Marcus was in Gentleman Jackson's Saloon, when one of the six footmen ran him to earth. Stripped to the waist, pouring sweat, he was attempting to exorcise misery and disappointment in a violent bout with a punchball.

He had passed no better a night than Judith, but the sharpest spur of his hurt was becoming blunter and some elements of rationality beginning to offer a spark of light in his darkness. He could hear her voice clearly now demanding that he understand the driving power of vengeance. He knew that power. Once he'd obeyed its spur himself… and with Gracemere. There was a perfect appropriateness to the vengeance Judith and Sebastian had taken. But still he couldn't reconcile himself to the knowledge that he'd been used. If only she'd taken him into her confidence…

But how could she have done so? He would have stopped her. However sympathetic he might have been to her brother's situation, to her father's ruin, he would never have permitted Judith to do what she'd done. And the destruction of Bernard Melville, Earl of Gracemere, was central to Judith's view of the world. Until that had been accomplished, nothing else could take precedence… not even her husband. Had he the right to believe she should have dropped the most powerful imperative of her life-and her brother's life-simply because he had come on the scene? Her bond with her brother was too complex and too strong to be severed by the simple ties of passion… of lust and a burgeoning love.

He didn't countenance what she'd done, but he understood it. From understanding could come acceptance…

"My lord, one of your men has a message for you."

Marcus grabbed a towel, rubbing the sweat from his face. "Someone for me, Jackson?"

"Yes, my lord." Gentleman Jackson indicated the lad in Carrington livery, standing at the far side of the room, gazing wide-eyed at the sparring couples.

"What the devil can he want?" Marcus beckoned and the lad trotted across, his message spilling from his lips. "Her ladyship, my lord, wishes you to return home immediately."

"Her ladyship!" His heart lurched. Only the direst necessity would send Judith in search of him in this fashion.

"Is her ladyship well?" he demanded, toweling his sweat-soaked head.

"Yes, my lord," the man said. "I believe so, my lord. Gregson said we was all to search London for you."

"All?"

"Yes, my lord. There's six of us."

"Go back to Berkeley Square and say I'm on my way," Marcus instructed tersely, his heart slowing as he went into the changing room. If Judith was well and unhurt, that was all that mattered. Surely she wouldn't have sent all over London for him just to tell him that she was leaving him… although, knowing his lynx, maybe he shouldn't be so sanguine. So far, he hadn't managed to keep a step ahead of her. Why should he assume he could do so now?

He dressed in haste and took a hackney home. Greg-son had the door open as he ran up the steps. "Her ladyship…?"

"In the yellow drawing room, my lord."

He took the stairs two at a time. "Judith, what is it?" The question was on his lips almost before he had the door open. Her white face and scared eyes stopped him on the threshold. "What is it?"

"Harriet," she said, moistening her lips. She wanted to run to him, but the memory of the previous night was too raw. "I believe Agnes and Gracemere have abducted her."

He dosed his eyes for a minute. He didn't ever want to hear the name of Gracemere again. He had no interest in his old enemy and Agnes Barret. If he was to pick up the pieces of his shattered marriage, Bernard Melville, Earl of Gracemere, had to be consigned to the pits of hell. And then he saw Martha as she'd been that morning, ten years before, crouched in a corner of the room, her face bruised, her eyes sightless with tears, soft whimpers coming from her mouth as she'd rocked herself in her hurt. A man who raped once could do so again.

"Tell me what you know."

Judith explained, finding it possible to slow her thoughts and present facts rather than impressions under Marcus's calm attention. "I'm so frightened," she said at the end. "I've always felt the evil in both of them. What will they do to her, Marcus?"

Marcus thought swiftly. There was no point exacerbating her fears. Later, when it was over, he would tell her the truth about Gracemere and Martha. But for now he had to prevent the violation of another innocent. He had to get there in time. He had failed once; he wouldn't fail again.

He spoke suddenly with precision and clarity and Judith quailed at the fury and the purpose in his eyes.

"I will not permit any harm to come to Harriet. This lies between Gracemere and myself. You are to say nothing to anyone and you will stay here until I return. You and your brother will not involve yourselves in this. I'll brook no interference. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Judith said as he strode from the room.

But I don't accept it.

31

Judith ran upstairs, threw a cloak around her shoulders, thrust her pistol and a heavy purse into the pocket, and left the house through the French doors of the book room.

Marcus's curricle was being led from the mews as she crossed the cobbles. Drawing her hood over her head, she followed the curricle into the square and there hailed a passing hackney. "Wait on the corner, and then follow that curricle when its driver takes the reins," she instructed the jarvey, handing him a guinea. He touched a forelock.

"You don't want the cove to know 'e's bein' followed, lady?"

"Not if you can avoid it," she agreed, climbing inside. She peeped around the strip of leather shielding the window, watching as Marcus came out of the house and climbed into the curricle. She called softly up to the driver. "There's another two guineas in it if you don't lose him and he. doesn't realize we're behind him."

"Gotcha!" The jarvey cracked a whip and the vehicle lurched forward. Judith sat back, taking shallow breaths of the fusty air. The last occupant of the vehicle must have been eating raw onions and smoking a particularly noxious tobacco.

Marcus never looked back. He drove fast through the city, taking the northern route out to Hampstead Heath. It was a journey he'd made once before in the same urgency, consumed with the same desperate fury. How long had Gracemere had with the girl? Four hours at the most. Was Agnes Barret with him? Having procured the girl, was she going to hold her for him? The nauseating images spun before his internal vision.

The Reading stage lumbered down the road toward him, the postboy blowing his horn. The postboy grabbed the side of the box and closed his eyes tightly as the curricle didn't slacken speed. The two vehicles passed with barely a centimeter to spare.

"Lord-a-mercy!" the jarvey yelled down to his passenger. "That's drivin' for you. Didn't even shave the varnish, I'll lay odds. He's in a powerful urry, your cove."

Judith clung onto the strap as the hackney swayed and swerved along the rutted road, trying to keep the curricle in sight. It occurred to her somewhat belatedly that she had no idea how far Marcus was going. He could be going anywhere-Reading, or Oxford. Somewhere well out of the ordinary reach of a hired London hackney. But how did he know where Gracemere had gone?

The road wound over the heath and she leaned out of the window. "Can you still see him?"

"Aye, he's just turned off at the crossroads. Reckon he's 'eaded for the Green Man," the jarvey called back. "It's the only place 'ereabouts. Folks don't much relish livin' too close to the gibbet."

"No, I don't suppose they do." Judith retreated into the fetid interior again, averting her eyes from the rotting corpse swinging on the gibbet as the carriage turned left at the crossroads.

Marcus drew up in the courtyard of a dark, shabby inn under the creaking sign of the Green Man. He jumped down, tossing the reins to a small lad picking his nose by the wall, and strode into the pitch-roofed building, ducking his head under the low lintel. He held his driving whip loosely in one hand.

Voices came from the taproom to the left of the hall, and the smell of boiling greens wafted from the kitchen at the rear, mingling with the reek of stale beer. The innkeeper came bustling out from the back regions, wiping his hands on a grimy apron. When he saw his visitor, his eyes widened as the years rolled back.

"Ah, Winkler, still in business I see," the marquis observed in a pleasant tone not matched by his expression. "I'm amazed the Bow Street Runners haven't caught up with you yet."

The innkeeper shuffled his feet and looked Marcus over with a calculating shiftiness that carried a degree of apprehension. "What can I do for you, my lord?"

"The same as before," Marcus said. "Nothing overly demanding, Winkler. Your… your guests are to be found above the stables as usual, I assume?"

The landlord licked his lips and glanced anxiously around, as if expecting to see a Bow Street Runner spring up out of the dust in the corners of the hallway. "If you say so, m'lord."

"I do," Marcus said aridly, turning on his heel. "Oh, and should you hear any undue disturbances, you will be sure to ignore them, won't you? I know how deaf you are, Winkler."

The landlord wiped his forehead with his apron. "Whatever you say, m'lord."

"Just so." Marcus smiled with the appearance of great affability and walked back outside. He crossed the yard at the back of the inn. The stable was a substantial red-brick building at the rear of the courtyard. Beneath its sloping roof were two connecting rooms available to those who knew of them and were able to pay substantially for their use. No questions were ever asked of the various, generally felonious, occupants, and what went on in those rooms was known only to the participants. So far, Winkler and his clients seemed to have escaped the attentions of the law.

Marcus glanced up at the latticed, tightly curtained windows overlooking the stableyard just before he entered the building. He saw no flicker of movement at the curtains and he could hear no sound of voices as he trod softly up the wooden stairs at the rear of the dim interior. He paused, listening at a door at the head of the stairs. His heart had started to thud and he realized he was listening for the sounds he'd heard once before at this door. The sounds that had sent him bursting into the room with his whip raised. But there were no whimpering cries this afternoon. A chair scraped on the wooden floor and then there was silence.

He lifted the latch, then kicked the door open with his booted foot.

Gracemere leaped to his feet, a foul oath on his lips. The chair clattered to the floor behind him. "You!"

"Surely you were expecting me, Gracemere," Marcus said. "You must know that I always keep my promises." He glanced around the room. The curtains were pulled tight over the windows blocking out the afternoon's sunlight. The room was lit by thick tallow candles and the bright glow of the fire.

Harriet huddled on a wooden settle beside the fire. At the sound of Marcus's voice, she sat up with a cry, staring wild-eyed at him as if he were an apparition. Her eyes were swollen with weeping, her hair in disarray, her expression distraught, but he could see no marks of brutality.

He crossed the room swiftly. "Are you hurt, child?"

She gulped, tried to shake her head, then burst into a torrent of weeping that mounted alarmingly toward hysteria.

Marcus wasted no time in soothing her. He turned back to the earl, who still stood as if stunned. "Foolish of you to return here, Gracemere, but then a rat usually goes back to its own dung heap," he observed, cracking the thong of his whip on the floor. His eyes went to the door in the middle of the wall; he knew of old that it connected this room with its partner. "Where is Lady Barret? I should like her to witness the next few minutes."

Gracemere's face was bloodless. He looked desperately around the room and then grabbed for a bread knife on the table. Marcus's whip snapped, catching him across the knuckles. He gave a cry of fury, of fear, of pain, snatching back his hand.

Marcus advanced on him, taking his time, his eyes never leaving his face, the whip curled loosely at his side. Suddenly the whip cracked again and his quarry jumped backward. Again the thong whistled and snapped, and again Gracemere jumped back. In this fashion, Marcus pursued his prey until the earl stood backed against a heavy armoire.