As if down a long, long tunnel, he was aware of Thorpe rushing forward. His friend said something low and urgent. Through the din in his ears, Ranelaw couldn't make out the words.

He summoned strength to gesture the man away. "No." Anything further was beyond him.

He could do this. He would do this.

Benton stood firm, his gaze unwavering. Slowly, so slowly, Ranelaw lifted his arm. The gun suddenly weighed ten tons. He was shaking and the world approached and retreated in a most alarming fashion. If not for the blazing pain, he'd imagine he was three sheets to the wind on rotgut gin.

He waited for his aim to steady. His attention fixed on his opponent, the man who had seduced and betrayed Antonia and set her on the path to another rake's bed ten years later.

He'd hated Benton with a passion since he learned how the slug had wronged Antonia. The virulence of his loathing should have told him she meant more to him than he was willing to admit.

But self-deception was a way of life for the Marquess of Ranelaw.

No longer.

Benton waited stoically for the bullet. Waited to die. Ranelaw gritted his teeth and forced himself to focus.

As he stared down the barrel of his pistol at the man he'd sworn to kill, he couldn't deny the stark, unpalatable truth.

Johnny Benton was no worse than Ranelaw himself.

In fact, he and Johnny Benton were brothers under the skin. Brothers in iniquity.

He could shoot Benton. He could do it now. But he had no real right to take the fellow's life.

"Ranelaw, for God's sake, let the doctor see to you," Thorpe begged behind him. The voice traveled down that same long tunnel, longer now. As though the world receded further and further away.

He should regret his demise, he supposed. When all he really regretted was not telling Antonia he loved her. She wouldn't care now, but once, once she might have appreciated knowing they shared more than tawdry seduction.

Except there had never been anything tawdry between him and Antonia. Apart from how he'd betrayed her to stay true to his sister.

Life was hellishly complicated. By rights, he should be relieved to relinquish it.

He staggered and felt rather than heard Thorpe leap toward him. "No," he said again.

The agony approached a point where he had difficulty staying upright. He struggled for one last moment of clarity.

Before giving up the ghost, he needed to do something. He stared at Benton. The man's face was set with grim knowledge.

Ranelaw raised his gun, paused to beat back a wave of dizziness.

And fired into the air.

The shot echoed eerily. Blackness surged up to steal the light.

Antonia waited in the hall for Henry to come down from his room so they could leave for Northumberland. Yesterday she and her brother had talked until exhaustion after his hard ride overcame him. She was still nervous about returning to Blaydon Park, but Henry assured her everything would be all right. During the long journey north, they'd come up with some believable story to explain her reappearance.

This morning Cassie was engaged to go shopping with the Merriweathers. Only Antonia and Cassie were aware of the strategy behind the decision to continue with her social activities. If rumors arose about her disappearance from the fete champetre, her public insouciance would contradict gossip.

At breakfast Cassie had been subdued and a little snappish. Eloise's tragic history still gnawed at her so she'd been unusually sullen with her father, not that he seemed to notice. Antonia's departure left Cassie bereft and unsettled, however glad she was that the rift with Henry was healed. Northumberland was at the other end of the country and it was clear Antonia would never again play the dour and watchful chaperone.

Although Antonia was touched by Cassie's unhappiness at her departure, it had been a relief to consign the girl to her friends. Recent days left Antonia jittery and overwhelmed. She had little patience to spare for a fractious Cassie.

She knew she'd miss her cousin like the very devil, but today she felt drained and listless. She just wanted to flee London without delay. Freedom hovered like a heavenly vision.

Henry descended the stairs at a canter. It was oddly comforting how immediately they'd returned to their easy affection. Hard to believe ten years had passed since they were together. She felt like she'd left him only yesterday.

Demarest followed Henry more slowly. She knew he was happy her brother was restored to her. But she also knew that, for a man whose comfort was his priority, the delay in her answer to his proposal irked. She couldn't keep him waiting long. But she needed to see her childhood home, become Lady Antonia Hilliard again before she decided where her path would take her.

Henry had asked her to become chatelaine of Blaydon Park. That offer would make her father twitch in his grave, she was sure.

Life as Henry's hostess wouldn't be so different from life in Somerset, except she'd receive all honor due Lady Antonia Hilliard. She'd reclaim her independence, and she'd never again have to deal with lying rakes who broke her heart without a second thought.

Demarest had wanted Henry to stay in London, recover from his journey, reacquaint himself with his sister in a familiar setting. But her brother had always hated Town, and Antonia was eager to return to Blaydon Park. She supposed it was a sign of grudging approval that Demarest lent them his traveling chaise. And fresh clothes for Henry. Her brother had been in such a lather to find her, he hadn't packed any necessities.

She couldn't help wondering about the condition of the estate. The Henry she'd known tended to lose himself in his studies, remaining blithely unaware of practicalities. In a way, this was reassuring. One of the satisfactions of her restricted existence in Somerset was that Mr. Demarest was such a careless landlord, he left all decisions in his absence up to her. But of course she now realized he was careless about everything, including people.

Henry had never been careless, just preoccupied. Which offered her an opportunity to exert a positive influence on Blaydon Park.

She badly needed to feel necessary to someone somewhere.

Whatever choices she made, she'd never marry for love. Passion wounded too deeply. A comfortable, settled life with an older man who made no demands still appealed. The lure of becoming Cassie's stepmother was a strong inducement for accepting Demarest.

Or maybe now she was a woman of means, she wouldn't marry at all.

She couldn't imagine she'd ever return to London. She would remain safely in the country. In the capital, she ran the risk of Johnny causing trouble or someone recognizing her as Cassie Demarest's chaperone.

For so long, she'd been at fate's mercy. Now new opportunities beckoned, offering more than she'd ever imagined. It seemed too good to be true.

She knew it was too good to be true.

No matter. She had to move beyond the pain and illusory joy of the last weeks. Her future mightn't be exciting or romantical, to use Demarest's term. But it was at least secure.

"Are you ready?" Henry asked.

"Yes." She choked back a sob. Which was ridiculous. She refused to cry over losing Ranelaw. He hadn't been hers to lose.

The fact that he didn't merit a moment's regret couldn't change her heart. Her heart was determined to mourn him. And hate him. She hoped he roasted in hell. Even if she wept bitter tears of pity over his damnation.

She abhorred this morass of contradictory emotions. The longing for Northumberland's clean emptiness was an ache in her bones. Perhaps once she was back where she belonged, she'd stop feeling so confused and miserable.

With silent punctiliousness, a footman opened the door to the street. Defiantly she raised her chin. A new life awaited. The Marquess of Ranelaw be damned.

Mr. Demarest pressed her gloved hand with a meaningful gesture. "Please remember what I asked you," he murmured.

"Of course," Antonia replied equally softly.

She hadn't mentioned Demarest's proposal to Henry or Cassie. What would her brother make of such a marriage? Perhaps having finally found her, he'd feel she owed him her complete attention. At least for the foreseeable future.

Another footman opened the coach door. Demarest took her arm with a possessive gesture that only someone as unworldly as Henry would miss. He led her outside.

She was about to step into the carriage when she realized someone ran along the street toward them.

To her astonishment, it was Cassie. Not Cassie in decorous London mode. But Cassie as her boisterous, pink-cheeked country self. The Cassie she'd watched chase stray calves and runaway chickens and flap her arms to frighten birds off sprouting seedlings.

"Antonia!" Several paces behind her, Antonia saw Bella struggle to catch up to her charge, who hurtled down the city street as though she crossed an empty field. "Antonia, wait!"

Cassie must have decided to say good-bye after all. Pleasure briefly warmed her turbulent regret. Mr. Demarest-Godfrey, she supposed she should call him-smiled tolerantly at his daughter's hoydenish ways. Henry stared curiously at his cousin. With her bonnet askew over ruffled fair hair and her face flushed with exertion, she looked breathtakingly pretty.

Cassie raised a trembling hand to her heaving chest and spoke in a wild rush. "Antonia, there was a duel. Ranelaw's been shot. He's like to die."

Like to die.

All Antonia's self-serving lies about looking forward to her new life evaporated in an instant.

To reveal the jagged shards of her heart.

"What?" she stammered, wrenching free of Demarest.

Cassie bent at the waist and struggled for breath. Her words emerged in staccato bursts. "John Benton shot him. This morning. In Richmond."

Through the clamor in her head, she managed an astonished whisper. "Johnny shot Ranelaw?"

How was it possible that Johnny Benton had shot Ranelaw?

Ranelaw was the lethal one. Benton was as friable as pastry in comparison.

This made no sense. Duels were illegal, a capital offense. If death resulted, the survivor risked prosecution for murder.

Demarest grabbed her arm. "What is all this? What is this scoundrel to you? I thought the cur went after Cassie and you told him to take his filthy attentions elsewhere."

She shook him free and stared aghast at Cassie. "You must be wrong."

Slowly Cassie regained her breath. Heaven knew how far she'd come. The girl's reaction to hearing the Marquess of Ranelaw was at death's door must have aroused curiosity. It hardly mattered. All Antonia heard, repeated over and over like a tocsin, was like to die.

Nightmare images of blood flooded her mind. Ranelaw lying in a pool of red, screaming with agony. She closed her eyes and struggled to prevent her stomach forcing her breakfast back up her throat. How could Ranelaw die? Even when she'd threatened to shoot him, she'd recognized a mere bullet couldn't put paid to that animal vitality.

Yet it seemed a mere bullet promised to do just that. A bullet fired by her effete first lover. The earth popped off its axis and went dancing through space.

Cassie spoke in a jumbled rush. "Suzannah's brother heard at his club. Ranelaw had some quarrel with Benton's waistcoat. Benton's fleeing for the Continent to evade the law. Ranelaw is at home, but they say he won't survive the day."

Henry frowned, his eyes darting between the two women as though he measured volatile chemicals in an experiment. "What is this to my sister? It's interesting gossip, I grant. But surely not worth haring across London to deliver."

Cassie stared at Antonia. "You can't let him die believing you hate him."

"I do hate him," she said flatly, even as she felt her life ended with Ranelaw's.

Cassie's jaw hardened with purpose. "Then I daresay you don't care he's dying."

"I . I didn't say that." Dizzy, she grabbed Cassie's hands and squeezed them. She was sinking in horrible sucking quicksand. None of this felt real. Ranelaw couldn't die. She wouldn't let him.

Blindly she released Cassie and whirled toward the waiting carriage. Henry rushed after her. Through her anguish, she heard his angry bewilderment. "What's this about, Antonia? You told me you've spent the last years as Cassie's chaperone. Yet it seems you're on terms of intimacy with a libertine whose reputation is so foul, gossip's reached Northumberland. I knew the marquess at Oxford. He was as wild as a jungle tiger even as a youth."

"Antonia, explain yourself," Demarest insisted from beside Henry.

If she'd been less distraught, the weight of masculine disapproval might have daunted her. As it was, she barely noticed. All that mattered were those grim words, like to die.

"I must go to him," she said under her breath, speaking to herself as much as to anyone else. She placed one trembling hand on the coach's door frame.

"Don't be insane, woman," Demarest spluttered behind her. "You can't call on a single man in his home. Particularly a single man of Ranelaw's depraved habits. The fellow's a loose fish."

Antonia turned to respond but fell silent when Cassie glared at her father. Fleetingly the girl looked much older than her eighteen years. Older, wiser, and adamantly unforgiving.

"Don't be a hypocrite, Papa," she said sharply.

"Cassandra Mary Demarest!" he began.

"I know about Eloise Challoner." Antonia had never before heard Cassie use that frigid tone.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Demarest blustered. But a flush mottled his face and he stepped back as though disowning his role in that old tragedy. If she'd ever doubted that her cousin had ruined Eloise, she doubted no longer.

"Don't lie," Cassie said still in that cutting tone. When she turned to Antonia, her voice softened. "Toni, you must hurry."

Every rule of society, of common sense, insisted Antonia depart London with Henry and never spare Ranelaw another thought. She owed Ranelaw precisely nothing. Over the last two days, she'd almost convinced herself she loathed him.

Of course she didn't.

The truth was as inarguable as the sky above her or the hard pavement beneath her feet. It had been part of her so long, she'd hardly noticed.

She noticed now.

She loved the Marquess of Ranelaw. It didn't matter what sins he'd committed. Nothing changed what she felt.

She hadn't given herself to Nicholas because after ten years of chastity, she suddenly had an itch to scratch. She'd given herself to Nicholas because she loved him more than she'd ever loved anyone.

She couldn't let him die. Nothing-reputation, duty, fear-would stop her seeing him.

"Henry, I'm sorry," she said quickly, her heart thundering with panic. "We must delay our travel. Or you can go without me."

"I don't want to go without you." Her brother looked troubled.

If Nicholas was as close to death as Cassie said, Antonia had no time to make him understand. As though he'd ever understand why his ruined sister, finally on the verge of rehabilitation, was set on ruining herself again. This time for good.

"I'll send a note when I know the situation." Or slink back grieving. She didn't say the words aloud. She refused to countenance the possibility that the man she loved might die. If Nicholas could lure her into his bed, he could do anything. Including survive this ridiculous duel he fought over her. She wasn't green enough to imagine that the identities of the adversaries could be accidental.

Nicholas was a fool. But he was her fool. She'd be damned before she relinquished him to the grave.

Demarest scowled and she suddenly wondered if their marriage would have been the arrangement of equals she blithely imagined. Although she could never marry him now, however advantageous the match. She couldn't marry another man when every beat of her heart echoed Ranelaw's name.