have asked me for nothing,” she whispered.

She took the pen from his hand, and fingers trembling, dipped the point again into his blood. This is my beloved. She added her father’s name, another lie, to go with the ones Nick had already written on the page.

She stood silent when it was finished, the enormity of all they had done weighing down her soul. Gently he took the pen from her hand and closed the book. He returned them both to the cupboard where they had lain undisturbed for so long and would lie again.

He walked back to her, the heels of his boots echoing across stone floor. He took her hands in his, enclosing their trembling coldness in his warmth. “Tell your father when he comes home. Tell him what happened.” Looking into the troubled blue eyes, he knew what he had tried to do here had not been enough and knew again the guilt of the clearing. “There wasn’t time. Not enough time to make it right. We’ve done the best we can, Mary. I’ll write my father and explain.”

“But it can’t be legal,” she argued, wondering why he had been so determined on this farce. It almost made it worse, she thought. A mockery of all that should have been.

His eyes rose once more to the lines of the figure crudely delineated by the colored panes in the window behind her. She turned, and her gaze found the blessed hands, outstretched to sinners.

“Intent, Mary. This is our intent. He understands what’s in our hearts. Our vows are real, signed in my heart’s blood. Those are what is important, and in them there is no deceit.”

And finally, wordlessly, she nodded.

It was dark now, only the crescent moon silvering the earth below. Mary stood beside him in the stillness. They had not spoken after they left the chapel. There had been nothing to say. All their vows, physical and verbal, had been made. Nothing, then, of any importance remained that needed to be given voice.

She put her hand over his sleeve, the tips of her fingers still shaded with the juice of the berries she had picked a hundred years ago. His fingers, long and brown and restless now, for he was eager to be off, closed around hers. The crested ring he wore was briefly touched with moonlight. Seeing the glint, he slipped it off his finger and onto her thumb.

“Take it to my father if…” The sentence trailed, unfinished.

She nodded.

“I love you, Mary Winters,” he whispered. “I will always love you. Dearer to me than my own soul.”

Again she nodded.

He felt the small tightening of her fingers over his forearm as she leaned to place her lips against the roughness of his unshaven cheek.

“God keep you safe.” She whispered the prayer and stepped away, releasing him, freeing him to fulfill other vows, as compelling to his honor, she knew, as these they had made here together.

He mounted, the movement smooth and practiced. Comet circled, dancing with the familiar weight. Nick controlled the gelding long enough to place warm fingers against her cheek and then, removing them, he dug in his heels, racing the sun toward London.

Mary stood in the shadows of the chapel a moment, listening to the pounding hoofbeats fade into the distance. Finally, when the silence was as deep as the darkness that surrounded her, she, too, turned away and reentered the chapel.

It was there that dawn, seeping redly into the shadowed sanctuary, through the ruby panes of the window, found her. The sun finally rose high enough to gleam in the tangled curls of the girl whose head lay pillowed on her arms, still on her knees, but asleep at last, on the altar steps where she had poured out through the long night hours the first of the countless prayers she would say for Nick Stanton.

Chapter One

February 1822

“When will my father be home?” the child asked, carefully placing the wooden soldier, brightly painted with the smart blue-and-red uniform of the Royal Horse Guards, back in its box.

The woman seated in a chair turned to the window in order to catch the fading light of the winter afternoon looked up from her embroidery to watch the childish fingers complete the task. Although she failed to ply her needle again, Mary Winters’s eyes returned to the piece she was working on before she answered.

“Perhaps tonight. Depending on the state of the roads.”

“I wish he might bring me another soldier,” the child said, almost plaintively.

“If wishes were horses…” Mary reminded him softly, looking up to smile at him.

The boy finished the familiar admonition. “Then beggars might ride.”

He should certainly have known that was a fruitless wish, Mary thought. His father had never brought home any prèsent for the child after one of his numerous business trips. She herself had given him the toy soldier.

She was twenty-five, long past the first bloom of youth, serenely handsome rather than pretty. Her coloring was not fashionable, and she was too slender for the current mode that demanded softly rounded curves. The glowing dark curls were severely restrained, hidden under the lace cap she habitually wore.

Her dress of brown serge was free of decoration, deliberately fitting loosely over her body. Only the blue eyes would have found favor with the fashionable world she had no desire to enter. Her feet were firmly grounded on country soil, and she no longer dreamed of any other existence. And if once she had…

Resolutely Mary banished memory and took up her needle. If only the light would last a little longer, she could finish the mending today, she thought. She had gotten a great deal of it done. The household ran more smoothly when its master wasn’t home. She and the boy were content to sit before the warmth of the winter fire and talk, tell stories or discuss the past summer’s exploits. There were no demands. No uncomfortable tensions. No arguments.

Her eyes lifted again to the child’s small head, lowered over his toy. They closed briefly, dreading the renewal of the arguments. There seemed to be nothing she could say to convince the man whose arrival they awaited that what he’d suggested could never be. She shivered suddenly and, although the room was not chilled, she pulled the soft warmth of the woolen shawl more closely around her shoulders. Unconsciously, she sighed, and the boy looked up at the sound, the soft, childish lips moving into his beautiful smile.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his slate-gray eyes resting on hers.

“I’m losing the light,” she said.

His eyes fell, his fingers touching the gilt paint that had been applied over the blue of the soldier’s uniform.

“You don’t like him here,” he said. “You haven’t wanted him here since my mother died.”

The realization that he so clearly understood her feelings took her unawares, and Mary hesitated, trying to think how to answer. At the continued silence, the gray eyes lifted again.

“It’s all right,” he said, forgivingly. “Sometimes I don’t want him here.”

She knew the times he meant. The discipline was harsh, but the man argued that much was expected of his son, and so he must be taught to be above reproach. Knowing her protests only made it worse, Mary had bitten her tongue to blood the last time, although the boy hadn’t made a sound under the repeated blows of the small cane.

“You mustn’t say that,” she corrected, laying down the needlework and allowing herself to place a hand on the down-fine softness of the child’s hair. “He’s your father. And you must love him.” Her voice had softened to a whisper, but the child’s eyes never left her face. “Do you understand?” she asked when he didn’t respond.

The gray eyes fell, back to the toy his hands still rested against. The small shoulders heaved with the depth of his sigh, but he said nothing else.

“I think it’s time for tea,” Mary said, making her voice strong and pleasant “Are you hungry?” She waited, unsmiling, her eyes on the downcast head until finally he nodded. “Good,” she said, rising. “So am L I think that as a treat we shall have currant scones and cream.”

The childish fingers brushed again along the wooden figure. The light from the fire played over the boy’s curls, touching them with the same gold the painted soldier wore so proudly.

It was long after dark when the master of the house returned. Mary had forced herself to wait up, keeping the fire in the parlor alive and the lamps lit. Unkindness was not in her nature, and no traveler should be forced to return to a cold, dark house in the dead of a winter’s night. She had no wish to see him, no wish to greet the man whose arrivals she had grown to dread more and more with each passing week.

Marcus Traywick was a merchant, successful, certainly, by the standards of the district in which his sturdy brick house stood. He had ordered the dwelling built to his own specifications, untrusting of the architect he had sent to London for. There was, therefore, nothing of the aesthetic about the structure, but simply the same stolidness and lack of imagination that colored the character of the man whose home it was.

It was Mary who unlatched the heavy oak door and let him in. No other servant slept within the house. Traywick employed a man to tend to the coarser tasks demanded by the household, a grizzled veteran whose military service had returned him to the village missing an arm and who was pathetically grateful for the job.

Mary suspected Bob Smithers’s employment was the result of neither kindness nor patriotism on the part of her employer, but rather the realization that given the exsoldier’s impairment, the merchant could more easily justify the pittance he paid him. All other tasks fell to Mary Winters, who did them willingly, grateful still.

“A cold night, Mary,” Traywick said, brushing the snow off the top of his beaver, letting it fall to puddle on the gleaming boards of his entry hall. “It’s not fit out for man nor beast.”

Mary made no response as she helped him out of the greatcoat and hung it to dry on the hall stand. She had found in the long years she had spent here that there was no need for an answer. The merchant expected none, and if one made a response to the familiar comments, which were always the same or were said with some slight variation, it disturbed the even tenor of the homecoming. So she was silent, respecting what she had come to understand was merely ritual.

Divested of his outer garments, Traywick crossed the hall to the parlor and the warmth of its welcoming fire. Mary waited, watching from the doorway as he spread his broad hands before the cheerful blaze, their chilblained redness visible even in the shadowed room. He never wore gloves, often mocking the virility of those who did. “Simpering fops” was his most frequent sobriquet.

Although she never responded to his comments or made her own, Mary had come, through the years she worked for Traywick, to despise the vulgar coarseness of his hands. She had at first prayed for forgiveness for whatever was in her nature that would allow her to feel about his hands as she did.

Now she no longer bothered to seek divine intervention for this evidence of her ingratitude. She tried to ignore the feelings those rough, cracked fingers created in her mind, but sometimes she dreamed of his hands, seeing them in her nightmares as separate from the man himself, having their own almost animalistic life.

Clearing that ridiculous childishness from her mind, Mary waited until he had turned from the fire to face her before she asked, “Is there anything I can get for you, Mr. Traywick, before I retire?”

Often it was bread and a piece of cheese, some nights a glass of the strong port he kept in the decanter on the sideboard. Sometimes he dismissed her, and she was always thankful for those rare occasions, grateful to escape.

“Nothing, thank you, Mary.”

She had already turned to go when he added the rest, and she felt the tight bud of the fear she had fought during the three weeks he was away blossom sickeningly in her stomach.

“Except your answer to the question I told you must now be considered,” he said.

She hesitated a moment, seeking control, before turning back to face the man standing before the fire. This was a discussion they had had with increasing frequency during the past two months. Always her response had been the same. And always he had pretended to believe she simply needed time to better think through the proposal he was making.

“I cannot wed you, Mr. Traywick. I thought you understood.”

“You are living in my home, Mary. Already there’s talk about the unseemliness of our situation.”

“There will always be those willing to gossip. And those willing to listen. I have lived in your home, sir, for more than six years. I am your son’s governess.”

“Indeed you are,” Marcus Traywick said, his thick lips moving, almost in a sneer. “However,” he continued smoothly, controlling his amusement at her argument, “until two months ago, my wife was also living in this household. There was then no reason for tongues to wag. The situation has changed. Surely you understand that.”

Mary Winters had held the fragile, reedlike body of Abigail Traywick as she breathed her last, her health stolen first by the too-frequent miscarriages and then by the illness whose evidence had grown large and mocking in her womb, a malignant growth rather than the child she had so fervently pined for, a growth whose only outcome could be death.

Long an invalid, unable at the end even to leave her bed, Abigail Traywick had died as she had lived these last years, with only the company of Mary Winters and the small fairhaired boy who sat contentedly for hours on the bright coverlet of her bed.

The laughing conversations of the three had been almost a conspiracy, quickly hidden when Mr. Traywick returned from one of his frequent business expeditions into the outside world. At those times, Mary and the boy had sought the dim, fire-warmed isolation of her small room, removed from the sounds that always accompanied the master’s return.

‘’I need a wife, Mary. The boy needs a mother. It is up to you if you wish to be the one to fulfill those roles.”

He wanted someone who would satisfy his carnal needs. Not just someone, she acknowledged. He wanted her, and she had been made aware of that for a long time. He had made the first approaches even before his wife’s death. The unwanted brush of his hand against her arm or her hip. The sly, inviting smile. The slide of his eyes across her body.

Not that he had stopped his conjugal visits to Abigail, not even when her body was so wasted that it made almost no disturbance of the bed’s smooth coverings, except for the grotesque swelling of the tumor in her belly. Mary knew the reality of his continued visits too well, having seen the evidence of his passions clearly revealed in the dark bruises on the dying body of the woman she cared for, gently bathing the thin limbs and dressing her, at her instruction, in a pretty nightgown, pitifully awaiting her husband’s expected return.

When Mary finally found the courage to ask, Abigail’s eyes had not met hers.

“Because he’s my husband,” she had said softly. “It’s my duty. I cannot deny him, Mary. It is his right. “

Mary Winters had nodded, placing the skeletonlike arm tenderly under the warmth of the quilts that she piled around the dying woman.

“There are others, Mary, more than willing,” Traywick reminded, pulling her thoughts back to the present, to the question for which she could not imagine an answer.

She knew the truth of what he said. He was rich, prominent in the affairs of the district, tall and stout, his thick body taken as a sure sign of his prosperity. It would be thought that spinster Mary Winters had made a match far above her expectations. Tray wick’s florid complexion and the slightly protruding, mud-colored eyes were not flaws serious enough to put off the women who would be more than willing to take over the running of this house Mary had entered more than six years ago.

In those years, the reins of its management had slipped slowly and yet inexorably from Abigail Traywick’s fragile fingers into Mary’s capable ones. She could not imagine anyone else living here.

Nor could she imagine sharing the upbringing of the boy with another woman. Certainly it would not be with the instantaneous, sisterlike rapport she had found with Abigail.

“You may go or stay. That is your decision, Mary,” Traywick went on. “Your right. But if you choose to stay, it must be, given the change in our circumstances, as my wife.”

“Go?” she repeated unbelievingly. Surely he couldn’t mean—

“I don’t think another woman will be willing to share the management of the household with you, as Abigail was. Her health, you know, almost forced that surrender of her duties, but another woman.”

He let the sentence trail off, its implications clear. Another woman would perhaps demand sole control. Not only of the house, a task she would gladly surrender, but also of the child.

“What of Richard?” she asked. The central question, of course. She watched his thick lips move again into that knowing smile.

“There is Richard, of course. Did you think I had forgotten Richard, Mary?”

“Even if you remarry, sir, he shall still need a governess. A new wife might not be so willing to take on the raising of a child from a previous marriage.”

“Especially if she has sons of her own,” he suggested.

The idea was one that she had not considered. How stupid she had been that the realization of what he really wanted did not cross her mind. She had done everything he demanded. All these years, knowing that she was entirely at his mercy, but knowing also, in her heart, that Abigail Traywick’s body would never produce the son her husband’s vanity demanded.

They had been married five years before Mary came to live here. Even then, there had been eight small markers in the churchyard of the village, all the stones bearing the name of Traywick. A few of the babes had been stillborn, carried long enough for hope, she imagined, to flourish in Abigail’s breast that this time, this time at last, she might produce the son her husband wanted so desperately. And his obsessive desire for a son to carry on his name had been Mary’s protection.

“Besides,” he went on, “Richard is old enough to be sent away to school.”

“He’s still a baby,” Mary argued, but suddenly she knew what he intended: to ease aside the child he had been so willing to claim as his own six years ago, and to put into his place a son of his own loins—now that the convenient death of his barren wife had freed him to marry again. She could be his new wife and could bear the sons he wanted, sons of his own seed. In that position, she would be able to care for and protect Richard. Otherwise…

“Your decision, Mary. Shall you become my wife and continue here in the household you have surely come to think of as your own? To care for Richard as if he were your own son…”

Again he allowed the sarcastic suggestion to fade away. There was no reason to voice the truth. They both were aware of it. She had given him her son, and in exchange she had been allowed to live in this house, to care for the baby and for the woman who willingly pretended she had finally carried a living child within her womb, carried it this time to term.

There had been nothing but a strong mother’s love evidenced for the baby by Abigail Traywick, but her spirit was generous enough to share “her” son with the slender, too-quiet girl who had come to live in her home and who had come, also, eventually, to be her friend.

“You know I can’t leave Richard,” Mary said.

“Then the decision seems simple. You will find me an indulgent husband, Mary. Abigail wanted for nothing. You must be the first to admit to that.”

Still she hesitated, remembering the bruises, and the noise that had sometimes reached even to the sanctuary of her room. Involuntarily she shuddered, but then she wondered why she hesitated. She had already given up so much. There would be the physical surrender, and no matter the painful reality of that, she would willingly sacrifice whatever discomfort it involved to protect the child. She could close her mind to the reality of his body straining above hers in the darkness.

With that thought came the memory of the clearing, and the strong, young body of the man she had loved. So long ago. And of the shadowed chapel where she had spoken vows that bound her then and had bound her since.

“I cannot,” she whispered.

His hand, the fingers broad and spatulate, was suddenly against her cheek. His palm was smooth, softer than her own hands now were, hard worked with the many tasks of’ the household. She had not felt she had any right to complain. There had never been bitterness in her heart about her role, only gratitude that she and the boy were warmly dressed, sheltered from the cold cut of both winter wind and cruel gossip, and well fed. He had never begrudged their care. Despite his cruelty, he, too, it seemed, kept to his bargains.

“You think about it, Mary,” he suggested, his fingers sliding slowly over the smooth white skin of her neck, coming to rest over her shoulder, his thumb making caressing movements just over the swell of her breast.

She could not prevent her shiver, and again his lips lifted into that suggestive smile. “Think very carefully about what you want. And about what you are willing to give up. I think Richard would have à hard time adjusting to the rough-and-tumble of school. So many do, you know. I even heard of a child who hanged himself. Too sensitive, they said, but if Richard had brothers… Perhaps a tutor might be the solution, if there were other children.”

Mary said nothing, her eyes held with deliberate courage on his, unprotesting of his hand’s caress. He smiled again, at whatever was revealed in her rigid features.

“Be sure you bank the fire, Mary.” he said. His hand squeezed her shoulder, the pressure painful with the brute strength of his fingers. He stepped beyond her, stopping only to pick up the crystal decanter of port. Unmoving, she listened to his footsteps fade down the hall, to the room he had shared with Abigail.

Only when she heard the door close did she allow her body to sag, almost gasping for air as would an exhausted runner. She moved slowly to the fire, but instead of tending to the task he had assigned, she watched the golden flames blur and disappear behind her tears. She blinked, determined to clear the unfamiliar moisture.

Her hand trembled like an old woman’s when she put it against the small mantel. Suddenly, though she had never wavered in the path she had chosen, or been forced by fate to choose, her proud head bent, her forehead allowed to rest against the back of the hand that gripped the narrow mantel.

Her father had often promised that one was never given more than there was courage to bear, but for the first time Mary Winters wondered if the strength of her resolve and the level of her endurance would suffice.

The cold disturbed her, so she turned, trying to find the familiar warmth of the piled quilts. The fire must have gone out, she thought drowsily, her fingers searching for the bedclothes that somehow had become so disarranged as to leave her shivering, uncovered to the winter’s draft.

She was not yet awake, so when her fingers encountered the unexpected solidness of a body above her, she screamed.

She was dreaming, she thought. Only a nightmare. Like Traywick’s hands, huge red spiders fluttering over her body in the darkness. And then his hand moved upward, pushing against the bunched material of her cotton rail, thrusting his knee between the two of hers, his hand under her gown, cold against the bed-warmed skin of her thigh. She was awake now, awake enough to think that she must not scream again. It would frighten Richard, sleeping in the nursery next door.

“No,” she said, pushing downward against those blunt fingers with both her hands. She held her knees together, one pressed tightly on either side of his, but then she could do nothing about his mouth, descending over her breast. His lips fastened over her nipple and, reacting to that invasion, she turned her body, fighting against his massiveness, against his sheer bulk. She felt his mouth lose contact, and the hope that small victory gave her added strength to her will. He must not, she thought. He must not.

With his free hand, he caught her wrists and wrenched them above her head. The hand that was under her gown, tracing coldly over her thigh, continued inexorably to its destination.

“No,” she said again.

“Hush, Mary,” he whispered, his lips on her cheek. She could smell the sweet-sick odor of the wine on his breath, hot and fetid against her skin.

“No,” she begged, her slender body bucking under his weight, trying to push him off.

“You’ll wake the child,” he warned hoarsely. His mouth found hers, and he pushed his tongue inside, the soured taste of wine sickening. His tongue was too large, too strong, like the body that strained above her. It was choking her. Moving inside as the spider hand was moving now against her lower body, his fingers painfully digging into the soft flesh of her thighs. Not a caress, but a punishment. And she thought of the bruises that had always marked Abigail’s frail body.

Unbidden and unwanted, as weakening as the realization of how little control she had over what was happening, came the image of Nick Stanton’s fingers drifting with sensuous grace across her body. This was not love making. This was assault, and Mary knew suddenly that if she agreed to what he urged, no matter whether anyone else ever knew, she, at least, would always know the desecration of those vows she had made. Till death us do part…

She bit the tongue that pushed vilely against hers, bit hard and tasted his blood, and felt the bile rise in her throat as the blessed air rushed in where there had been only the hot stench of his breath.

“No,” she said aloud. Fighting more strongly, determined now that he should not take what was not his. “Get off,” she ordered. Her right wrist suddenly came free from his hold, the pain of her teeth perhaps having surprised him enough that he loosened his grip. She put her palm flat against his chest and pushed, and then her legs came up, knees struggling to get under his weight, trying to throw him off her.

The blow that smashed against her mouth and nose was casual, not delivered in anger, but as unthinking as if one were swatting at a summer’s fly, brushing aside something that dared to annoy. His strength was enough, however, that her face went numb with the force of it, and she tasted blood again, her own, her lips cut against her teeth. There was no pain, not yet, only shock, and unthinkingly she cried out. She had never been hit in her life, not even as a child. The unexpectedness of it was more painful than the physical force.

Neither was aware of the opening door.

“What are you doing to Mary?” Richard’s treble piped from the doorway.

Mary felt the momentary hesitation in Tray wick’s hands. He lifted away from her chest, turning to look over his shoulder in automatic response to the boy’s presence.

Would he hurt the child? she wondered, and the hated image of the descending cane came into her mind. Panic made her strong, and some primitive instinct for survival taught her what to do. She raised her legs, their slender whiteness a flash of motion in the darkness of the bedroom. Her bare feet made contact with his body, and she kicked with all her strength, somehow throwing his huge body off hers.

Traywick had not been expecting it, but he was more agile that his bulk suggested, and somehow he managed to land on his feet. He was off balance, however, and he took several staggering steps backward in a futile effort to right himself.

They watched, child and woman, as almost in slow motion Traywick began to tumble backward, toward the small light of the nighttime fire, carefully banked before Mary had lain down to sleep. His head cracked with a force that was audible against the edge of the mantel and then Marcus Traywick fell, the back of his skull landing hard again on the stones of the hearth.

His head bounced with the force of the blow so that, unconscious now, he came to rest with his cheek against the black metal of the andiron that held the banked fire. The scent of singed hair and the sickening aroma of burning flesh pervaded the tiny chamber.

Mary was stunned by the unexpectedness of his stillness, and then she realized what the smell meant. She jumped up from the disordered bed and rushed to kneel beside the man who lay unmoving on the hearth. She grasped his hair, pulling his face away from its contact with the searing metal. She found she was panting with the exertion of the fight.

The only thought that moved through her brain was that she had done murder. She had killed a man. Not just any man, but one who had given her and her child refuge through these years. On her knees, her slight body swaying over the massive one of Marcus Traywick, the smell of his burning skin and hair filling the cold, still dimness of the room, she felt her son’s hand on her shoulder.

“Is he dead?” the boy asked.

“I don’t know,’ she whispered, wondering what she could say, how she could ever explain away what he had seen.

“I shall hit him if he’s not,” Richard said fiercely, and, glancing up for the first time, she saw that he was standing beside her, his small fingers fastened with his father’s strength around the handle of the nursery poker. “I shall kill him for hurting you.”

Her throat closed with the force of her love, and both arms enclosed around the small warrior standing beside her.

“No,” she said, her mouth moving against the fair curls, touched with gold by the flickering light of the flames. “It’s wrong to kill someone, wrong even to wish someone dead,” she breathed.

This was her punishment, she knew. For her pride. She had wanted Marcus Traywick dead, and now she had made it happen. The price for her sin. Perhaps for all her sins, she thought, hugging Richard more closely to her. She wondered how much more she would be called upon to pay.

Chapter Two

The Duke of Vail’s long fingers lay relaxed against the smooth surface of the gaming table. Despite the amount of the wager involved, his demeanor was one of polite disinterest as the points were totaled. Most of the other patrons of White’s had quickly abandoned their own pursuits this evening in order to watch the high-stakes game His Grace was engaged in winning.

The gentlemen assembled around his table were all aristocratic and wealthy, but not nearly so much so as the man whose presence had attracted so much attention tonight, even among this elegant throng. Although long a member, by virtue of birth and reputation, of the foremost gentlemen’s club in the capital, the reclusive Vail did not often come to London now, and when he did, it was certainly not to participate in the games of chance to which the members of the ton were addicted.

No one was sure why the duke had come tonight, or why he had agreed, when invited, to take a hand, but the event was unusual enough that those who watched knew they would be able to dine out on the story for weeks to come. They could not know, of course, that they were about to be provided with a far juicier bit of gossip than they had any right to expect.

“That’s sixty points and the hand,” the Viscount Salisbury said, the words forced through lips suddenly gone numb with the realization of the sum he had just lost. He could imagine his father’s reaction. A season’s rustication, at the very least.

“My game, as well, I believe,” Vail said. His face was carefully expressionless, but there was a glimmer of sympathy in his gray eyes. He was well aware of the situation of the young Corinthian whose pockets he had just emptied. There was the fleeting thought that he might return the winnings he certainly didn’t need to the man seated across from him, but he knew that, given the constraints of their society, the attempt to do that would be far more humiliating to the young nobleman than the loss itself had been.

“Gentlemen, I thank you for the game,” the duke said, instead of making the offer he had briefly considered. Vail began gathering up the wagers, stacking the notes into an untidy pile. Forty years ago a man such as the Duke of Vail might have been accompanied by a dwarf or even a small Indian boy appropriately attired in rich Eastern garb, whose job it would have been to perform such a task for him. Times had changed, and title or no, a gentleman collected his own winnings. One might, however, as Vail certainly was, do so with an air that proclaimed the task to be hardly worth the effort.

“I was told that without your efforts in the House today, Wellington’s bill might have failed,” one of the players commented as they watched the unhurried movement of those elegant fingers. It was difficult for these young aristocrats to believe that this man could truly be interested in the dull Tory agenda.

“Although we don’t always see eye-to-eye on political matters, I agreed to speak in support. In return for a favor of long standing, if you will.” His Grace acknowledged the correctness of that information without glancing up.

“A very great favor, I should think,” Essex ventured. “I understand you returned from France to take part in the debate.”

“Family business had occupied me there for the last few months. That was finally completed, however, and I was very glad to be able to return in time to put myself at Wellington’s disposal.”

“But you’ve missed most of the Season,” someone said sympathetically.

The duke’s eyes lifted, gleaming suddenly with an unexpected amusement, to the speaker’s face. “Indeed,” he said, a trace of humor also clear in that single word. It was somehow made obvious by his tone that the charms of the famous London Season were certainly lost on him. “I am so sorry,” he said, although it was also obvious to them all that he was not.

No one knew whether or not to laugh. That was the trouble with Vail. One was never certain whether his quietly sardonic comments were intended to evoke amusement. The silence stretched uncomfortably, until the duke, as if suddenly becoming aware of their discomfort, raised his storm-gray eyes and allowed his gaze to skim the circle of faces surrounding him.

“Was there something particularly entertaining about this Season?” he asked, allowing one brow to arch slightly in question. His brows and lashes were several shades darker than the gold of his hair, which shone now almost silver-gilt in the soft glow of the chandeliers. The fine lines imprinted on his handsome features were not those of dissipation, of course. Given his family’s tragedies, it was not surprising that the face of this man bore the marks of suffering.

The slightly patronizing question reduced the social highlight of the London year to the most inane of activities—at least as far as His Grace the Duke of Vail was concerned. They were well aware that the duke seldom left his vast country estate, disdaining the society they adored. So they racked their brains for some town event that might prove he had, by his voluntary seclusion, missed a great deal that was entertaining.

“Lucy Sanderson produced a new brat to add to her brood.” someone ventured. “And, of course, no one may be sure of his patrimony—other than that it is certain not to be Sanderson’s.”

A poor choice of topic, since there was nowhere to go with the story. Although there had been heavy wagering posted in the betting books on the outcome of that pregnancy, the child had proved remarkably ordinary, and no one had been certain enough of the father to claim to have won.

The polite boredom in His Grace’s eyes did not change.

“Cheatingham’s youngest eloped with a fortune hunter. The earl chased them halfway to the Border, but a broken axle delayed him long enough that the wicked deed was done by the time he arrived,” Lord Alton added.

“More than one wicked deed had been accomplished by the time of Cheatingham’s arrival,” another corrected archly, and appreciative laughter greeted the sally.

“Since the girl has spots and a squint, besides her ten thousand, she’s lucky someone was willing to suggest the anvil,” Alton said.

The story was greeted with silence by the man they were attempting to entertain. Vail apparently found the petty scandal exactly that.

“And then there is the ongoing rustic sensation,” someone suggested. “That entertaining morality tale of Mary Winters and the merchant.”

It was a story with which they were all familiar. The interest with which the ton had followed the unfolding events, was rather amazing considering that the scandal involved no one who had the remotest connection with the beau monde. Their fascination, however, was characteristic, bred from the same ennui that caused them to worship the latest opera dancer or prizefighter, or to choose the worst of the numerous highwaymen who plagued the countryside to lionize and applaud, even as the man dangled on the gallows, as inevitably he did.

The story of Mary Winters contained the sordid elements that titillated the jaded imaginations of London’s elite: sexuality and violence. The tale had circulated for weeks, and as her trial approached, one still might find animated arguments in the clubs on aspects of the case that had not been brought to any suitable resolution and might never be.

“Mary Winters?” Vail repeated the name softly, his tone subtly different from the gentle cynicism of a moment ago. The deep voice had expressed the merest hint of interest in what the speakers had said, but since it was the first he had shown in any of the gossip they had offered, they hurried to enlighten him.

“A serving girl who tried to murder her master,” Alton began to explain, only to be silenced by several protesting voices.

“Governess,” someone corrected. “She was the child’s governess.”

“There’s no proof she was attempting to kill him.” Another voice came clearly through the hubbub. “She claims she struck in self-defense.”

‘Of course,” someone else said derisively. “What else could she say, given what she had done?”

“Apparently the merchant discovered the woman had been stealing the household moneys, as good as taking food out of the mouths of his dying wife and his son while he’d been away on business,” Alton continued, over several protesting voices. “Naturally, Tray wick was horrified, angry enough to upbraid her, even to threaten legal action. The thought of prison must have frightened her to death. Later that night, she attacked him with the poker and knocked him unconscious into the fire. He suffered the most abominable burns to his face. It’s said his visage is permanently marred.”

“That’s the merchant’s version,” the viscount said dismissively. “The few villagers who had contact with the woman, however, are openly doubtful of that sequence of events. For one thing, it doesn’t explain the blow to her face.”

“And what do they believe?” Vail asked. His eyes were not on the speaker, but rather on his fingers, which, despite the sudden pounding of his heart, still appeared relaxed, idly playing with one of the cards from the now forgotten game. Ironically, he noted, the card was the queen of hearts.

“That Mary Winters was defending herself from Traywick’s unwanted sexual advances,” Salisbury said succinctly. “His wife had recently died, and the merchant is deemed to be a man of strong and…somewhat strange sexual appetite. He has an unsavory reputation for cruelty among the local prostitutes. Despite the death of the wife, the governess was still living in his home. She has no family, no one to offer her protection. Maybe he thought he could get away with assaulting her, or that a spinster in her situation would welcome his advances in the hope that eventually, if she pleased him, they would lead to an offer of marriage.”

“But she was dressed,” someone reminded him. “Remember that. She was fully dressed when she came into the village to get help.”

“With a torn nightgown left behind as proof of his attack.”

“Which she could have torn herself to back up her version of events.”

The excited babble of argument grew and expanded, each speaker repeating assertions that had already been made innumerable times since news of the country scandal reached the capital. No one could have explained why, but the circumstances surrounding the case had fired enough interest that the trial of Mary Winters had become something of a cause célèbre.

“Consider that the child cannot speak,” Alton said. “Sure evidence that something untoward occurred.”

“Perhaps evidence that he had watched his beloved governess being attacked by his drunken father.”

“Traywick had been drinking. There’s no doubt of that. The constable found the empty decanter of port overturned in his room.”

“The woman poured it out to give weight to her version.”

“Why was she fully dressed?”

“Would you have her run into the village naked? Use your head, man.”

“And no one knows whether or not the child is capable of verifying either story. Traywick won’t allow anyone to question him.”

“And the outcome?” Vail asked. The quiet authority in the duke’s voice broke through the confusion. There was silence for a moment as they considered the surprising question, but after all, they gradually realized, Vail had been out of the country. He could not be expected to know the details they were so familiar with.

“Well,” Alton admitted, “there has been no outcome. Not yet, at any rate. The charge of attempted murder was too serious for the local magistrate to hear, so it’s been put over until the assizes. The trial is to convene…” He paused, uncertain.

“This week,” someone supplied.

“The location?” Vail asked. The gray eyes lifted to the speaker who seemed to have more factual knowledge than the rest. Somehow the duke’s face had changed, its planes reset into granite, as cold and as hard as the gaze he was wont to direct at those who had dared through the years to encroach upon his fiercely protected privacy.

“Penhurst,” Harry Caldwell supplied. He was better versed in the controversy than anyone, since his father’s manor house was the largest in the district where the assizes would be held.

The duke’s mouth moved slightly. It was a location less than forty miles from his own estate. Despite the failure of the searches he had launched, Mary Winters had not traveled far in the intervening years.

“Then, gentlemen, if you will forgive me, it seems I have a journey to undertake.”

The duke rose. Despite the hours he had sat at this table, the black coat and trousers, the silk waistcoat and the snowwhite stock were perfect, just as they had been when he left his valet’s hands. He adjusted his sleeves, and then glanced up to find shocked curiosity manifested on the faces of the gentlemen who had sought to entertain him.

“Journey?” Harry Caldwell repeated carefully.

“Penhurst, I believe you said,” Vail affirmed.

“To the trial? You plan to attend Mary Winters’s trial?” The question was one they all had, but only Alton had the presence of mind to give voice to it.

“It seems, gentlemen, rumor has erred in asserting that Mary Winters is without protection,” Vail said simply.

He inclined his head politely, at the same time fighting the urge to smile that their slack-jawed shock had evoked. He could imagine, given the ardor with which they had argued the case, how his declaration would be bandied about over dinner tables and hands of whist in the days to come.

Let them gossip and be damned, Vail found himself thinking. Perhaps it would add some semblance of importance to the meaningless chatter with which they usually entertained one another. Of course, none of them would ever know the real story.

“Again, gentlemen—I bid you good-night.”

They watched in stunned silence as His Grace, the Duke of Vail, made his unhurried exit from the club.

Mary Winters had been told what to expect only because she was persistent enough to ask and ask repeatedly. She had had no idea how such affairs were conducted, and when it was all explained to her by the local constable, her intellect had easily seen through the flaws in the process, but, of course, the fact that she found them to be vastly unjust would have no effect on the proceedings.

She was the accused, which meant, as it had been explained to her, that she would not be called upon to give testimony. Indeed, she would not be allowed to tell her version of the story at all. She had been accused of a crime, and it was assumed, therefore, that a crime had been committed. The only investigation of the events in question would be conducted on that premise. She had been asked if she wished to engage a serjeant-at-law to represent her, but since she had no funds with which to hire counsel, she had simply shaken her head in bewilderment.

There would, therefore, be no one to speak on Mary Winters’s behalf, and she would not be allowed to speak for herself. The justices could be trusted, everyone assured her, to get to the bottom of the affair, but since only three people knew the truth of the matter, and since, it appeared, only one of those would be allowed to give testimony…

Mary had found her mind running in the same fruitless circle in the weeks she was confined, waiting for the justices to arrive to hear her case. She had been accused by Marcus Traywick of attempted murder, and he would be allowed to prosecute her, but she would not be allowed to defend herself.

So startling did she find the information that she had forced them to repeat the parameters of her situation several times. They had explained patiently, but with no understanding, seemingly, of her concerns. This was the way English justice had been conducted for hundreds of years. It was the job of the judges to get at the truth, they repeated, and Mary had been assured again and again that she might trust them to do just that.

She had been confined in the small county gaol since the winter dawn when she stumbled into the village to seek help for her master. That morning her face had already begun to darken where he had struck her and her nose had been grotesquely swollen, but her concern had been all for the man she had injured, lying near death, she believed, in his tall brick house.

She had not understood at first what they were saying when they returned. Out of some mistaken sense of gratitude, perhaps, she had made no accusations against the man who had sheltered her and her son for six years. And she could never have imagined, of course, the story Traywick had devised to explain away the events of the previous night.

She had had three long months to contemplate what a fool she had been not to blurt out the shocking truth when she first confronted the sympathetic women who ministered to her injury. By the time their menfolk returned from the errand of mercy on which she had sent them, it had been too late.

During her imprisonment, she had been allowed her needlework and her Bible. She had been visited by the vicar of the parish church, who apparently felt obligated, despite her crime, to offer her what spiritual comfort he could. He knew nothing of her story, past or present, and Mary did not choose to enlighten him.

She had not, of course, been allowed to see Richard— not since she left him in the cold darkness, standing watch over the body of the man whom he believed to be his father. The possibility that she might never again be allowed to see her son was a constant weight upon her spirit. All else she might bear, but the thought of Tray wick’s control over the boy was like a spear through her heart.

She knew the nature of the merchant too well to expect that Richard would completely escape his wrath at what she’d done. Her best hope for her son was that Tray wick would carry out the threat she had once feared above all others. She hoped desperately that he might marry again and send the boy away to school. There alone might the child be safe from the merchant’s vindictive spirit.

So she had prayed through the remaining days of the winter and in the weak sunshine of the arriving spring for her son’s safety. The prosperous merchant who had been injured in the incident and who had brought the indictment against her was certainly her social superior, even if he was engaged in trade. There was no one she could turn to for help against his accusations. She had made her appeal for help once before, and it had gone unanswered. There was no one to speak for Mary Winters—and, of course, there never had been.

The hall where the trial was to be held was crowded with curious spectators. The sensationalism of the testimony about the attempted rape had lured onlookers from miles around, it was even said from as far away as London.

Mary had spent a sleepless night attempting to prepare herself for the ordeal of listening publicly to the lies Marcus Traywick had devised. Although at one time she had hoped that Traywick’s appearance to prosecute his claim might allow her a glimpse of her son, she had come to recognize that the merchant’s refusal to allow the child to be questioned was far better for Richard—and, of course, damning for her own cause.

Richard, had he been allowed to give evidence, would undoubtedly have corroborated her version of the events. But having her son forced to sit in open court and listen to the proceedings would be horrifying. If she could not devise a plan to free him from Traywick’s control, it would be better that she suffer whatever punishment the courts might give than to have Richard exposed to that sordidness.

She had not expected the size of the crowd. Although she attempted to remain outwardly composed, she could feel the avid eyes of the curious examining her features. Finally the proceedings began and then swirled around her, voices coming at her as if in a dream.

She allowed herself no outward reaction to the sight of Marcus Traywick’s brutally scarred profile. He had lost weight, his wool suit fitting loosely over his thick body. His yellow-brown eyes flicked over her once with contempt, and then he listened to the proceedings without again glancing her way. He never even looked at her as he repeated the same lies he had been telling since the morning the constable arrived at the house to find him fully con scious, suffering agonies from his burns, and insanely furious.

There were no witnesses to give testimony other than the constable, Traywick, and the doctor who had eventually been called to treat the merchant’s injuries. As she had been led to expect, Mary was not given an opportunity to speak.

When it seemed that they were done with questioning the witnesses the prosecution had presented, Mary attempted to address the judges, splendidly robed and wigged, whose job it was, she had always supposed, to bring English justice to the district. She was quickly and harshly instructed by the chief justice to cease speaking. She was even informed that it was not in the interest of the proceedings to listen to the accused.

“But surely, my lord Justice, it is in the interest of this court to hear the truth,” Mary avowed calmly, despite his orders. “Have you not come here to seek the truth?”

“We have come here to hear the testimony of your accuser, and you would do well to remember that you are not the injured. You are not the one seeking justice in this case.”

“Since it is my freedom that is at stake, my lord, I am indeed the one seeking justice,” Mary argued reasonably. “Which, if you listen to the lies that have been told here today, I shall not find in this court.”

“If you speak again, I will be forced to ask the constable to remove you.”

“Then at least I should not be made to hear Mr. Traywick’s spiteful inventions against my character.”

“Silence!” the justice roared. Apparently he had never been challenged in a session of the assizes before—certainly not by a criminal. To his mind, her boldness seemed to argue the truth of her prosecutor’s allegations better than any testimony that had been given against her. “We are not interested in anything you may have to say,” the lord chief justice continued, imbuing his tone with all the authority his position gave him.

“Then perhaps you might be interested in what I have to say.” The deeply masculine voice came from the back of the hall, and in the silence that had fallen after the justice’s outburst, its calmness gave the words a power they might otherwise not have had.

Heads turned and eyes shifted to find the man who had spoken. Mary Winters alone among the throng did not attempt to see the speaker. From the first syllable out of his mouth, there had been no doubt in her mind as to his identity.

“And you, sir? Who are you to disturb the proceedings of this court?” the lord chief justice asked. His question was as harshly demanding as when he had spoken to the accused.

“Forgive me, my lord Justice. My name is Vail,” the tall, golden-haired man in the back of the courtroom announced calmly.

The words might have been a thunderclap, for the effect they had. The chief lord justice’s mouth sagged, and an excited buzz of comment wafted through the assembly. It was a name that was familiar to all in this district, one of the oldest titles in England, and the man who bore it now was both enormously wealthy and powerfully influential, especially given the makeup of the current government There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he would, indeed, be listened to.

The Duke of Vail was dressed in his customary black, the somberness of his attire broken only by his spotless white cravat. The stickpin that nestled in the starched lawn appeared to be the only piece of jewelry he wore. Not even a signet ring gleamed on the long, elegant fingers that rested, relaxed, on the gold head of an ebony cane.

“It seems, my lord,” Vail said, “that there has been a mistake.”

“A mistake,” the judge echoed, attempting to find again the authority that had been stolen from him by this interruption of one of the most mysterious members of the nobility.

“Not only are the charges against the accused patently ridiculous, but this court has no jurisdiction to hear any accusation that might be brought against this woman.”

“May I ask why not, Your Grace?” the judge questioned, more comfortable now that the argument seemed to have moved onto legal grounds. Perhaps Vail was suffering under some delusion about the situation.

“Because this court has no authority over Mary Winters.”

“Indeed, Your Grace? And may I be so bold as to ask again—and why not?”

A smile disturbed the firm line of the Duke of Vail’s well-shaped mouth. His gray eyes sought for the first time the heart-shaped face of the accused, and despite her intent, Mary Winters’s eyes met his.

“Gentlemen, I have the honor of presenting to you the Duchess of Vail.”

Had he confessed to carrying out the attack on Traywick himself, the effect would have been less startling.

“The Duchess of Vail?” gasped the lord justice, in the midst of the resulting uproar.

It was noted by very few that the proud head of Mary Winters was, for the first time, allowed to lower, and her eyes closed briefly. It might be supposed by those who had thought to gauge the reaction of the accused that she was praying, giving thanks for this miraculous intervention. That was not, of course, the case.

Nick was well aware of Mary’s reaction, because he had been watching her. And in spite of his belief that he had steeled himself to ruthlessly carry out this desperate plan, he found that he was shaken by that small gesture. Be brave, Mary, my heart, he thought, but nothing of the sudden emotion he felt was revealed in the classically handsome features.

“We were married in her father’s church in April of 1815,” Nick went on. “I am afraid that, like most husbands, the exact date of that ceremony has slipped my mind.”

Unlike the London aristocrats, this crowd had little trouble reading the duke’s tone, and there was open laughter at the confession.

“Indeed?” the chief justice said faintly.

Marcus Traywick was on his feet, the first to realize the implications of this disastrous turn of events. “Surely, my lord Justice, you don’t intend to entertain this nonsense,” he shouted. The puckered and discolored scar on his cheek had flushed with unbecoming color, almost pulsing with the force of his anger.

“Since I am unaccustomed to having my word called nonsense, I suggest that Mr. Traywick might wish to…reconsider his objection,” Vail suggested. It was clearly a warning. It was apparent that His Grace believed that no one, not even the king’s justice, would need to verify the accuracy of any claim he chose to make. Mary Winters’s mouth moved slightly, almost a smile, and then was still.

Vail was perfectly correct in his reminder that one did not challenge such a nobleman’s word with impunity. Traywick might be rich by the standards of the district, but he was a pauper compared to the Duke of Vail, and in the arenas in which this man functioned, the merchant was powerless.

“I demand to see a record of this wedding. Mary Winters has been my servant for more than six years, and this is the first I’ve heard any claim of marriage,” Tray wick blustered.

“I am not surprised,” Vail said calmly. “I so seldom discuss my affairs with provincial nobodies.

Traywick blinked. His mouth opened and closed like that of a dying fish, but it seemed he had trouble thinking of some suitable comeback for that biting comment.

“Surely, my lord Justice,” the merchant said, turning to plead his case to the judge instead, “you cannot possibly entertain the notion—”

“I give you my word as a gentleman,” Vail interrupted, “that this marriage occurred, exactly as I have stated.”

“But even so, Your Grace, I am afraid that without some existing record—” the lord chief justice began.

Vail turned his head slightly, and in response his London barrister moved from behind the duke, walking toward the table that had been set up for the justices. In his hands he carried an enormous leather-bound volume, whose age was obvious.

“If I might, my lord Chief Justice, I would be pleased to show the court the record of the marriage of His Grace, then Lord Stanton, to Mary Winters, the accused,” the lawyer said deferentially.

With the Duke of Vail standing at his back, he might well have spoken to the king himself, but his courtesy was appreciated. Here, at last, was someone skilled in according the king’s justice the deference with which he should be treated. Mollified, the judge inclined his head.

The barrister laid the book on the justices’ table, and then opened it to the last page. None of them appeared to notice when Traywick moved to peruse, as they did, the record he presented.

“And the dates?” the lord justice questioned. With one long white finger he traced the date of the entry above the marriage record in question. “How do you explain that there are more than thirty years between the previous entry and this?”

“Apparently, the vicar who officiated recorded the marriage in the older of two parish registers. Irregular, perhaps, but perfectly legal, I assure you, my lord Justice.”

“Then, if the witnesses are here present to verify—” the judge began, only to be interrupted, most respectfully interrupted, by the duke’s lawyer.

“It is unfortunate that both witnesses are now deceased, my lord Justice. Tragically deceased when their yacht sank in a storm while crossing the Channel.”

“And the priest?” the judge questioned, the first hint of doubt creeping into his tone.

“Alas, the vicar has also passed to his deserved reward.”

“How convenient,” said Traywick, his voice vicious with sarcasm. “Surely, my lord, you must see that this is all a hoax designed to trick the court Improper register, all the witnesses dead, and yet these two would lead us to believe that a true marriage took place seven years ago and has been kept a secret since. This is mere trickery, my lord,” the merchant said. “An attempt to allow this woman to escape justice.”

The judge pursed his lips, obviously swayed by the argument, but he was not given long to consider its merits.

“I would remind my lord Justice of a legal point about which he is most certainly informed,” the London lawyer said smoothly. “The entire purpose of recording marriages began as an attempt to put an end to the legal entanglements caused by the clandestine unions so frequently entered into by our ancestors.”

“Of course,” the justice agreed.

“It was found that actions brought by one party against the other in such a union tied up the court’s time, which might better be spent on more important judicial matters.”

Again the judge inclined his head in agreement. All of this was commonly known legal history, and although he was not certain of the barrister’s point, it was intellectually entertaining to find a well-informed mind in such a provincial proceeding.

“But since that is not the case in point, therefore—”

“Not the case—” The justice interrupted, having lost the thread of the argument somewhere, only to be cut off himself.

“Both parties were of legal age, and neither is denying that the marriage took place. Indeed, both will testify to this court that vows were exchanged. Therefore, there should be no impediment to the recognition of its legality.”

The lord chief justice was momentarily silenced by the logic. Everything argued was true. If, of course, both parties agreed. He turned to the accused.

“And will you so testify, Mary Winters, that the exchange of vows recorded here did indeed take place?”

Mary looked up at his question. Her eyes moved back to consider the man standing in the central aisle of the hall. The crowd was hushed in expectation. There was some emotion, some silent communication between Vail and the woman he had claimed as his wife, and then the justice found Mary Winters’s remarkably clear blue gaze focused again on his face.

“I will, my lord,” Mary said, her voice calm, despite the aura of breathless anticipation with which they had awaited her answer. An answer that was not a lie, considering the wording of the question that had been posed.

Vail drew a breath. That had been, all along, what he feared most. That Mary’s honesty would force her to deny what he had claimed.

“And you considered those vows to be binding on you both, a true marriage?” the justice continued.

There was, this time, no hesitation. “I did, my lord,” Mary Winters assented truthfully.

“Then, if the banns were read—” the judge began, relieved, only to be interrupted again by the persuasive voice of Vail’s barrister.

“I must inform you that there were no banns, my lord Justice.” He had to raise his voice to continue to speak over the murmur that resulted from that startling information. “But as you are well aware,” he went on, “it is always the priest’s prerogative, as an officer of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to grant dispensation for special causes.”

“And the special cause in this case?”

“To facilitate this marriage in order to allow His Grace’s attendance on that field of battle now commonly referred to as Waterloo. Despite having been grievously wounded during the Peninsular Campaign, he had appealed to Whitehall to recommission him so that he might assume command of his men to give support for the glorious victory of the Duke of Wellington against the Corsican monster.”

The words were carefully chosen, reminders of Vail’s role in that defeat and the cost of his unquestioned heroism in other battles, a blatant admonition that the justices should remember the distinguished military career of the man standing in appeal before them and a less-than-subtle remonstrance to their patriotism.

“Indeed,” the chief justice said faintly.

“Therefore,” the barrister went on, speaking more strongly, surer now of his audience, “you must see that, whatever action Mr. Traywick is so foolish as to try to prosecute against Her Grace, the Duchess of Vail, it should not be conducted in this court.”

“Again, I protest that this woman—” Traywick began, only to be cut off by the whiplash of Vail’s voice.

“If you profane my wife’s name with another of your vile accusations, be warned that I shall kill you.”

The gray eyes were cold and calm, but there was suddenly no doubt in Traywick’s mind that the nobleman meant exactly what he said. The merchant’s lips closed against the savage rejoinders he longed to make against the woman who had turned him into a monster. He looked for the first time fully into the threatening eyes of the man who had claimed Mary Winters as his wife, and for some reason wás reminded of her son. And then, of course, Traywick realized why the remembrance of the child he so seldom bothered about now had come into his head. Of course.

Suddenly Marcus Traywick threw back his head and laughed, the sound chilling and disturbing. Peal after peal, hysterical with delight, his laughter rang through the room, eventually silencing the whispering crowd.

The shock of distaste at the merchant’s display was briefly seen on the controlled face of the Duke of Vail before he turned away. Only one person in the courtroom realized the reason for the insane laughter. Again, Mary Winters bowed her head. And this time those who believed her to be in prayer were not mistaken.

Chapter Three

Those who continued to watch the elegant Duke of Vail after the lord chief justice summarily dismissed the proceedings were perhaps surprised that the person he sought out first was not the woman he had claimed as his wife or the lawyer he had brought from London to plead her case. Instead, Vail walked over to a small, undistinguished man, his clothing the same as that of the simple village folk who had come to witness the trial. He had stood in the back of the courtroom, quietly watching the drama Vail had just enacted unfold.

“Congratulations,” John Pierce said to his master, his voice low enough that, in the hubbub of comment occasioned by the abrupt ending of the trial, only the duke might hear. “The enemy’s routed, and it seems the field is yours, Colonel.”

Pierce was the only one who ever called Vail by his military rank, and since the duke had immediately resigned his commission when he tragically attained his present title, it was, of course, an anachronism.

“Did you see her eyes, Pierce?” the duke asked. “I thought for a moment she intended to deny me.”

“You always knew that was a possibility. And the greatest danger of this whole implausible scheme.”

“But it worked,” Vail reminded him. “That’s the important thing. It succeeded.”

“I think what happened this morning was the easy part, Your Grace,” Pierce said softly. His dark eyes sought the stout form of the merchant, who had apparently decided his continued protests to the justices were having no effect on the decision they had just rendered. “I wonder why he laughed,” Pierce said, watching Mary Winters’s scarred accuser rudely shove people out of his path to the door. “I wonder what the bloody hell he found so amusing in being beaten.”

Mary didn’t resist when the Duke of Vail’s barrister came to hurry her from the courtroom. He pushed through the throng with a city dweller’s disdain for the bumpkins who had come to ogle the participants in this now aborted trial.

Mary held her head high, ignoring their comments and their plucking fingers. Despite the fact that, almost like a miracle, she had been freed, the far more important problem of obtaining her son’s freedom still loomed. She knew she had no power to force Traywick to give up Richard, who was still legally his son.

There was, however, someone who did, she had finally realized. Someone who had chosen, despite his silence through the long years of her struggle, to speak today. She might not understand the reasons behind Vail’s sudden decision to claim her as his wife, but she had just watched a potent demonstration of his influence. His authority in the world in which she had none could not be thrown away.

Richard was also his son, and the man who had once been Nick Stanton was now her only hope of recovering him. Thinking that it might be possible to speak to him now, to convince him to undertake that task immediately, she turned back to the barrister to ask, “Where is the duke?”

“His Grace will wish to thank the lord chief justice, I’m sure. A matter of courtesy, and probably politic, as well. We shall certainly want his goodwill when this story is repeated in London.” He took her arm, encouraging her to move forward again. “And now, we really must be on our way.”

“Of course,” Mary said, without the least understanding of what he was talking about. What could it matter what the lord justice said? Did that mean there would be a London trial, as well? Another ordeal of sitting silently, forced to listen to Tray wick’s lies?

“His Grace’s valet will see you home.”

“Home?” Mary repeated, wondering if she was expected to return to Tray wick’s house. The remembrance of the triumph in the merchant’s laughter sent an involuntary shiver through her frame.

“Why, to Vail, of course. The duke has opened the Hall. They’re expecting you.”

By then, they had reached the black coach marked with the ducal crest that she still associated with Nick’s father. The slight, gray-haired man standing beside the carriage opened the door for her and pulled down the steps.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the hand that he offered to help her in. The support of his callused palm was steady, its grasp far stronger than she would have expected, given his build. Her own fingers were still cold and trembling from the ordeal of the trial and from the shock of Nick’s unexpected rescue. The solid grip that closed around them was very welcome.

“Don’t you worry now,” Vail’s valet said, tucking the lap robe securely around her after he had settled her into the carriage. “He’s not going to let anything else happen to you. You’re safe now, Your Grace. You let him worry about the rest.”

The title was so unfamiliar that she wondered for a moment if he might have mistaken her for someone else. She met his eyes, which were dark brown and filled with compassion. Seeing her confusion, he squeezed the back of her hand as it rested in her lap, a quick gesture of comfort very much like one her father might have made. She supposed it was a familiarity she should not allow from a stranger, but she didn’t resent his touch. It was the first kindness anyone had shown her in a very long time.

“Thank you…?” she said.

“Pierce, Your Grace. My name is Pierce. He told me to look after you, and I’ve found through the years that it’s wise to do exactly what he says. It saves wear and tear on the ears and on the nerves.”

The smile that accompanied those words was almost conspiratorial, leading her to believe that this man had little fear of displeasing his powerful employer. And there was no doubt, of course, to whom he had referred. In Pierce’s world there was apparently only one “he.” As there had once been in hers, she thought.

“Is there anything I should arrange to be sent from the merchant’s house?” Pierce asked. “Anything there that belongs to you?”

Only my son, she realized with despair, but that was not, of course, an issue that could be discussed with a servant, no matter how kind or trusted he might be.

She had learned from the gaoler’s wife that Tray wick had had her few possessions burned—very publicly burned. Bob Smithers, the ex-soldier the merchant employed, had been instructed to carry out that destruction on the village green. Further humiliation, she supposed, for what she had done to Traywick.

There had been little enough of value there. The only meaningful thing she had left behind at the merchant’s tall brick house could not be retrieved by this man. There was only one person who could rescue Richard, perhaps as easily as he had accomplished her own release, but still she heard in her mind the echo of Traywick’s almost insane laughter. “There’s nothing,” she said finally.

Pierce nodded and closed the door of the carriage that would take her to the estate of the Duke of Vail.

The house was enormous, its furnishings richer than any Mary had seen in her life. The sturdy brick dwelling where she had once been so grateful to have found sanctuary for herself and her child was, she now realized, a pauper’s cottage in comparison. It seemed there were miles of wide corridors, their walls hung with portraits in gilt frames and their scattered tables crowded with priceless objets d’art. She tried not to stare, tried to concentrate instead on the route to the bedchamber that she had been told would be hers. Despite her efforts, by the time Thompson, the duke’s majordomo, had personally conducted her to the suite of rooms, she knew she was hopelessly lost.

The bedchamber itself was dominated by a vast canopied bed. Its hangings and the matching draperies were of ivoryand-coral silk, repeating the colors of the costly Oriental rug that covered the gleaming oak floor. A slipper-shaped copper tub stood before the blazing fire, whose warmth was welcome, despite the spring sunshine that flooded the room through tall mullioned windows. The scent of the rose petals that floated on the surface of the steaming water filled the room.

“This is your maid, Your Grace. Her name is Claire,” the butler informed her.

The red-haired girl, hardly more than a child, looked up shyly. Her sherry-colored eyes were almost as warm as Pierce’s had been, despite the quick blush that stained her cheeks. “Your Grace,” she said, bobbing a curtsy.

Mary smiled at her, wondering about the proper way to greet a maid. She had never before had a personal servant, of course. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Claire,” she said simply. It was what she would have said to any new acquaintance, and social status had never mattered to her before. Why should she now wonder how to treat people, simply because they were in the employ of the Duke of Vail?

“His Grace requests that you join him before dinner. He will await you in the grand salon at half past eight,” the butler said, bowing slightly in preparation of leaving. He seemed to take her agreement for granted. It was not a request, Mary realized, but an order, issued by a man who was accustomed to having his orders carried out. A man whose help she desperately needed.

“Of course,” Mary said, “but I’m afraid I’m not sure…”

“I shall send a footman,” Thompson said, as if he had read her mind, and, bowing again, he closed the doors of the chamber behind him.

“His Grace instructed that a bath be prepared,” the maid offered tentatively when they were alone.

Since Mary had, for the past three months, made do with a pitcher of tepid water and a cloth, always fearing the interruption of her privacy, it seemed suddenly there was nothing that could be more wonderful than a bath. She wondered how that exquisite stranger, the grand Duke of Vail, could possibly have known how much she longed for a real bath.

He seems to be omniscient, as well as omnipotent, she thought irreverently. The man who gave orders to the staff of this vast establishment and even to the justices of the king’s courts seemed very far removed from the young, recklessly courageous soldier who had once made love to her.

They were neither of them the people they had been then, she reminded herself. There was nothing left of the foolish lovers who had made those pledges so long ago. Only one thing bound them still. One thing and one alone. Richard was the only reason she had come to the Duke of Vail’s home, but there was no reason not to take advantage of the luxurious hospitality it offered until she had thought how to make her appeal. No reason at all, she decided, and she. walked toward the welcoming fire and the waiting bath.