Through the buzzing in his ears, he heard Sandre say, "You Englishmen with your fair rules of boxing. So easy to defeat!"

Lowering his head, Michael rammed it into Sandre's belly.

Sandre fell backward against the desk, gaping like a hooked fish.

Papers flew.

Hours of torture had taught Michael one lesson-he could endure anything. He got his feet under him and body-tackled Sandre, bringing him to the floor with a thump that shook the glass windows.

Sandre gasped painfully.

For one moment, they were face-to-face, and Sandre's blue eyes blazed with maniacal fire. Then Sandre's elbow slashed up, catching Michael in the ribs.

Michael doubled over.

Sandre rolled.

Michael grabbed for that carefully coiffed head of silver-touched hair, and rammed Sandre's head into the floor.

Sandre's eyes swam. He closed them as if too dazed to focus.

Michael asked, "How's that for fair rules of boxing?" Panting, he allowed himself a moment of recovery-for himself and Sandre.

He wanted to feel the crunch of Sandre's bones beneath his fists. He wanted to savor Sandre's pain and frustration.

Maybe that made him as twisted as Sandre. He didn't care. Through the endless days in the dungeon, dreaming of this moment had kept him alive.

Still holding Sandre by the hair, he dragged him to his feet.

Sandre's eyes sprang open, full of sly cunning and desperate intelligence. Grabbing the ends of Michael's cravat, he wrapped it around Michael's neck, cutting off his air, crushing his already damaged windpipe.

Michael grabbed for his throat, gagging, choking, while Sandre laughed with pleasure, shoved him, got behind him, and pulled. Michael slammed himself backward, knocking Sandre off his feet. He landed on top of Sandre, and when the cravat loosened, he slid out from its deadly grasp.

He tried to recover, but his trachea spasmed, fighting the all-too-familiar sensation of being hanged.

Vicious and intent, Sandre put his knee into Michael's belly and again wrapped the cravat around his neck.

Michael punched blindly, and felt Sandre's nose break.

Blood sprayed them both.

Immediately, Michael caught his breath and felt better.

Sandre grabbed for his own face. "Curse you!" he said, muffled behind his hand. He was finished playing. He spun away, skidded across his desk flat on his belly, and groped for the drawer. Pulling it open, he extracted the pistol.

Michael lunged for Sandre, landed atop him, and grabbed his arm. They slid across the desk, grappling for the weapon.

The glass bowl flew across the room, shattering against the wall, candy taking temporary wing. The heavy gold candelabrum smashed into the carpet, extinguishing the candles and plunging Michael into a dim, surreal cavern where blood and violence reigned and the only sound was the panting of their breath.

Sandre slithered out from underneath him and free-fell toward the floor, his tumble broken by the open drawer. The wood snapped and splintered. Sandre yelled unintelligibly, whether from pain or the desecration of his desk, Michael didn't know.

Rolling onto his back, Sandre pointed the pistol up at Michael.

Michael grabbed the brass eagle and swung. The eagle connected with Sandre's head.

The shot shattered the quiet.

Michael flinched.

Sandre went limp.

Plaster showered from the ceiling, filling the air with dust, covering Michael with chunks of pure white and glittering gilt.

He opened his eyes. He was alive. The eagle had knocked Sandre out and his aim askew at the same time. Michael was alive . . . and he'd won.

Opening the desk drawer, Michael retrieved the keys to the dungeon and put them in the inner pocket of his cloak.

Now he had only to free Emma and, finally, to finish his revenge and force Sandre to face the thing he feared most.

Humiliation.

He went to work on Sandre.

Chapter Forty-five.

"What do you imagine you are doing?" the delegate from Spain bellowed so loudly his round belly quivered.

Jean-Pierre brushed the road's dust off his riding breeches and said, for the fourth time, "I'm sorry, my lord, but you were dressed as the Reaper."

"I have never been treated so badly in my life!"

"Yes, my lord." Jean-Pierre took the reins, mounted his horse, and tried again to take command of the situation. "I'm sorry, but why are you dressed as the Reaper?"

Lord Torres-Martez was having nothing of Jean-Pierre's apologies. "I'm going to tell Prince Sandre what you've done and he will take appropriate steps to discipline you, you . . . you . . . son of a whore!"

Jean-Pierre stiffened. He wanted so badly to take the pompous bastard down onto the road again, shove his face into a pile of horse shit, make him sorry he'd ever dared to make derogatory comments to Jean-Pierre de Guignard about his whore of a mother. He wanted to- One of his men said, "My lord!"

This time Jean-Pierre wasn't so imprudent as to dismiss that urgent tone of voice. He looked up to the top of the hill behind them . . . and there, chasing a noble carriage, rode the Reaper.

This time the Reaper would pay.

Everyone was invited.

As Jean-Pierre galloped at the head of his troop, whipping his horse up the rise, Durant's words echoed mockingly in his ears.

How is it you don't know about this party?

Jean-Pierre cursed smug Michael Durant and deceitful Prince Sandre, who had so artfully not told Jean-Pierre of the event tonight. He cursed whoever had planned a masquerade party this night, and every blasted nobleman in the country.

You can invite yourself. It's a masquerade. No one will ever know you slipped in without an invitation.

Someday they would all pay for their neglect and prejudice against Jean-Pierre. He would make them pay.

Like a bullet, he aimed his ire at the pale, masked Reaper. Shouting, he spurred his horse onward.

The Reaper made a squawking noise. He tried to turn his mount, aim the creature back down the road.

With a roar of fury, Jean- Pierre launched himself out of the saddle, tackling the Reaper, knocking him to the ground. The two tumbled end over end, and when they stopped, Jean-Pierre tore off the villain's white mask-and found himself on top of and staring at a terrified Lord Nesbitt. "My lord. What are you doing here?"

Lady Nesbitt's sharp, high voice sounded behind his left shoulder. "What is he doing? What are you doing, you upstart excuse of a de Guignard peasant?"

Jean-Pierre turned and snarled.

"Don't you dare speak to me in such a manner." Her face was covered in pale powder, and she, too, wore tattered white lace similar to a shroud, but there was no mistaking Lady Nesbitt's finger as she shook it in his face. "You attacked my husband!"

"What is he doing dressed like this? What are you doing dressed like this?"

"We're going to the prince's party."

"What?" Jean-Pierre loosened his grip on Lord Nesbitt's cravat.

"The prince's party. His masquerade party. Tonight. I thought you were Prince Sandre's cousin and body-guard, but obviously you know nothing."

"The invitation. Do you have the invitation?"

"Why? Do we need it to get into the palace?" Lord Nesbitt's voice quavered.

"No, we do not!" Lady Nesbitt's voice rose. "We are Lord and Lady Nesbitt. Even the prince knows that!"

"I want to see the invitation," Jean-Pierre repeated. "Do you have it with you?"

Something of his urgency must have penetrated Lady Nesbitt's righteous anger, for she observed him more closely, then nodded regally. "I do. Come with me."

Jean-Pierre stood and gestured to his men. "Get Lord Nesbitt cleaned up and on his feet." He followed Lady Nesbitt to the carriage.

She reached inside, pulled out her reticule, and found a stiff piece of paper. Jean-Pierre tried to take it, but she pulled it away, gestured to her outrunners to come close, and by the light of their torches, read, " 'To celebrate the success of our pursuit and capture of the Reaper, by the order of Prince Sandre, come to the palace for a masquerade, and wear your rendition of the Reaper's costume. Stamped with the royal seal, this eighteenth day of September, 1849.' " When she was finished reading, she extended the invitation to him.

Taking it, he reviewed the words with disbelief. This party . . . the prince was giving it? Without a word to Jean-Pierre, Prince Sandre had invited every nobleman in the entire country to come to the palace? To come dressed as the Reaper? Then he sent Jean-Pierre out onto the roads to apprehend them?

No. That didn't make sense.

But the royal seal looked authentic.

And what about Michael Durant? He had mentioned a party, a masquerade, but he was dressed in a buccaneer's clothing. He carried a weapon. He . . . Jean-Pierre looked over the countryside, to the road where he'd apprehended Durant . . . the road that went to the palace. Realization of the truth overwhelmed his rage, and he saw his mistake.

"My lady, I suggest you go home. The invitation is a fake, and if you go to the palace tonight, all you'll see is horror and bloodshed."

Her mouth dropped open.

With a bow, he handed her the invitation, mounted his horse, and rode to the palace-where he intended to kill Michael Durant.

As Lady Nesbitt stepped into the carriage, she told the driver, "Whip up the horses. We're going to the palace. This should be very interesting indeed."

Chapter Forty-six.

Michael stood at the gaping black entrance to the dungeon . . . at the entrance to the abyss. The exhilaration of defeating Sandre and leaving him to his fate was subsiding, and in its place came a creeping paralysis, a fear of darkness and cold, of slime and rats and a death so gradual a man could pass from this life to the next and never realize he had changed domains.

He took the first step down the stairs. He wasn't even to the first gate, yet the familiar scent of dirt and mildew filled his lungs. He could scarcely breathe, yet he took another step, and another.

Emma was down in this place, in this dungeon where hope had died.

Would she be alive?

Of course. Sandre took no pleasure in killing. He lived to torment, and he had his special pets. For them he reserved the royal cell, and Michael knew that was where he would find her.

Slowly he descended, down, down, finally reaching the first level, where Gotzon sat dozing, a hound of hell.

Michael leaned over him, shook his shoulder, said, "Gotzon, let me in."

Gotzon snorted and woke, stared at Michael, and grinned. "I knew you couldn't stay away. Not with that pretty girl in the dungeon."

"That's right." Michael lifted Sandre's keys. "I've come to take her."

Gotzon laughed, a big, jolly laugh, like some perverted St. Nick. "You can't. Tomorrow she'll marry Sandre or she'll hang. Tonight, if she doesn't yield to Sandre, I get her. We all get her. It'll be a lovely party, and I'm not going to miss it by opening the door to-"

Michael stuck his knife into Gotzon's soft belly.

Gotzon's mouth moved and his eyes bugged in surprise.

Michael pulled his knife free and wiped it on his handkerchief.

Gotzon collapsed on the floor. "You," he whispered. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he died at Michael's feet.

Justice done.

Michael stepped over the body and took the ring of a dozen keys off the wall. He tested the largest; the third opened the first gate. He started to discard them. But no. He dared not take the chance someone would come behind him and lock him in.