Of course that was one reason he loved her. Would always love her.

He opened his eyes. The scene was ordinary. That it seemed the image of hell was purely a reflection of the desert in his heart.

The gig was out of sight. They'd reach London before dark and Antonia would ensure Cassie's reputation suffered no damage.

His revenge was in ruins, as it should be.

His love was lost to him. He didn't deserve her.

He supposed he'd survive this. Right now, he didn't much care.

Because he had little option other than to walk or huddle in the ditch and wait for blessed nothingness to descend, he put one foot in front of another.

He had a long hike ahead. As his wise beloved said, it provided opportunity to contemplate his numerous sins.

And what he did next.

That was clear enough. Abject failure made his choice ridiculously simple. A single course of action still lay open. He could perform only one more service for Antonia.

After that, he didn't give a tinker's damn what happened to him.

Chapter Twenty-nine.

"It was a wicked thing Lord Ranelaw did," Cassie said in a low voice after they'd covered a number of miles without speaking. When Cassie turned, her eyes weren't glazed with the tears Antonia expected. The girl was pale but composed.

Antonia's hands tightened on the reins. A dull, pounding determination had sustained her since she'd retrieved her cousin. She didn't think beyond the moment. It was as if the harm was so great, she couldn't comprehend its scale.

This blankness wouldn't endure. How could it? But she was mightily thankful that devastation held off, if only briefly.

Her rational mind insisted life would continue. She'd return to her unexciting existence running the Demarest estate, at least until Cassie married and she had to find other employment. Cassie, pray God, was safe from any ill effects from today. Ranelaw would hotfoot it to hell in his own way as he always had.

The world hadn't ended on that dusty highway.

She realized she hadn't answered Cassie. She forced her voice to work. "Yes, wicked."

Another thorny silence descended.

Cassie fiddled with her skirts. "He was bringing me back."

Antonia jerked so the carriage swerved wildly. She fought to control the horses. "What?"

"He was returning to London when you caught us."

Antonia couldn't help remembering Ranelaw hadn't been heading for Hampshire. "That doesn't mean he wouldn't attack you."

"He wasn't going to touch me."

"So he said."

"I believe him." Cassie's jaw adopted a familiar stubborn line.

Antonia's eyebrows arched in disbelief. "The man meant you no good."

"He had reasons."

"Instead of excusing the brute, you should thank heaven I found you in time," Antonia snapped.

"You're too angry to listen to reason," Cassie said evenly.

Antonia tensed her jaw so hard that her teeth ground together. "I'm so angry that it's an effort not turning this gig around and putting a bullet in the handsome marquess's pretty hide."

"He loves you."

A bitter laugh escaped Antonia and her hands tightened on the reins. "Don't be absurd."

"I thought . I thought he was the one for you." Cassie's voice was muffled and her gaze darted away from Antonia as if she confessed something shameful.

Antonia wrenched the horses to a jolting stop. "What did you say?"

Cassie looked upset, more upset than since Antonia had rescued her. "He's so strong and handsome and clever. It was clear there was something between you. I thought he'd make you happy."

Bewilderment forced its way up through her suffocating misery. "But he was courting you. You encouraged him."

"Only because if I didn't, you'd have no reason to talk to him."

Antonia released a shuddering sigh, furious with her cousin, and with Ranelaw for not being the man she'd believed him. Above all she was furious with herself, that the sound of the blackguard's name still flooded her with sinful hankering. "Cassie, I don't know where to start. He's a rake. He's a man without principle as today proves. He's-"

"He's got a spark in his eye and a spring in his step. He looks at you the way my father's stallion looks at his favorite mare."

In spite of everything, Antonia couldn't restrain a horrified gasp of laughter. "Well, that's romantic."

Cassie shrugged. "He's an exciting man."

"He's a scoundrel."

"Perhaps that's why he's exciting. You're woman enough to keep him in line."

Cassie couldn't know how her every word stabbed Antonia like a knife. But then her cousin had no idea quite how foolish her chaperone had been. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm a dowdy spinster past courting age."

This time Cassie laughed. "Now who's being ridiculous? You're beautiful. And you've paid for your indiscretion." Cassie cast her a surprisingly adult look. "He called you his love."

Blast Ranelaw and his indiscreet tongue. Antonia knew she blushed. She hoped Cassie interpreted it as a sign of outrage not embarrassment. "He calls every woman his love."

"He's never said it to me."

Antonia clicked her tongue to the horses to make them walk on. "He was just awaiting his chance."

Cassie's voice lowered. "Antonia, I know you don't want to tell me everything. There's no reason you should. And I'm sorry Lord Ranelaw turned out a disappointment."

A disappointment. Caustic humor leavened Antonia's pain without providing the slightest relief. Yes, that was one way to describe this stabbing agony, she supposed. Her heart wanted to stop after every beat. She felt like she entered an endless, dark tunnel. Her future held no light. Ranelaw's wickedness doused all radiance.

Evening closed in by the time Antonia drove into the mews behind the Demarest house. She dispatched a groom after Thomas and Bella and arranged for a footman to return Ranelaw's gig. She felt a momentary urge to set fire to the expensive little carriage but she restrained herself. A spiteful, vengeful Valkyrie squirmed in her breast, but she refused to give expression to the screaming virago.

Eventually Cassie had forced her to listen to what Ranelaw had told her about his sister. Her cousin poured out her anger and confusion about her father's misdeeds that long-ago summer.

Antonia desperately wanted to disbelieve what Cassie said. Godfrey Demarest, after all, had come to her rescue at the absolute nadir of her fortunes and had sheltered her since.

But the problem was she knew him well enough to picture him behaving just as Ranelaw had described. He was a careless man, inclined to pursue his passions without forethought. And he was always more than happy if someone else mopped up any unpleasant consequences. She hadn't managed his estate for ten years without discovering his faults in fairly short order.

He was capable of great kindness if it didn't cost him anything in time or effort. But he was also capable of weaseling out of responsibility and leaving others to cope with the ill effects. Nor had she ever deceived herself that he was anything but a man who relentlessly pursued sexual conquest. His frequent absences from Somerset sent him hying for the fleshpots. He made a cursory attempt to hide his penchant for debauchery from his daughter, but even Cassie was aware that when her father was away, he led a life of hedonistic indulgence.

He'd seduced Eloise twenty years ago. If Godfrey Demarest was prodigally irresponsible in middle age after marrying and siring a child, he must have been wild beyond belief in his youth.

Sadly, however much Antonia didn't want to accept Demarest was guilty of seducing Eloise Challoner and abandoning her to suffer the results, something in her immediately acknowledged the truth that spurred Ranelaw to revenge.

Antonia's heart went out to Eloise's sufferings. How could it not, especially as she too had fallen victim to a young man's lies? But as she'd said on that dusty road to Hampshire, Godfrey Demarest's wickedness provided no excuse for Ranelaw to kidnap Cassie.

That she could never forgive. Just as she couldn't forgive Ranelaw for making a commitment to her-in actions rather than words, perhaps, but nonetheless a commitment-then betraying her.

He was dead to her.

Or he would be once she muted her endless ache for him.

What if there's a child?

She quashed the sly, whispering question. A month of Johnny's lovemaking and she hadn't conceived. A night in Lord Ranelaw's arms couldn't plant a baby in her womb. She refused to countenance the possibility.

They entered the house through the garden. "I'm engaged with the Bridesons for the opera." Cassie sounded unenthusiastic as they walked side by side up the dim hallway toward the main staircase.

Hardly surprising the girl flagged. Antonia felt like locking herself in her room and never coming out. And she hadn't been in serious danger, whereas Cassie had held her nerve through a kidnapping.

"I'll send a note saying you're indisposed. I'll also send a note to Mrs. Merriweather saying that the family emergency was a storm in a teacup. She must wonder what crisis stole you away from the party without speaking to her first."

Cassie cast her a grateful glance. "I'd forgotten the Merriweathers."

"We're going to bring you through this without a whisper of scandal." Antonia noted how her cousin's shoulders slumped and weariness weighted her usual light step. "Why not have supper in your room? Then an early night."

Cassie nodded and answered in a lifeless voice. "Thank you. I will."

"I'll come in and sit with you, if you like." Antonia smiled. "I'm proud of you, Cassie."

Cassie looked startled and paused in her progress. "Why? If I hadn't been so eager to promote a match between you and Lord Ranelaw, I wouldn't have been in trouble."

Antonia squeezed the girl's shoulder. "Ranelaw plotted revenge long before he met you, I'm sure. Most girls would have collapsed into hysterics hours ago. You're brave and you're smart and I love you."

"I wasn't brave at all. I was terrified." Tears filled Cassie's eyes and her lips trembled. "I couldn't see it would do any good to show it."

"That's the definition of courage."

"Oh, Antonia, it was awful," Cassie said brokenly and flung herself against Antonia.

Antonia's arms closed around her cousin with fierce protectiveness as Cassie burst into a storm of weeping. Damn Ranelaw for threatening this wonderful girl. The hatred and outrage that she'd held at bay since she'd learned of the abduction surged on a bitter tide.

How she hoped someone somewhere made that snake suffer. Suffer the torments of the damned. She wouldn't be there to witness it but she wished Lord Ranelaw a lifetime of pain and sorrow. She wished him every ill in the world.

Then when he tested the bounds of wretchedness, perhaps the evil he'd perpetrated today would stir a trace of repentance.

Little chance of that, but she found brief pleasure in contemplating Lord Ranelaw's broken heart. The difficulty was that today she'd arrived at the conclusion that he had no heart to break.

"What is this? My two favorite girls hiding in the back reaches of the house?"

Antonia looked up to meet the perennially amused glance of Godfrey Demarest. After learning what he'd done to Ranelaw's sister, there was something nauseating about his ready smiles. In all their years together, she'd never known him to take anything seriously. Once she'd found his unfailing good humor appealing. Now she'd discovered he was just as selfish and destructive as Johnny or Ranelaw. His smiles indicated nothing but shallow self-interest.

"Mr. Demarest, welcome home." Antonia surreptitiously kept Cassie behind her. Cassie was rigid with nerves, although she must know Antonia would never tell her father about the dangers she'd faced today. Neither Cassie nor Antonia would benefit from sharing how reckless they'd been with regard to the disreputable Marquess of Ranelaw.

"Thank you." Demarest looked past her to Cassie. "Tears, my lovely daughter? What is this?"

"Cassie's upset I'm going back to Somerset," Antonia said quickly.

It was an effort to sound natural. She searched her employer's face for proof of irredeemable evil but as with Ranelaw, his appearance didn't reveal his corruption. He looked exactly the same as ever. Middling height, perfectly arranged light brown hair, regular features, twinkling gray eyes.

The urge rose to ask him about Eloise. Perhaps there was some extenuating circumstance that explained his seduction of an innocent girl.

But if she mentioned Ranelaw's sister, she inevitably revealed that her dealings with the marquess had extended far beyond those required of a companion defending her charge against a rake's attentions. She couldn't bear for anyone to know how stupid she'd been, the lunatic risks she'd taken. And for what? A man who wasn't worth a moment's pain. A treacherous man who had dealt her a wound that left her staggering.

"Cassie, you silly puss." Her father opened his arms.

Cassie had always adored her father, no matter how neglectful he was. So it set another crack in Antonia's heart to note the slight hesitation before the girl flew into his embrace with a sob. To Antonia, the emotion seemed extreme for a parent's homecoming, however beloved.

Demarest as usual noticed nothing amiss with his world. Laughing, he returned his daughter's hug before drawing her toward the library, calling Antonia to follow. Then, typical of the man, there was a humorous narrative of his doings in Paris-carefully edited to avoid entanglements with courtesans, Antonia didn't doubt-and the unwrapping of extravagant presents.

He coaxed Cassie to recount her social triumphs. At first the girl was stiff and unnatural, but her father's warmth eventually told. Antonia remained separate from the gaiety, although she'd played a part so long, acting the proud chaperone was no stretch.

When Cassie retired after dinner, Demarest indicated for Antonia to wait. She was tired and pain pounded in her temples. As the night proceeded, fortifying anger ebbed. Instead she was left exhausted and miserable and desperate for privacy so she could release the demons of grief and fury that warred inside her.

But she worked for Godfrey Demarest. More, whatever his sins toward others, she owed him a debt of gratitude she'd never repay. She just prayed he didn't keep her downstairs too long. Her eyes stung from fighting back tears.

"Come into the library for a brandy." Demarest opened the dining room door for her.

From the first, when he'd encountered her alone and terrified on the boat from France, he'd treated her as a lady. She'd always been awake to his flaws: his carelessness, his selfishness, his flagrant womanizing. And after learning how he'd wronged Eloise, she should despise him. But even after today's revelations, it was difficult to maintain a cool distance when his charm embraced her.

It seemed nothing destroyed her weakness for a rake.