There was, in fact, only one way out, Henry admitted tp herself with a sigh. She propped her chin on her hands and stared gloomily down at the brocade coverlet of her bed. Somehow, she had to get the money to repay the loan to Cranshawe. Only then would she be free of that horrid man. And there was, alas, only one way to get the money, unless she applied to Marius for it. Since she would rather die than go to him now, she would have to go to a moneylender.

The very thought filled her with terror. She had heard many stories of the fate of young men who were unwise enough to get into the clutches of moneylenders. (It seemed that ladies never went to them.) The story was that once a man borrowed money, he never repaid it. All the money he could scrape together went toward paying off the crippling interest on their loans.

But Henry had to put these stories behind her. She really had no choice, unless she sold or pawned some of her jewels. She had considered doing that, but knew that any valuable item that she possessed would soon be missed. Marius, unlike many husbands, accompanied her to most evening functions. And he always noticed what she wore. He would frequently suggest the jewelry that would best complement her choice of clothes. She knew she would not be able to deceive him. No, she must go to a moneylender. She remembered the name and direction of the one that Giles had been planning to visit. It was ironic that she, who had been so adamant that he not borrow money in this way, was now deciding to do the same thing herself!

Henry scrambled resolutely off the bed. Since there was no alternative and since she had made up her mind, there was nothing to be gained by delay. She would go at once. She assumed that Marius was away from home at this time of day. She was sure that the twins must be in the schoolroom, especially after their escapade of the morning. She could accomplish her errand without anyone knowing.

She searched her closet hastily for the dullest clothing she possessed. Pushed far to one side she found a drab, gray cloak that she had worn for years at Roedean. She could not imagine how it had escaped the purge that Betty had made on her old clothes. She pulled it from its place and chose the plainest bonnet she could find, a brown one that looked quite dreary enough once she had removed the green ribbons that adorned it.

Henry glanced at herself in the mirror before leaving the room. She wrinkled her nose in some disgust at the very unpretty picture that she made, draped entirely in the gray and brown. She pushed an auburn curl farther under the brim of the bonnet, took up her reticule, and resolutely left the room. She descended the back stairs and let herself out of the side door and through a back gate that led to a narrow lane used by tradesmen.

Head bent, Henry hurried along until she came to a roadway. She walked briskly for some distance, mingling with crowds of people who did not afford her hurrying figure a second glance. Only one urchin seemed in any way interested. He appeared to be following her, ducking into doorways and behind other pedestrians to avoid being seen, though she did not look back even once. When she finally hailed a hackney cab and climbed inside, the urchin ran up behind. He clung to a bar at the back when the vehicle moved away.

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Henry was wrong. The Duke of Eversleigh was not away from home that afternoon. As she was making her escape from the house, he was closeted with James Ridley in his office. He had been there for some time, going over with his secretary a pile of business papers that had arrived from his estates by the morning mail. Finally he got to his feet, stretched, and walked over to the bookshelves, where he stood leaning his weight on one elbow.

"Ah, do you have my wife's bills here, James?" he asked languidly.

"From this week, your Grace?" Ridley asked, looking up startled.

Eversleigh mused. "Are they all paid, James?"

"Yes, your Grace," Ridley replied. "-You have instructed me always to do so."

"Quite so," Eversleigh said, inspecting his fingernails through half-closed lids. "Have any of them been excessively large?"

Ridley thought. "There was a dressmaker's bill for almost three hundred pounds last week," he said uneasily.

The duke looked at him steadily. "Nothing larger?" asked.

"No, your Grace."

Eversleigh stood, examining his boots.

After a few respectful moments, Ridley returned his attention to the papers spread before him. He looked up again when his employer spoke.

"Have there been any gambling debts, James?"

"You mean by her Grace?" asked Ridley. "No."

"Hmm." The duke was again silent. Then he looker closely at his secretary. "You spend too much time in this office, James," he said kindly. "It is not good for your health, dear boy. Take yourself out and do something for me."

"Your Grace?"

"Find out if my wife owes or has owed a large sum of money to anyone in-ah, let me see-the last month or so."

Ridley looked aghast. "How am I to do that?" he asked.

Eversleigh looked hard at him. "You are an enterprising young man who likes a challenge, James," he said languidly. "I am sure you will find a way."

James Ridley did not reply.

"And James," the duke continued.

"Your Grace?"

"This is to be done discreetly and in the strictest confidence."

"Of course, your Grace."

Eversleigh picked a speck of dust from the sleeve of his coat and pushed himself upright. "I have seen quite enough of these four walls for one day," he said. "I am going to go out in search of some amusement. I suggest you do the same, dear boy."

James Ridley stared in dismay at the employer's back, which retreated unhurriedly through the doorway.

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Henry had been wrong about the twins, too. Although Miss Manford and Penelope were indeed in the schoolroom, Phil was not. The three of them had held a conference following their return from the park.

"Well, we certainly did not find out anything new, Philip said. "If it had not been for that stupid cat getting stuck in that tree, we might have got close enough to have heard something useful:"

"It is hardly likely, dear," Miss Manford said practically, since Mr. Cranshawe and your sister were on horseback and moving. They would have seen us for sure if we had tried to get close."

"We could have moved along behind the trees," Philip said, sighing over the lost opportunity.

"Well, I think it all worked well," Penelope said, stroking the back of the cat as it lapped up a saucer of milk. -We certainly saved Henry from whatever the teeth had planned for her. And besides," she added, "if Cleopatra had not got stuck in the tree, we would never have found her.

"Well, I think we had better keep an eye on Henry twenty-four hours a day," said Philip melodramatically. "I don't trust that man."

"I am sure you exaggerate, dear boy," Miss Manford said. "He is a gentleman, after all."

"Manny, do gentlemen kiss ladies in public?" asked Philip scornfully.

Miss Manford declined to answer. She blushed instead.

"I think everything will be well for today," Penelope said, gathering the cat into her lap and continuing to stroke its back. "His Grace is taking her to the opera tonight, is he not?"

"We must watch her until then," Philip insisted. "She went to her room after luncheon."

"We have not had our history lesson today," Miss Manford protested.

"Oh, Manny, I can take the book with me and read while I watch," said Philip. "Are you coming, Pen?"

"Who is to look after Cleopatra?" she asked. "The poor little thing is feeling so strange and Oscar has been so rude to her."

"Well, she does stink a little bit, Pen," her brother said. "I shall go alone, then."

Philip, in the true spirit of the drama of the situation, as lie saw it, went first to his room and changed into the urchin's clothes that he had worn the night before, and then tiptoed quietly into the empty room opposite Henry's. Ile settled himself in a chair from which he could see the handle edge of her door through the door of his room, which he left slightly ajar.

Thus it was that Philip saw Henry slip from the house and was all ready to follow her. He did so without hesitation. It was obvious to him as soon as he saw her unusually drab outfit and as soon as she turned in the direction of the back stairs, that she was on some secret errand. He held her very carefully in sight until she hired a hackney cab. For a moment Philip was alarmed. He thought he would lose her. Fortunately, there was time after Henry got into the carriage and before it moved away for him to run forward and swing himself up behind. The driver did not notice, and none of the passersby seemed to consider his actions strange enough to raise any alarm.

Chapter 11

Henry sat in her room later the same afternoon, looking flushed but triumphant. She was at a small escritoire, writing a letter. A small collection of crumpled sheets of paper surrounding her on the floor showed that the words of the letter were not coming easily. This time she seemed satisfied. She signed her name with a flourish, shook the paper in order to dry the ink, and reread what she had written.

Dear Mr. Cranshawe [she had written, having discarded the notion of calling him Oliver],

I am now able to repay my debt to you. I thank you with all my heart for having helped me out of a difficulty. You will find three thousand pounds enclosed in this package.

I remain your grateful friend,

Henrietta Devron

Yes, that was quite enough, she decided. She did not need to say more. There was just the correct combination of gratitude and reserve. She folded the letter, slid it into the package with the bank notes, and tied the bundle securely with ribbon. She rang the bell for Betty.

"Betty," she said when her maid entered the room a few minutes later, "which footman is most reliable to send on a secret and important errand?" Henry did not mince her words. She had learned from experience that Betty was devoted to her and could be trusted to keep her secrets.

Betty did not hesitate. "Robert, your Grace," she said.

"Good. Will you send him to me?" Henry directed.

Within ten minutes Robert had been sent to Oliver Cranshawe's residence with the package. The footman had strict instructions to deliver it into the hands of Cranshawe himself or, failing that, into the hands of his personal valet. He was not to wait for a reply.

Henry breathed a deep sigh of relief when the deed was finally done. What a delicious sense of freedom there was in being out of Oliver's clutches at last. He would probably he furious to see her slip through his fingers, she thought grimly. But he could hardly refuse the money. And with that debt repaid, she would no longer be obliged to jump whenever he snapped his fingers. In fact, she decided, she would not need even to be civil to the man. Marius would be pleased to see that their friendship had finally cooled. Not that she had any interest at all in pleasing her husband! Her hands curled into fists as she thought again about her abandonment to his lovemaking the night before and his cool rejection of the morning.

Henry summoned Betty again and had hot water brought to her room for a bath. She relaxed in the water while Betty laid out her turquoise satin and lace evening gown on the bed behind her. For the moment she felt relaxed. She could get ready for dinner and the opera almost with a light heart, though it would be difficult to spend a whole evening in close contact with Marius. But at least, she thought with a little smile of genuine amusement, she would have the satisfaction of knowing that he was not enjoying himself. Marius and music did not mix happily together.

Tomorrow she would think about her new problems, for, truth to tell, she had merely exchanged one nasty difficulty for another. She tried not to think about her dealings of earlier that afternoon. She had felt horror when the hackney cab had turned into narrow, filthy streets filled with all kinds of offensive rubbish and smells. Doorways and roadsides had been crowded with untidy and dirty-looking people and ragged children. When the carriage had stopped, she had not known what to do for a few moments. But, remembering that she was Henry Devron and had never been afraid of anything for long, she got resolutely out of the carriage with the driver's assistance, instructed him to wait for her, squared her shoulders, and bore down on a small group of women gossiping in a doorway.