He hadn't spared a glance for Demarest. Instead his gaze fixed on her face. To her horror, his blue eyes, twins to those she saw in her mirror every day, shone with tears.

Confusion swamped her false bravado. This wasn't the reaction she expected. "Henry?" she wavered, suddenly unsure whether formality was the best way to greet him.

In spite of her roiling humiliation, she couldn't help staring at him avidly. How she'd missed him. During what had been in many ways a lonely childhood, she'd always looked up to him.

Even after the long separation, he was heartbreakingly familiar. He'd been a gangly youth, only twenty when she ran away, but the years had filled him out. Like all the Hilliards, he was tall and graceful and as blond as a Viking. He looked the image of the father who had cast her aside so callously. The ominous comparison sent a shiver down her backbone.

Except her father would never have betrayed such vulnerability, looked so devastated. Even when he banished his daughter from his life forever.

"He . he told me you were dead," Henry said in a hoarse voice. "God forgive me, I believed him."

"I'm not dead," she said stupidly.

Her brain felt full of soggy oatmeal. Nothing made sense. She searched Henry's face for the disdain she deserved. In Vicenza, her father had been so adamant that her mother and brother wanted nothing to do with her.

"What are you doing here?" Demarest asked from behind her. She started at the sound of his voice. She'd forgotten he was in the room.

Henry blinked too as though lost in the fascination of seeing the sister who had disappeared from his life. He didn't shift his gaze from Antonia. "John Benton wrote to say he'd seen my sister in London. I rode down immediately I got the letter."

Antonia realized that her brother was covered in a fine coating of dust and he looked exhausted. Dark circles marked his eyes and he was unshaven and windswept. In the shock of his arrival, she hadn't noticed details.

"But how did you know I was here?"

Had Johnny followed her from the park? Surely he hadn't, if only because Ranelaw would have stopped him. At best, he'd guessed her general direction but not the specific address.

Again Johnny Benton let her down. She'd begged him to conceal the fact that he'd seen her. She should be furious, but after Ranelaw's treachery and Henry's astonishing arrival, this new disappointment from her first lover barely mattered.

"I didn't." Henry looked as bewildered as she felt. "I hoped to enlist Godfrey's help in finding you. I've lost touch with most of my London connections and Godfrey has always known everyone. He seemed the right man to ask."

"She's been with me the whole time," Demarest said. "Since your ass of a father threw her out into the world without a penny to bless herself."

Neither Antonia nor Henry paid him a moment's attention. Instead they stared fixedly at each other as if gauging their next step in this strange, fraught reunion.

"Why should you want to find me?" She stiffened and bitterness sharpened her tone. "To make me swear Lady Antonia Hilliard will stay dead? Ten years ago I promised Papa I wouldn't contact you or Mamma again."

Henry paled under her attack and his face tightened with grief. "I can't blame you for hating me. I'm so sorry for everything."

Sorry?

The word shuddered through her like a physical blow. Henry didn't owe her an apology. It wasn't his fault that she'd eloped with Johnny.

She was vaguely aware of Godfrey Demarest watching her with a concerned expression. Shock held her speechless as she stared at her brother. She desperately tried to understand what he wanted of her. Once she'd been certain he'd never wish to see her again. Now she wasn't nearly so sure.

When she didn't immediately reply, Henry looked troubled. "I hope you'll find it in your heart to forgive me for accepting Father's word when he told us you'd died of a fever in Italy. Even then, I should have realized it was all too convenient. I'm a damned scientist. I know to look more closely at the evidence."

If they'd ever met again, she'd expected him to greet her with outrage and derision, but he didn't sound like he detested her. He sounded as if he regretted her absence, as if he'd missed her all these years as she'd missed him.

Hungrily she searched his face. He was so like their father, except his eyes were kinder and his mouth wasn't set in perpetual judgment upon an inadequate world. Now her brain worked again, she read guilt and unhappiness and astonishment in his expression.

She didn't perceive a shred of condemnation.

Her hands clenched at her sides as uncertainty hammered at her. All this time, had she misjudged Henry? Had she also accepted her father's edict too easily? Should she have plucked up courage to write to her brother after the late earl's death? She'd longed to, if only to share her sorrow now that both their parents were gone.

"Henry, I was sure you'd hate me." Her voice was thready. She folded her arms over her chest to steady her shaking.

"Of course I don't." Henry ventured a step closer. He was close enough for her to see he trembled too. His voice was raw with emotion. "I've mourned your loss the last ten years. I've blamed myself for what happened. I loathed that I introduced Benton into our house. If I'd known what the blackguard intended, I'd have horsewhipped him from the door before letting him come within a foot of my sister."

Hesitantly Henry laid a hand on her arm, as though afraid she'd vanish in a puff of smoke like some magical creature. His face was somber and his voice shook with the power of his feelings. "I can't tell you how happy I am to find you alive."

Antonia quivered under his touch but didn't shift, either forward or away. After the long silence, this swift, unconditional acceptance seemed unreal, untrustworthy. "Are you?"

"Of course." He laughed with what she was surprised to recognize as joy. His voice rang with certainty as he repeated his assertion. "Of course!"

She blinked back hot tears. This still felt like a dream, although she'd long ago relinquished dreams of reconciliation with her family. Of all the possibilities for her future, she hadn't imagined that her brother might find her and offer absolution.

"Really?" she asked unsteadily.

"Really," he said with such a wide smile, she couldn't doubt his sincerity. The smile was heartbreakingly familiar and made him look much younger, for all his physical exhaustion. Briefly he looked like the boy she'd grown up with, not the man he was now.

She wasn't sure who moved first, but suddenly he hugged her and she hugged him. Although she told herself she'd cried enough, she burst into difficult sobs. All her misery and fear and regret united with this unexpected blessing to level her last defenses. For ten years, she'd felt completely alone, yet now it seemed her brother had always loved her.

"I still can't believe it," she said in a choked voice when she eventually drew away. She dashed her hands across her eyes but still tears welled.

"Neither can I." Henry kept his arm around Antonia as he turned toward Demarest, who had moved to stare out the window to give brother and sister some privacy. "Thank you for keeping her safe. Although why in God's name you didn't tell me you had her, I'll never know."

"I was sworn to secrecy." Demarest turned to survey them with a faint smile. "And your father was such a self-righteous prig, if you'll pardon my frankness, I knew he wouldn't relent once he'd disowned her."

"He never admitted the truth, even on his deathbed," Henry said with a trace of anger, his arm tightening around Antonia. "At least that bastard Benton showed a glimmer of conscience and informed me Antonia was alive. When I read his letter, I was terrified to think what my sister had suffered without her family's protection."

"She's had her family's protection," Demarest said with a hint of hauteur.

"I'll always be grateful," Antonia said, even as she couldn't scotch the recognition that Eloise Challoner's fall from grace in similar circumstances to hers had resulted in a much harsher fate.

She couldn't quite place her cousin's mood. While he seemed pleased for her, his manner held an element of reserve. Perhaps he realized that Henry's arrival meant at the very least a delay before Antonia accepted his proposal and his life proceeded as he wished.

Demarest crossed to the sideboard and poured three brandies. "It's early but we all need this."

With an unsteady hand, Antonia accepted the glass. Long ago, she'd smothered the smallest hope of returning to her family. It was too late to make peace with her mother. Her father, she knew, would never have forgiven her.

But her brother was here. More than that, her brother didn't hate her.

The shock left her reeling.

Henry released Antonia and turned to her. "I want you to come home."

Antonia frowned, not sure she'd heard right. "Are you sure? We might spark the scandal Papa was so eager to avoid."

In spite of her doubts, her heart lurched with relief at the prospect of returning to Blaydon Park. To the places she'd loved. To life as Lady Antonia Hilliard.

No more disguises. No more deception.

A new start where she could rise above Ranelaw's treachery. His cruel deceit and irredeemable wickedness had bruised her soul. Even the miracle of Henry's loving welcome couldn't heal that festering injury.

Escaping to Blaydon Park provided a spark of hope. The idea of home would always have beckoned like soft music on a summer's evening. Now she wanted to weep with gratitude at the promise of safe harbor.

Ranelaw would never follow her to Northumberland.

Don't be ridiculous, woman. Ranelaw won't follow you anywhere. Nor do you want him to. He's a liar. He deserves nothing but scorn and hatred.

"If there's a scandal, we'll weather it." Henry drank his brandy as though gossip worried him not one whit. "I've finally found my sister. I'm not giving her up just to silence a few wagging tongues."

It wasn't going to be easy, whatever Henry's confident predictions. Her past mistakes might still poison her future. "Johnny could talk."

"I doubt he will," Demarest said, sipping his brandy. "He might be a fool but even he must realize his actions do him no credit."

"Let him talk," Henry said steadily. "That cad Benton isn't going to dictate my future."

Antonia realized Henry had indeed changed. He'd grown immeasurably stronger. Although he was her senior, she'd been the one to defy their parents, to insist on her own way. He'd always been lost in scholarly pursuits, unworldly, eager to restore peace so he could retire untroubled to the library. His determined expression as he raised his glass to her in a silent salute indicated he'd learned to fight for what he wanted.

She tried to draw courage from his certainty but she felt battered by the heart-rending events of the last days. She'd lived through a storm of passion, fury, danger, and bitterness. Now a new life stretched ahead. Or perhaps a return to an old life she'd thought barred from her forever.

She felt too much at a loss to be happy, although gratitude for her brother's ready forgiveness warmed her heart. For the first time in so long, she had a genuine choice in what became of her. She hardly believed it. More than that, she belonged to a family again. Perhaps returning home to Northumberland as Antonia Hilliard might knit together the tattered fabric of her heart.

Chapter Thirty-one.

The dawn was pure and fresh, promising hope and a new beginning.

Lies, all lies, Ranelaw knew. He tilted his head to stare into the sky. It was the perfect pale blue of Antonia's eyes.

The memory cut like a honed knife and he briefly closed his eyes in pain. When he opened them, two swans flew overhead. For all his anguish, the sight made his heart leap.

A good day to die.

A better day to wipe Benton from the face of the earth.

Behind him, Thorpe murmured to the doctor. Across the open field, Benton checked his pistols. The man hadn't glanced up when Ranelaw arrived in his stylish curricle drawn by two magnificent grays.

A pity-Ranelaw had taken particular care with his appearance. He refused to face his enemy looking anything but his best. His dark blue superfine coat was new, he wore his favorite waistcoat with its twining ivory Chinese dragons, and he'd had Morecombe shave him to within an inch of his life.

Pun intended.

Tracking Benton down yesterday had proven easy. The man might consider himself a louche bohemian, but he'd been predictable enough to take up residence at the Pulteney Hotel. The duel had been equally simple to maneuver. Ranelaw had claimed not to like the fellow's waistcoat-the truth as it happened; the maggot dressed like a damned macaroni.

In his hotheaded younger days, Ranelaw had fought several duels. Never killing affairs, although his right arm bore a scar where a bullet had grazed him. Since then he'd kept up his shooting, the way he maintained all the skills of the London gentleman. Only now did he reflect on his life and consider how much time he'd wasted in meaningless pursuits.

What he did this beautiful morning had meaning.

He didn't deceive himself. No matter what happened, Antonia was eternally lost to him. Two women he'd loved and two women he'd failed. Eloise's ruin would go forever unavenged. But today he'd redress the besetting tragedy of Antonia's life.

Benton approached. Ranelaw recognized his second although he couldn't immediately remember the fellow's name. Benton's second and Thorpe stepped aside to discuss arrangements and try to resolve the quarrel without bloodshed.

Ranelaw had no intention of accepting Benton's apology. Even if Benton had something to apologize to his opponent for. Benton owed his apologies to Antonia. But she rightly scorned both his excuses and pathetic proposal.

How Ranelaw loved her proud spirit. He recalled the moment she'd aimed her gun at him two days ago, her hand as steady as an old soldier's. He couldn't think of another woman in Creation with backbone to do that.

He'd waited his whole life to fall in love. At least when that calamity befell him, he'd chosen a female worthy of his devotion.

He wasn't worthy of her. Although he'd remember to his last breath how it had felt to hold her in his arms.

"I never considered you virtue's defender, Ranelaw," Benton said snidely.

Ranelaw arched his eyebrows in a manner designed to make Benton bristle. "Virtue? I'm shooting you for your sins against fashion, old chap."

Benton's shoulders formed a stiff line and his hands fisted at his sides as if he wanted to punch Ranelaw's supercilious expression. "Any harm is purely the concern of the lady and myself."

Choking fury wedged in Ranelaw's throat. He fought the urge to wring the wretch's neck. "If a lady was involved, I would hope you're gentleman enough not to mention her name."

Benton's lip curled in disdain. Through his anger, Ranelaw was unwillingly impressed-and surprised-at the man's courage. He'd expected the milksop to weep and tremble.

Benton seemed angry rather than afraid. Perhaps Antonia hadn't been so mistaken in her infatuation after all. Whether jealousy fueled Benton's outrage or not, he demonstrated considerably more pluck than he had in Hyde Park. Obscurely Ranelaw was glad. Shooting a sniveling coward wouldn't satisfy the murder in his heart.

The seconds approached and made a final attempt to effect reconciliation. Ranelaw remained strangely divorced from proceedings, as though he observed events on a stage. Automatically he followed the protocol, paced out the distance. Turned. Benton gazed back with steady dislike as he raised his gun.

No, Antonia hadn't been mistaken in her first lover.

Briefly Ranelaw glanced at the sky, aware this was the last time he might see it.

Blue, blue, perfect blue. Antonia's eyes.

There was a sharp report, birds burst squawking from the surrounding trees, Ranelaw felt a burning, blinding pain in his side. He staggered, not immediately connecting the three facts.

And realized Benton had shot him.

Devil take the fellow, he'd never imagined the bastard would muster the nerve.

Blackness edged his vision and each beat of his heart vibrated through his body like a huge drum. He swayed and realized he'd collapse unless he overcame this weakness.

If he fell, he mightn't shoot.

Another failure in a life redundant with failures.

No, it wouldn't be. He'd die accomplishing this one thing. Then he wouldn't make a squeak of complaint when Satan snatched him below.