"If you speak of this, it will do no good," she said, turning abruptly to challenge them. "His servants will never betray me. They are glad he is gone, happy he has paid for his sins with my sister and others. Talk to them if you doubt me. They know of great crimes, of slaves brought here who spoke to the others of freedom under English law, and who then disappeared."

"I am sure the others will not betray you. They aided you and are your accomplices," Julian said. "Did Glasbury never guess who you were?"

"Never. To him I was just another slave for the night, bought with a jeweled necklace that he called a gift." Her lids lowered. "I told him at the end. After he drank the wine. I made sure he knew before he died."

"Of course," Julian said. "You would want to be sure that he knew."

"You sound disapproving. Perhaps you think I should have said prayers for my sister and been contented. Or asked these police of yours for help, with nothing more than a sad story as evidence."

"I believe that murder is wrong, madame. Does Raoul know of this? Is that why he is sending you away as quickly as possible?"

"I choose to leave, but yes, Raoul knows. He is an educated man, Mr. Hampton. He knows all about the moral laws taught by the philosophers. But he also understands there are higher laws than those. If I had been a man, I could have challenged Glasbury. I could have met him fairly with honor. That is denied women.Either we have a man who will do it for us, or we must find other ways. I found another way."

"A way that endangered an innocent woman," Julian snapped. "Do not speak to me of honor if you contemplated letting another pay in your place. You had to know that suspicion would fell on the countess."

Senora Perez looked a little chagrined. "You were not to be in danger," she said to Pen. "I expected you to remain in Naples until it was finished. The authorities were supposed to assume it was a whore, some wretch who gave Glasbury what he wanted for pay, a woman who would never be found."

"But I was not in Naples when this was done. You knew that."

"I could not delay longer. I did not think a countess would ever face severe punishment, even if suspected. I believed that the aristocracy takes care of its own, if only to silence any scandal."

"You believed wrong," Julian said tersely.

"You did not seem to mind that Mr. Hampton was in the dock instead of you, either," Pen said.

"Your role in the earl's sins was misunderstood, Mr. Hampton. For that I apologize. I thought Glasbury had simply arranged for Cleo to be sold to you, illegally. I thought you were no better than the earl. After the countess explained to Caesar what really happened, I sought to win your release."

"And did so," Pen said. "For that I am grateful."

Senora Perez gave her a woman-to-woman look. Men can make their laws and rules, her eyes said, but we know how life really is.

Julian offered Pen his hand to help her rise, and to signal this call was over.

"As I said, senora, to voice my suspicions against you would necessitate destroying my own alibi. If I mourned the earl at all, I might be in a severe moral quandary. As it is, I think it is well that you are leaving Britain before my conscience mulls this too long. Whether your acts can be accepted as those required for justice, we will leave for God to decide."

Chapter Thirty-one.

"I have been talking too much, haven't I?"

Pen whispered the words while stretching to peck Julian's ear with a kiss.

"Not at all. I never tire of your voice."

Actually, she had been talking most of the way from London. With anyone else in the world, it would

have been too much after a mile. This was Pen, however, and she never bored him. Social gossip and

descriptions of new fashions enthralled him, if she spoke about them. "It is because I am excited, Julian. I cannot believe how I look forward to these next days, with absolutely no one near me except you. Goodness, I wonder how we will fill all the hours?" She grinned impishly.

"Well, for one thing, I will teach you"

She hugged his arm. "Teach me what, you rogue?"

"How to cook."

"Cook?"

"With no servants, someone has to cook. If I have a woman around, you do not expect me to do it, I

hope." "We might both live longer if you did. If I am a very good student and learn to cook, will you teach me other things, too?"

"If you promise to be a very good student in those lessons as well."

"I intend to be the very best student, Julian." Her teeth gently closed on the outer edge of his ear. "Worldly and wicked and shameless."

The cottage came in sight in the distance. Giggling, Pen nestled against him and continued a naughty torture of his burning ear.

"Keep that up and I will stop and ravish you right here on the road."

"I would call your dare, except that it appears a storm is blowing in. You enjoy storms, don't you, Julian?"

"I would not say I enjoy them. They awe me, however."

"You mean you are impressed by all that energy. By the terrible forces unleashed. You are moved by how quiescent nature is so suddenly thrust into turmoil, and by how the cool rationality of man is swept aside by primeval powers that will outlast our lives on this earth. Is that what you mean when you say they awe you?"

He looked over at her. She caught his eye and smiled softly. "That is how you explained it to me years ago, when we were very young. It came back to me one night while you were in prison, and the wind and rain were beating on my window. I could hear you saying every word. I confess that I never really understood it until we made love. Great passion has the same power, doesn't it?"

"With the right person it does."

He got them to the cottage before the storm arrived. In the gusting wind, he unpacked the carriage and took care of the horses.

The sky had grown heavy with dark, low clouds when he returned to the house. He looked for Pen and found her out on the terrace, wrapped in her blue cloak, the wind making a riot of her hair.

He embraced her from behind. Together, they watched the sea rise in choppy waves that churned black and green and white.

She was right. He enjoyed a good storm. The dynamics stirred the most human part of him. The emotions that gave a person a heart and soul were more alive in the face of such unrestrained nature.

Pen rested back against him. "My face is getting ruddy. Yours never does, no matter how fierce the cold or wind. That is not fair."

"I have always thought that you look lovely with a rosy face."

She looked down at where his arms crossed her over the cloak. "Is it terrible that I will not wear mourning for him unless I am in public? It seems so pointless, but perhaps it does not speak well of me."

"You said you would never mourn a man again, Pen, and he would have deserved it least of all. You do not have to pretend."

"I would have mourned you, Julian. I would have grieved the rest of my life."

That touched him profoundly. He closed his eyes and rubbed his face against her crown.

"I wanted to come here so we could make love by the sea," she said. "Also so we could be totally alone.

But I also hoped that being here would help me make an important choice again, as it did the last time. I need to decide what to do with my freedom, don't I?"

"There is only one choice that I truly want, Pen, but I will live with any you make."

She turned in his arms and looked up at him. "What choice is it that you want?"

"The one that gives me the right to take care of you. I have accepted that you do not want that, however. Having waited so long for your independence"

"Are you proposing, Julian?"

"Although my position has been affected by the scandal, I still serve as solicitor to many important families. You will never want, Pen. I also have some investments that have done very well, and others that promise to do even better, in particular in Dante and Fleur's Durham project. We will not live in the

style of Laclere or the earl, but you will not have to count pennies." "I do not need to live in the style of my brother. This is a proposal then?" "I will, of course, accept whatever you prefer. I can see how marriage has little to recommend it, darling.

I understand if the entire notion leaves you cold." She giggled. "Goodness, you do talk a lot, Mr. Hampton. I agree that marriage has little to recommend it, however. There could be no excuse good enough for me to marry again." "Yes. Of course. I see." The wind caught her cloak and it flew up and out. It became a billowing cape that made her appear weightless, like an angel touching foot to earth after flight. "There are no good excuses, but there may be some good reasons," she said. "I can give you many." He kissed her. "That is one, and there are thousands more like it. Passion is another, and friendship. And being in love, Pen. That is one of the best reasons of all for marriage, and I am hopelessly in love with you." "Another reason is loving a man who is worthy of love. That changes everything, I have discovered. Are you proposing, Julian? Because if you are, I am almost convinced."

"I am, and will press my case the only way left to me." He kissed her long and hard, and let his heart and soul release their winds of desire and passion and reveal his eternal storm of longing and love. She emerged breathless and flushed. Her lids rose. "I think I would be a great fool to refuse you, my love. I would be an idiot to risk your changing your mind."

"I will never change my mind. I am yours however you will have me. I will have you any way I can."

"As a husband, Julian. I would be proud to be your wife."

He kissed her again, with profound gratitude. Joy drenched every inch of him, an emotion perfect and pure, and touched by disbelief.

She stepped back, out of his embrace. "I will go inside now. You are to stay here for a while. I want you to know that you do not have to be with me every minute in this love we share. You are not required to give up your silences or solitude completely. I am not jealous of those private moments, and have no desire to steal them from you."

She returned to the house. He faced the sea.

The storm was coming fast. It would not be a long one. Already, far in the distance he could see a glow of divine luminescence streaming down through the clouds.

The water below had become a chaos. Waves heaved and crashed. High ones broke against the sea wall of the terrace, right beneath him. The rain began, first with large droplets, then in driving sheets of spray.

It was a glorious storm with a dramatic wind. It blew right into him, stirring his heart and soul and blood. It awed him as few storms had, and merged with his own emotions the way great tempests did in his youth.

He remained silent, but another's voice spoke in his head. Pen whispered her love. He remained alone on the terrace, but she was in his heart more surely than she was in the house, her essence rising with him into the glory. A rare moment came to him, an instant of transcendence in which his consciousness seemed to join with the natural power of the world.

He had known that only a few times before, and always at the depths of melancholy. This time it was pure joy and beauty that saturated him. This time love unified his soul with the elements.

"Julian."

He turned and looked up. A window to his chamber was open. Pen stood near it, looking down at him. She had removed all her garments and let down her hair. The dark locks flowed over her ivory breasts. She looked so beautiful and perfect that his breath caught.

"I am up here, Sir Julian. Come and sing me a chanson or read me a poem, brave knight. Protect me during this fierce storm."

He walked toward the castle tower, shedding his armor. "I am coming, my lady."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Madeline Hunter's first novel was published in June 2000. Since then she has seen ten historical romances and one novella published, and her books have been translated into five languages. She is a four-time RITA finalist and won the long historical RITA in 2003- Nine of her books have been on the USA Today bestseller list, and she has also had titles on the New York Times extended list. Madeline has a Ph.D. in art history, which she teaches at an eastern university. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two sons. Be sure to join in her next tale of seduction and scandal Coming summer from Bantam Read on for a preview On sale summer The Earl of Lyndale was dying.

Again.

He lay shriveled and frail in his bed, cheeks sunken and skin wan. His right hand rested over his heart as if he were waiting to feel its last pulse. He presented a pitiable image of an old man facing the end.

Ewan McLean was not impressed. His Uncle Duncan pretended to lie at death's door at least once a year. Each imminent departure from the earthly realm summoned his sons and nephew so they could ease his passing. While on his deathbed he issued demands and extracted promises of outrageous presumption. Then he would "recover" and use those promises like a whip to get all the cattle lined up in the direction he had decided they should go.

"I fear the end will come tonight." The earl spoke it like a line in a stage drama. Which, for all intents and purposes, it was. "I need to set matters in order before I go."

He held out a trembling hand.

Ewan took it and smiled indulgently. Here it comes, he thought. He had been here for four days, waiting for the earl to decide when to finish the game.

"Since Hamish is not here, I must confide in you," the earl said, referring to his heir.

Ewan was all too aware that Hamish was not here. Right now Hamish and his younger brother were enjoying fresh air and sunshine on the continent and not sitting in this drafty old castle in a room hung with heavy green drapes. The same faded fabric framed the earl's body on the big bed, falling in dolorous swags like stage curtains.

The interruption of Ewan's visit to London by the summons had been irritating enough, but the discovery that his cousins, the earl's own sons, had escaped the call by taking off for Switzerland really grated.

"I will confess that I am glad it is you, my boy. Hamish would not have understood the matter that weighs on me. You know how he is."

"I certainly do." All too well. Hamish had grown into one of those purse-lipped, morality-spewing, judgmental Scots. When the earl eventually died, which Ewan expected would not happen for another decade or so, Ewan fully anticipated that Hamish would try to reform his cousin by threatening the handsome allowance that augmented Ewan's income from his modest property.