something. This man was always alert, always checking the road and fields, always on guard. She suspected this was not the first criminal act he had performed.

It was Mr. Jones who had beaten Catherine.

Seeing that, watching helplessly, had sent her reeling back into the old nightmare.

She was still afraid, but her wits had returned and she was no longer numb. A seething indignation had been brewing for most of the day.

A loud yell of pain rang from the kitchen.

"I trust you are being paid well, if this job may cost him a leg or his life."

"Handsomely, thank you."

"Have you been in Glasbury's employment long?"

He did not answer.

"If you followed me, you guessed where I was staying when I left the inn at Grossington. You are

familiar with those parts, then. You have been there before. You know why I was there, I think."

His lids lowered.

She knew then that her suspicions were correct. This was the man who had visited Mrs. Kenworthy

claiming to be Julian's agent.

This was the man who had killed Cleo.

Terror breathed on her nape. She had assumed they were taking her to the earl, but what if Mr. Jones suddenly shifted his gaze to the door. His body stiffened and his concentration sharpened.

She tried to hear what had raised his caution. The only sounds reaching her were the guttural moans

from the kitchen.

"You did not answer me. Have you been to Grossington before?"

"Be quiet." He sat up straight, slightly cocking his head.

"And if I will not be quiet? What will you do? Do not forget that I am not a woman alone in this world.

My brother is a viscount, and I also have powerful friends who will demand answers and an accounting if anything happens to me."

"Be silent."

He rose and took several steps toward the front of the house. He stood very still, listening, then moved the candles far from the window and lifted the curtain to peer into the darkness.

The kitchen door opened.

"Done here," the surgeon announced. He was a young man with receding blond hair and a portly body.

Fresh blood stained his apron. "He cannot ride. You can all stay here if you like. The sum is five pounds

a night." Mr. Jones glanced back at the surgeon. "A hotel of the first rank you must have here." "If I am sought out in the dark by strangers, at my home, I know the value of my skill and silence." "Just patch him up. We are leaving." The surgeon retreated to the kitchen. Mr. Jones continued studying the dark outside the window.

Making a decision, he snuffed out the candles, leaving the sitting room dark, too. After moving around a little, he opened the door. His body formed a silhouette on the threshold. In the dim moonlight Pen could see that his right hand held a pistol.

He just stood there, waiting and looking.

With his back to her, as if she represented no danger at all while he held that gun.

Her indignation crackled. His certainty that fear would make her docile was suddenly the biggest insult she had ever received.

She quietly rose. She lifted the candelabra from the table.

She took four quick strides, raised the iron with both hands, and crashed it down on him.

He staggered forward but did not fall. Hunched like a wounded animal, he swerved around with a vicious hiss and raised the pistol.

"Bitch!"

She backed up in shock, staring at the weapon aimed at her.

Then suddenly the gun was gone, and so was Mr. Jones. In a flash, he simply flew away.

Another figure stood in his place. One she recognized.

The sweetest relief flooded her.

Julian had found her.

Julian was not alone.

Two other men entered the cottage after him, carrying an unconscious Mr. Jones.

"Quite a blow you gave him, sir," the elder of the two strangers said. A middle-aged man with longish gray hair under his felt hat, he peered down at Mr. Jones. "Found them like you said. Smart to check the surgeons in the county as you suggested. A man can't ride far or fast with a hole in his thigh."

This particular surgeon stood at the kitchen door, flushed and dismayed. "Are they criminals? I had no idea."

"You can be explaining later, sir, but an honest man would have wondered about that leg in there and this woman out here," the man said.

"This is Mr. Fletcher and his son," Julian said, introducing his companions. "Mr. Fletcher is a county justice of the peace."

Mr. Fletcher and his son had come well armed. Each had two pistols belted to his chest under his frock coat. The son, about twenty years of age, appeared disappointed that the night's hunt had ended without the chance to discharge his firearms.

"We'll be needing your carriage to get them to gaol," Mr. Fletcher said to Julian.

"A secure gaol, I hope," Pen said.

"Oh, he'll be secure. We'll hold him until the quarter session. You will be needing to come and swear evidence against him, madame. The other woman, too."

Pen opened her mouth to object.

"Of course she will do her duty," Julian said.

It took them an hour to transport her abductors to the gaol, and another one for Julian to deal with formalities and legalities. Dawn was breaking when he climbed into the coach and they rode away.

She embraced him in gratitude and relief.

"Thank God you are safe," he muttered between kisses.

He closed the curtains and kept his arm around her.

He did not speak for a few miles. She did not pretend it was his normal silence. Despite their embrace, she sensed his disquiet. The air inside the coach trembled.

"Thank you," she said.

"Thank you for hitting him on the head. It made quick work of it for us."

"Catherine?"

"She is on her way to her daughter."

"Will I really have to return to testify? I do not see how I can."

"Fletcher saw enough to put Jones and Henley on a ship to New South Wales. If you testify, it would only complicate things, since the innkeeper and Fletcher think you are Mrs. Monley. You will have to write to Dante and explain that you used his wife's late mother's name, I expect."

"It was the first one that came to my head at the first inn. Yes, I should probably explain that."

Their conversation did nothing to clear the air. He still sat there darkly displeased, the depths churning.

"Are you going to scold me?" she asked. "You do not have to. I already know what you want to say. That I was reckless, and it was dangerous, and that"

"You cannot even begin to know what I want to say, madame."

She expected him to remove his embracing arm. When he did not, she waited for the brittle vehemance of his comment to pass. After a few more miles, the silent tar-moil seemed to ease.

"Do you think Jones has been our shadow the whole way, Julian?"

"Unfortunately, yes. Glasbury must have guessed that you would seek out Cleo to have someone to support your accusations."

"He has not only been following me, then. He has been one step ahead of me all along. For years." A larger worry instantly occupied her. "If Mr. Jones followed, Glasbury knows that you have been with me since we left the cottage."

"Mr. Jones probably sent him reports by mail. That is the least of our concerns, however."

She did not agree. Her relief at being saved was instantly drowned by the worry that had sent her off to Liverpool. Not for her own safety, but for Julian's.

If Mr. Jones had sent reports, the earl may have assumed the truth about those nights at the inns.

Mr. Jones might be in gaol, but there would be others taking his place. Glasbury was rich, and such men could always find those who would do their bidding for the right pay.

She fell asleep in the coach. When she woke it was late afternoon, and they were stopping in a small village in front of an inn.

"We will stay here in Bruton tonight," Julian said. "With equipage like this we will be noticed wherever we go, but there are fewer here to do the noticing." He took two rooms for them. As soon as their trunks were deposited and the second level of the inn was quiet, he came into her chamber.

The expression on his face made her swallow hard.

"I knew it was too much to hope that you would not scold eventually."

"You have made it clear that I do not have the right to that, or anything else. You are also smart enough to know the risks of your plan. You did it anyway. I just want to know why."

"I already told you. I cannot beat him. He will win, one way or the other. I decided that my first plan was my best one."

"That does not explain why you left before I returned."

"I chose not to delay."

"Why?"

"I am not going to be questioned like a criminal. Tell me I was stupid if you want, but do not interrogate me."

"I am not interrogating you. I am not speaking as your solicitor, damn it. I am a man to whom you gave yourself, and I want to know why you chose to flee without so much as a word of farewell."

She had never seen his expression so dark and hard. It affected his whole being and the entire chamber. She half expected lightning bolts to fly from his head.

"I do not think Cleo killed herself. That changes everything, Julian. I looked in my heart and admitted Glasbury could do that. To her. To me. To" She busied herself unpacking toiletries in order to hide how the last thought distressed her.

"To me," he said.

"I did not know we were being followed. I thought if I just left, disappeared, that"