There would be no real comfort, though, until she found her brother, until she was convinced beyond all doubt that he had had no hand in the robbery of their grandmother’s jewelry. And no comfort, he supposed, until the jewels and the thief had been found and she and her brother were totally exonerated.

“We had better go,” she said, setting down her knife and fork on her empty plate. “What time will we reach London? Will Bran be at his lodgings, do you suppose?”

“Judith,” he said, “you are almost dropping with fatigue.”

“I must find him,” she said. “And it must be before he disposes of the jewelry if he has it.”

“We will not get there tonight,” he told her.

She gazed at him blankly.

“And even if we did,” he said, “you would be fit for nothing. You would be dead on your feet. You almost are even now.”

“I keep thinking,” she said, “that I will wake up and find that all this is a bad dream. All of it—Bran’s extravagances, my aunt’s letter inviting one of us to go to live at Harewood, everything that has happened since.”

Including what had happened on her journey? He stared at her silently for a few moments. Could it possibly have been just last night that he had felt a strong bond with her and had been convinced she would gladly accept his marriage offer this morning?

“We had better stay here for the night,” he said. “You can have a good rest and be ready to make an early start in the morning.”

She set both hands over her face briefly and shook her head, but when she looked up at him it was with weary eyes and a look of resignation.

“Why did you come after me?” she asked.

He pursed his lips. “Perhaps after last night’s near disaster with Miss Effingham,” he said, “I was glad of some excuse to avoid further visits to Harewood Grange. Perhaps I was tired of being incarcerated in the country. Perhaps I was not fond of the idea that Horace Effingham would be your only pursuer.”

“Horace is pursuing me?”

“You are safe with me,” he said. “But I would prefer to have you in the same room with me tonight. I repeat—you are safe with me. I will not force myself on you.”

“You never did.” She looked wearily at him. “I am too tired to move from this chair. Perhaps I will just stay here all night.” She smiled wanly.

He got to his feet and went in search of the landlord. He took a room in the name of Mr. and Mrs.

Bedard and went back to the dining room, where Judith was still sitting, her elbows on the table, her chin cupped in her hands.

“Come,” he said, setting a hand between her shoulders, feeling the tense muscles there. He picked up her bag with the other hand.

She got to her feet without a word and preceded him from the room and up the stairs to the bedchamber he indicated.

“Hot water is being brought up,” he said. “Do you have everything else you need?”

She nodded.

“Sleep,” he instructed her. “I’ll go back downstairs for the evening so as not to disturb you. I’ll sleep on the floor when I return.”

She looked at the bare boards beneath her feet, as did he.

“There is no need,” she said.

He thought there was probably every need. He had never forced himself on any woman. His sexual appetites, though healthy, had never been unbridled. But there were limits to any man’s control. Even tired and dusty and disheveled she was a feast to the eyes.

“Sleep,” he told her, “and do not worry about anything.”

That was, of course, more easily said than done, he admitted as he left the room and went down to the taproom, positioning himself so that he could see the entrance from the stable yard. Even if they could find her brother and he protested his innocence—as Rannulf fully expected he would—and even if she believed him, there was still the whole problem of proving their innocence to the rest of the world. And even if that was accomplished, the brother was still a spendthrift who was doubtless deeply enough in debt to ruin his family.

Rannulf wondered if he would have been as idle and expensive as he had been if he had not had a personal fortune to finance his bad habits. He was not at all sure of the answer.

Judith washed herself from head to toe with hot water and soap and pulled on the nightgown she had brought with her together with one clean dress and a few essential undergarments. She lay down on the bed, almost dizzy with fatigue, fully expecting that she would be asleep as soon as her head rested on the pillow.

It did not happen.

A thousand thoughts and images, all of them infinitely depressing, whirled around and around in her head. For two hours she tossed and turned on the bed, keeping her eyes determinedly closed to the daylight and her ears closed to the sounds from both outside and indoors of a bustling posting inn. She was almost crying from tiredness and the need to find some momentary oblivion when she finally threw the covers aside and stood up. She pushed her hair back from her face and went to stand at the window, her hands braced on the sill. It was getting dark. If they had continued on their way, they would have been two hours closer to London by now.

Bran, she thought, Bran, where are you ?

Had he taken the jewels? Was he now a thief in addition to everything else? Would she be able somehow to save him? Or was this pursuit simply futile?

But if it was Branwell, why had he put that velvet bag in her drawer? It really made far more sense for Horace to have done it. But how would she ever be able to prove it?

And then she had a cheering thought that had not occurred to her before. If Bran had decided to solve his debt problems by robbing Grandmama, he surely would not have taken all the jewels. He would have taken just enough to cover his expenses. He would have taken a few pieces, hoping they would never be missed or at least that they would not be missed for so long that suspicion would not fall on him. He would not have done something as openly incriminating as running away in the middle of the ball if he had taken everything, surely?

But guilt could have set him to fleeing instead of thinking rationally as a deliberate, coldhearted thief would.

She set her forehead against the window glass and sighed just as the door opened quietly behind her.

She whirled around in some alarm, but it was only Rannulf who stood there, frowning at her.

“I cannot sleep,” she told him apologetically. He had gone to the expense of taking a room so that she could have a good night’s rest, and she was not even lying down on the bed.

He shut the door firmly behind him and came across the small room toward her.

“You are overtired,” he said, “and overanxious. All will be well, you know. I promise you.”

“How can you do that?” she asked him.

“Because I have decided that all will be well,” he said, grinning at her. “And I always get my way.”

“Always?” She smiled despite herself.

“Always. Come here.”

He took her by the shoulders and drew her against him.

She turned her head to rest her cheek on his shoulder and sighed aloud. She wrapped her arms about his waist and abandoned herself to the exquisite pleasure of feeling his hands rubbing hard up and down her back, his fingers digging into tense muscles and coaxing them into relaxation.

All will be well . . .

Because I have decided . . . ... I always get my way .

She came half awake when she realized she was being carried over to the bed and deposited on it.

“Mmra.” She looked sleepily up at him.

He was grinning again. “Under other circumstances,” he said, “I might be mortally offended at a woman’s falling asleep as soon as I put my arms about her.” He leaned over her to pick up the other pillow.

“Don’t sleep on the floor,” she said. “Please don’t.”

She was half aware a minute or two later of an extra weight depressing the other half of the mattress and of a cozy heat against her back. Blankets came up about her shoulders, making her aware that yes, indeed, she had been chilly. The arm that had lifted them settled reassuringly about her waist and drew her back against the body that had provided the heat. Then she slid down into a deliciously deep and dreamless sleep.

Rannulf came awake when dawn was graying the room. In her sleep she had just turned over to face him, rubbing herself against his length as she did so. Her hair, he could see, was in wild disarray all about her face and shoulders.

Good Lord, who was putting him to this excruciatingly painful test? Did whoever it was not know he was human? It was too early to get up and prepare to ride on. She must have had a good five or six hours of sleep, by his calculation, but she needed more.

He could feel her breasts against his bare chest, her thighs against his. She was warm and relaxed. But he no longer had the luxury of seeing her as Claire Campbell, actress and woman of experience in sexual matters. She was Judith Law. She also happened to be his love.

He tried determinedly to list her defects. Carrots. Her hair was carroty, by her mother’s description. She had freckles. If there were only a little more light coming into the room, he would be able to see them.

And a dimple beside her mouth on the right side ... no, big mistake. A dimple was not a defect. What else? God help him, there was nothing else.

And then her eyes came open, sleepy and long-lashed. No defect there either.

“I thought I was dreaming,” she said in the throaty voice Claire Campbell had used.

“No.”

They stared at each other in the morning twilight, she with sleepy eyes, he feeling like a drowning man who is trying to convince himself that he is immersed in a mere teacup of water. He desperately wished there was a little more space between them. She was going to become physically aware of his perfidy any moment despite the presence of his breeches, which he had kept on for decency’s sake.

And then she lifted one warm hand and feathered her fingers over his lips.

“You are an amazingly kind man,” she said. “You promised me last night that all would be well, and you meant it, did you not?”

He had also promised that she was safe from him. He was not at all sure he was going to be able to keep either promise.

“I meant it,” he said.

She moved her hand and replaced it with her lips.

“Thank you,” she said. “A night’s sleep has made all the difference. I feel very safe now.”

“If you only knew your peril,” he said, “you would start running down the road in your nightgown.”

And then she smiled at him—showing her dimple. “I did not mean that sort of safety,” she said and touched her lips to his again.

“Judith,” he said, “I am not made of stone.”

“Neither am I,” she said. “You cannot know how much I have needed to be held and .. . well, held.”

He was not sure even now that this was not an ungallant thing to do, that he was not merely taking advantage of her vulnerability. But he was not some sort of fleshless, bloodless superhero. God help him, he was a man.

He closed his arms more tightly about her and opened his mouth over hers, pressing his tongue deep into the heat within. She made a sound of appreciation deep in her throat, one of her arms came about him, and he was finally lost.

He turned her onto her back, tore at the buttons of his breeches, released himself without stopping to remove the garment, and pushed up her nightgown to the waist.

“Judith,” he whispered to her as he came down on top of her, “are you sure you want this? Stop me if you do not. Stop me.”

“Rannulf,” she whispered back. “Oh, Rannulf.”

It was not an occasion for foreplay. She was obviously as ready as he was. He slid his hands beneath her, half lifted her from the mattress, and pressed deep into her.

It felt curiously like a homecoming. He slid his hands free, lifted himself on his forearms, and looked down at her. She gazed back, her lips parted, her eyes heavy with sleep and desire, her hair spread all about her on the pillow and sheet.

“I tried very hard not to let this happen,” he told her.

“I know.” She smiled again. “I’ll never blame you. Not for anything.”

He took her hands then, raised them and crossed them above her head, laced his fingers with hers, and lowered all his weight onto her. Her legs, he realized, were twined about his. He worked in her with deep, rhythmic strokes, reveling in her soft, wet heat encasing him, thankful for her initial relaxation, even more thankful for the way she took up his rhythm after a while, pulsing about him with inner muscles, drawing him toward what would be a powerful and powerfully satisfying climax.