"And if I am not to be weaned, my lord?"

He shrugged. "It's not a matter for jest, Judith. As my wife, you will have responsibilities to my name and my honor. You'll accept those responsibilities as your part of the bargain."

Bargain? Judith turned away from him, trying to sort out the maelstrom raging in her head. Marriage to the Marquis of Carrington would work beautifully for both herself and Sebastian. Installed as the Marchioness of Carrington, she would have immediate and natural access to the circles frequented by Gracemere, as would Sebastian as the marquis's brother-in-law. Their position in Society would be assured and their present funds would be more than ample to set Sebastian up as a bachelor in London. He would need fashionable rooms instead of a house; one servant instead of a houseful. Their accumulated money would go much farther. It would mean they could begin to enact their revenge so much sooner than they'd anticipated. And when it was over,

Sebastian would be established in his own right. This card had been dealt to her hand; only a fool would refuse out of scruple to play it.

But Marcus mustn't know anything of that. There was a lifetime of secrets he couldn't know. So how could she fulfill her side of this bargain?

"I know nothing of you," she said aloud. "Why have you never married?"

There was silence. Marcus stared across the past and contemplated the truth… and the half-truth that had become the truth. Honor still bound him to the half-truth, for all that the one who could be most damaged by the whole story had been in her grave these many years past. The full truth was known now only to himself and one other. But it was a fair question.

"It's a plain and unremarkable tale, but pride is a devilish thing, and I have more than my fair share. Ten years ago I was to be married. A woman your antithesis in every way. I had known her since childhood and it didn't occur to me to woo her. She was a sweet, meek soul who I assumed would make me a compliant and exemplary wife. Instead, she fell wildly in love with a fortune-hunting gamester, who most skillfully swept her off her feet. She cried off."

His voice was perfectly level, almost bland as he continued. "The role of jilted fiance was a hard and humiliating one for me. I was rather young to face such public mortification with equanimity. I decided then that a man could live in perfect contentment without a wife."

"Did she marry the fortune hunter?"

What choice had she had…? Poor little dupe. Marcus closed his eyes on the memory of Martha's battered face, closed his ears to the sound of her broken whimpers. An untamed lynx would never get herself into such a predicament. An unprincipled adventuress would arrange matters to suit herself. Had she heard those voices on the stairs? Had she known who was in the taproom before she'd walked in, her clothes almost disheveled, the aura of a satisfied woman clinging to every curve and line of her body? Had she contrived this? But even if she had, a man of honor had no choice.

"Yes, she married him," he said, "and died in childbed nine months later, leaving him to game away her fortune." He shook his head in a dismissive gesture. "I don't wish to talk of Martha ever again. You and she are so different, one could almost believe you to be different species."

She wanted to ask him if he believed he could be happy married to her, but deep in her soul she knew the answer. His hand had been forced; he was making that clear with every word and intonation.

If it wasn't for Gracemere, it would be easy to let him off the hook. She'd be able to say that in her circles, reputation didn't matter, that she'd be perfectly happy to be his lover for as long as it suited them both. But she wasn't going to say any of those things. She was a gamester and she'd been dealt a perfect hand.

She turned her head and met his cool gaze. "We have a bargain, then, my lord Carrington," she said simply. Marcus nodded in brief affirmation and returned his attention to the road.

Judith closed her eyes, listening to the roar of cannon growing ever closer. The road was thronged with columns of soldiers, horses and limbers, fleeing civilians mingling with the detritus of a retreating army. Suddenly all thought of passion and revenge seemed trivial in the midst of an event that would obliterate thousands of lives and shape the future of their world.

7

The village of Quatre Bras stood at a crossroads. To Judith's eyes it was a village out of Dante. The battle still raged and a heavy pall of gunsmoke hung over the shattered cottages and farmhouses along the road. The dead and the wounded lay anywhere a spare place could be found for them, and from the surgeons' field hospital, the sounds of agony rose, pitiable, on the evening air.

The main street of the village was clogged with men and horses; a wounded horse struggled in the traces of an overturned limber, screaming like a banshee as a group of soldiers fought to cut the traces and right the cannon.

"Dear God, you shouldn't be here," Marcus muttered to Judith. ''What the devil am I going to do with you?"

"You don't have to do anything with me," Judith declared. "I'm getting down here. There's work to be done."

Marcus glanced sideways at her, took in the resolute set of her white face, and drew rein. They were behind the front line but still close enough for danger. He laid a restraining hand on her arm as she prepared to jump from the cart. "Just a minute."

"We're wasting time," she said impatiently.

"It's not safe," he said.

"Nowhere's safe," she pointed out, gesturing to the chaos around them. "I'll be careful."

Marcus frowned, then shrugged in resignation. "Very well, then. Keep your head down and stay out of the open as much as possible. I'm going to Wellington's headquarters. Stay in the village and I'll find you when I know what's happening."

She nodded and jumped down. Gathering up her skirt, she ran across the narrow street to where a group of unattended wounded lay in the shade of a hedge.

For many hours, long after sunset brought an end to the day's fighting and the incessant bombardment of the cannon finally ceased, Judith fetched water for the parched, bandages from the field hospital to staunch the more accessible of wounds, and sat beside men as they died or drifted into a pain-filled world of merciful semi-consciousness. She heard dreams and terrors, confessions and deepest desires, and her heart filled with pity and horror for so much suffering, for such a waste of so many young lives.

Throughout the endless evening she was constantly on the watch for Sebastian, her ears pricked for the sound of his voice. He must surely be somewhere in this carnage. Unless he'd found his way to the battlefield, and some stray shot had… but she couldn't allow herself to think such a thought.

Marcus found her in the field hospital, holding the hand of a young ensign while a surgeon amputated his leg. The lad bit down on a leather strap and his fingers were bloodless as they clutched Judith's hand. Marcus watched from the shadows until the moment came when the patient entered the dark world beyond endurance and his hand fell inert to the table. Judith massaged her crushed fingers and looked around for where she might be most useful next.

She saw Marcus and gazed at him wearily as he came over to her. Her face was streaked with dust and soot from the gunfire, her skirt caked with blood, her eyes filmed with exhaustion. She brushed her hair away from her forehead, where it clung, lank with sweat, in the fetid heat of the hospital tent.

"What's happening?"

"The army's retreating to a new line at Mont St. Jean," Marcus said. "Wellington and his staff are still here, taking stock." He pulled out his handkerchief and mopped her forehead, then took her chin between finger and thumb and wiped a black streak off her cheek. His eyes were somber. "I'm trying to find some news of Charlie. The losses have been horrendous."

"I've been hoping to come across Sebastian." Judith glanced around the hospital. Lanterns now cast a blood-red glow over the scene, throwing huge shadows against the tent walls as the surgeons and their assistants moved between the tables laden with wounded. "What do we do now?"

"You're exhausted," Marcus said. "You need food and rest."

Judith's head drooped, as if her neck were no longer strong enough to support it. "There's still so much to do here."

"No more tonight. There'll be as much and more to do tomorrow." He took her arm, easing her toward the tent opening. Her foot slipped in a pool of blood and she clutched at him desperately. His arms came strongly around her, holding her up, and for a moment she yielded to his strength, her lithe, tensile frame suddenly without sinew.

Marcus held her against him, feeling the formlessness of her body, like a small animal's. She smelled of blood and earth and sweat, and he was surprised by a wash of tenderness. It was not an emotion he was accustomed to, and certainly not with Judith, who aroused him, annoyed him, challenged him, amused him -often all at once- but hadn't sparked a protective instinct before. He dropped a kiss on her damp forehead and led her outside into the relatively cool night air.

"Before we do anything else," he said, "there's some business we have to attend to. I've arranged matters so that it'll be very discreet."

"What business?"

He took her left hand, which still bore his signet ring, and frowned down at her. "Your presence here with me has to be explained, and there is only one explanation. I intend to make it good without delay. There's a Belgian priest in the village who's prepared to perform the ceremony. It won't take long."

Judith realized that for some reason she'd expected the traditions to be observed when they formalized their relationship. Marcus was obviously interested only in expediency. It hurt, even though she told herself that her own motives were purely pragmatic. This was no love match. It was a simple bargain. But she couldn't help asking "Must it be now? In the midst of all this carnage?"

"It's a matter of honor," he replied curtly. "Mine… if not yours."

Judith detected his sardonic inflection and flushed with annoyance. "The last time we discussed my honor, I had a pistol in my hand," she reminded him, squaring her shoulders despite her weariness.

Marcus's reply was cut off at birth by a loud hail.

"Judith… Ju-!" They both turned to see Sebastian in the shadow of a doorway.

"Sebastian!" Judith ran toward her brother, forgetting about Marcus and disputed honor. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

"What the devil are you doing here?" he demanded, hugging her. "I left you in Brussels."

"You didn't expect me to stay there, did you?" she retorted with a tired grin.

He shook his head ruefully. "Knowing you, I suppose I shouldn't have." He noticed Marcus for the first time, and his eyebrows lifted. "How d'ye do, Carrington."

"You haven't seen Charlie, have you?" Judith asked her brother abruptly before Marcus could respond to Sebastian's greeting. "Marcus has been trying to get news of him."

"Oh, I saw him a few hours ago," Sebastian replied. "He was with Neil Larson. Larson was wounded and Charlie carried him off the field. They were putting Larson into one of the wagons heading back to Brussels."

Judith felt the tension leave Marcus as if a black goblin had leaped from his shoulders. "Thank God for that," he murmured, the hardness gone from his eyes, the tautness from his mouth. His gaze suddenly focused on Sebastian. "Davenport, you're just in time to perform a very useful service."

"Oh?"

"Yes, you may give your sister away."

"I may what?"

"Marcus, would you mind if I talk with my brother privately for a few minutes?" Judith said quickly.

Marcus made a rather formal bow. "Or course not. The cure's house is beside the church, as you might expect. I'll meet you both there when you've done your explaining."

Judith watched him stroll off in the direction of the small roadside church, its steeple tumbled by a cannon ball earlier in the day.

"Tell," her brother demanded.

Judith explained as best she could. But it was awkward, for all her intimacy with her brother, to admit to the compulsion of that wild passion that had thrown her so far from their chosen track.