"Yes," I said, and slowly rose. "I shouldn't be here. I must go back to The Blue Room."

He walked me back. I said at the door, "I have knocked against all the walls. I didn't find any sort of opening that gave onto a passageway."

"I didn't know you had done that. It was a good idea. Keep your derringer close, Andy."

He handed me George, who whined at his hero's rejection, patted my cheek, and strode back down the long corridor to his bedchamber, his dark blue velvet dressing gown flapping around his ankles. Strong, solid feet, I thought, staring after him.

Yet another night that I lay in my bed, staring up at the dark ceiling, with George snuggled next to me, wide-eyed, waiting for the sun to rise.

By noon the following day, thirty guests had flowed into the house bringing servants, laughter and holly and presents, and more trunks than I could count.

Carriages swamped the stable yard.

"How will Rucker manage?" I asked Lawrence as we finished greeting Lord and Lady Maugham, longtime friends of the Lyndhurst family.

"I believe everyone coming to stay is here now. Rucker will manage. We have enough room for all the horses. How is Small Bess doing?"

"You don't miss a single thing, do you?" I smiled up at him, and for the first time I was wondering if he was the someone who wanted me dead or scared to my toes or perhaps even both. No, I thought, it made no sense at all.

But then again, nothing did.

"Yes, I was out seeing to her this morning. Her hock is much better, thank God.

If we'd had to put her down, I would have been?"

He lightly touched his fingers to my cheek. "I know, my dear. It would have hurt you dreadfully. Small Bess will be just fine. I also checked on her."

And again, as I looked up at him I had to wonder: did you stick that horrid barbed circle of wire beneath her saddle? And I wondered if he had noticed the horrible deep cuts on her back. Evidently he hadn't. I supposed that Rucker had kept the blanket over the soft white cloths on Small Bess's back. And Lawrence hadn't noticed anything amiss, thank God. But then again, perhaps he already knew everything about all of it.

Miss Crislock came to my room when Belinda was helping me change gowns. I needed at least three gowns a day, and it required a great deal of time to get oneself looking just so with each change of garb. "It is the strangest thing," Miss Crislock said after flitting about The Blue Room, looking through my armoire, and straightening bottles on my dressing table.

"What is, Milly?"

"Oh. I saw Amelia coming out of John's bedchamber yesterday. Isn't that odd?"

I felt my heart plummet to my knees. Amelia? No, I thought, no.

"Perhaps she needed to borrow something," I said. "For Thomas."

"Well, evidently she did. When I saw her a few minutes later come out of his bedchamber, she was carrying something wrapped in a cloth."

I couldn't deal with this, I just couldn't. I kissed Milly's soft cheek, and together we went back downstairs.

The house was decorated with masses of holly from our home wood and the bags of it brought by our guests. There was a huge Yule log burning in the cavernous fireplace in the Old Hall.

Gifts were beginning to pile up on every available surface. Just after lunch, a messenger from York arrived with a huge box for me. I nearly skipped up to the nursery, I was so pleased that it had finally come, and just in time, too. I had been preparing myself for the disappointment.

"Andy, goodness," said Miss Gillbank, smiling at me, "you're visiting during an Italian lesson." She turned to Judith. "Well, my very bright girl, what do you have to say?"

"Come sta? Favorisca sedersi." And she swept her hand toward a chair.

"Sto molto bene, e Lei?"

"Oh, goodness, Andy, I'm doing very well, too. Now, sit down. What is in that huge box? Is it my Christmas present?"

"Sorry, Judith, but you will have to wait. You see, I made this wager with Miss Gillbank. I lost, just as I am always losing to you. However, Miss Gillbank is a much more seasoned gambler than you are, and she insisted that the wager be something extraordinary."

"Miss Gillbank, I didn't know you ever gambled. Is it true? What did you wager on?"

"Do you remember, dear Miss Gillbank?"

She stared from me to that box and then back to my face. "Funny thing, that wager of ours has completely slipped my mind."

"Ah. Well, Judith, Miss Gillbank and I made this wager just after all of us had met in the garden. You had already dined once with the adults, and she wagered that you would be allowed to dine with us yet again, very soon. I didn't believe it, after all, who would want to dine with a girl who is so very beautiful and sweet to George? And so I wagered nearly all I had that you would never again be allowed at the dinner table. And I lost.

"Just after all our guests leave, you, Miss Lyndhurst, are cordially invited to dine with all the adults, for a full week. Your father insisted." That was a lie, of course, but who cared? "So, Miss Gillbank, here is your prize for your brilliant wager."

And giving her no chance at all, I swept over to Judith's writing table, moved aside some books, and set down the huge box. I opened it, then stood back. "It is just as you ordered it, Miss Gillbank. I trust you won't be disappointed."

Miss Gillbank was beyond mystified. She lifted the lovely silver paper and just stood there, staring, not saying a single word.

"What is it, Miss Gillbank?"

I said, "It is her gown to wear to the ball tomorrow night, Judith. What do you think?"

With Judith shrieking for her to hold up the gown, Miss Gillbank, still wordless, lifted out the beautiful gown I had ordered for her. I'd filched one of her gowns so Belinda could measure it. It was glorious, a golden velvet ball gown with an inch-wide band of golden satin beneath the breasts, the neck was very, very low indeed, and the sleeves were long and fitted. There were no bows or flounces or rows of lace. It was simple and elegant, its lines classical. She would look magnificent.

She held the gown in front of her. Judith touched the soft velvet and shouted, "Oh, goodness, you must try it on for us to see. Now, please, Miss Gillbank."

And Miss Gillbank, that very steady and composed governess, carefully laid the gown back into the box and burst into tears.

"Oh, dear," Judith said to me. "Do you think she doesn't like it? Didn't you get exact instructions for what she wanted, Andy? Perhaps you misunderstood what color she wanted? Perhaps the neckline is too low? It rather looks like it would come only to her waist."

Miss Gillbank laughed through her tears. She refused to try on the gown for us, mumbling something about she wanted to look just perfect before she put it on, which would be tomorrow evening.

I was whistling when I left the nursery. I had forgotten for a good fifteen minutes that someone wasn't happy with me being here at Devbridge Manor. What had Amelia carried out of John's bedchamber yesterday? Surely not the knife, surely.

I looked up to see a man duck around the corridor ahead of me. "Wait!" I shouted.

"Who are you? Wait!"

But of course the man was gone when I rounded the corner. "Well, damn," I said.

My fingers were closed around my derringer. I was ready. I hadn't frozen.

That evening, garbed in yet another beautiful gown, I stood by my husband as thirty-six guests sat down at the dining table. I had overheard Brantley instructing Jasper and the rest of the footmen to fetch every table leaf from the storage room behind the pantry.

The table looked magnificent. The crystal shone, the silver and the dishes were perfectly arranged.

Brantley had hired on an additional ten footmen so that they were each responsible for only three guests each.

The menu, something everyone had advised me on, would have delighted even that fatuous gourmand, the Prince Regent. There were sixteen different dishes, I'd counted them as they were brought so elegantly and formally into the dining room.

I looked down the table at Miss Gillbank, simply beautiful in one of my gowns, lengthened for her, a soft Nile green silk with an overskirt of darker green silk. Belinda had dressed her hair. I had placed her next to the son of a local baronet I'd heard her mention once. She was laughing. I looked at Amelia and Thomas, seated next to each other, in the middle of the immensely long table.

They were speaking softly to each other. About what? Then they turned, as if they'd planned it beforehand, to speak to their neighbors.

My dear Miss Crislock was seated at Lawrence's left hand. She was smiling at something he said.

Everyone seemed in good spirits. I couldn't begin to count how many bottles of wine were poured down guests' throats during that two-hour dinner.

I looked down at John, even though I didn't want to, even though I knew it would just make me hurt and question myself and call myself a hundred times a fool. He was seated next to one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen in my life.

Her name was Lady Elizabeth Palmer. She was a very rich widow and couldn't have been more than twenty-five years old. I suppose that Lawrence was trying to marry off his heir and thus had invited her. To be honest, he had excellent taste. I didn't like her, but then again, she hadn't been particularly pleasant to me when she had arrived with friends. She had looked through me, and that made me want to. slap her, on both cheeks. But she was flawless, damn her. She had lots of thick blond hair all plaited up on top of her head, with at least a dozen tendrils falling haphazardly over those white shoulders of hers and surely too much white bosom on display. My grandfather would have looked at that face and bosom and not said a single word. He once told me he preferred to admire perfection in silence. And he would have remained silent for a very long time, curse him.

Evidently John was different from Grandfather, at least in this. He was laughing and talking and hanging on to her every word. It was nauseating.

It didn't hit me until I was chewing on a particularly delicious lobster patty that I was jealous. I nearly dropped my fork I was so horrified at myself. I simply stopped eating and stared down the table. They were speaking to each other, their heads close, hers so blond and fair and his so dark, damn him.

But I couldn't be jealous. It was madness to be jealous. I was married. John could be nothing to me, nothing at all. He was my step-nephew. He would always be my step-nephew. Eventually he would bring his wife to live in this house.

Maybe that wife would be Lady Elizabeth Palmer.

He had lied to me, like every man in this world, he had lied. And I was surprised by it, I'll admit it, more fool I. He was showering Lady Elizabeth with all his attention, absolutely deluging her with his humor, his damned wit, his observations, and he was doing this after he had poured out his innards to me but the day before.

He had lied.

On the other hand, I didn't want him to simply hang about, sullen and silent, being unhappy because he couldn't be with me. Besides, I didn't want to be with him. He was too big and too strong?and I nearly laughed my head off at my ridiculous litany.

No, it wasn't ridiculous. He had lied. Like my father. And I thought of his letter just then and realized I hadn't told John about it. Well, there was no need to.

There was nothing for it. I spoke to my neighbors, a duke from Manchester who was as desiccated as old bones and had a wit equally as dry as his bones, and a marchioness who had the biggest bosom I had ever seen in my life, most of it uncovered. I tried desperately not to stare at that bosom, unlike most of the gentlemen nearby.

I was vivacious. I dredged up some wit, and laughed at theirs. The marchioness with the bosom turned out to be rather amusing, what with her tales of all her little Pekingese dogs, of which she had a hearty dozen, all of them sweethearts.

The desiccated duke loved to gossip about folk in London I'd never heard of, but I laughed and carried on just as I was supposed to. I had to make Lawrence proud of me.

As for how I looked, my own gown was glittery silver, and I knew I looked very fine indeed. Perhaps I didn't have as much white bosom as Lady Elizabeth, and my hair was curly and red, brown, blond, and rust, all blended together like a bunch of fallen autumn leaves; and perhaps it was not as stylish as hers, but?I had to stop this. I didn't own John. I couldn't ever have him.

I was an idiot.

How could I have changed so much? He was still a man, actually a man I had seen on three different occasions in London and managed to dismiss all three times.

Only I hadn't, not really.

I had made a huge mess of things.

But most importantly, right now, I was the hostess. I wasn't a provincial miss.

I was a countess, and even though I was young, I knew what I was about. I knew what to do when. And when I rose to lead the ladies away, I looked only at my husband and smiled at him. He nodded.

"Gentlemen," I said, my voice pitched to the exact volume to gain their collective attention, "the ladies will leave you to your port." They barely paid any attention to my announcement at all. Most of them were happily drunk. They were looking forward to port and brandy and God knows what else. I turned at the doorway, and called out, more loudly this time, "Ladies, we will have our brandy in the drawing room. We will discuss the news about Napoleon, if there is any news worthy enough to speak about. We will discuss which of the gentlemen present at dinner is the most handsome, the most literate, the most charming."

Several of the women laughed, several even patted me on the arm. Some disapproved, but who cared? I didn't dare look back to see what my husband thought of that parting shot.

The men had heard every word I had said. Now they were all talking at once. I heard outrage, laughter, yells.

Lawrence would probably blast me later.

I was all the talk in the drawing room. A good half of the ladies had a snifter of brandy. We did speak of Napoleon for a bit, but soon turned to his poor wife, the Austrian princess, Marie-Louise, and how Napoleon, so desperate for an heir, that he no sooner had her on French soil, than he dragged her to his tent and consummated the marriage before it had even happened.

"Absolutely shocking what men do to women," said Lady Elizabeth Palmer, too beautiful for her own good, and now she was actually showing interest in something other than fashion and gossip. "Now, who is ready to vote for the most charming gentleman at the dinner table?"

Most of the ladies laughed at that.

Lady Caldecote, waving her fan vigorously even as she sat very close to the fireplace, said to me, "That was very clever of you, my dear young lady. You certainly got their attention. I do wonder what they're talking about now?"

"Naturally, they are discussing which of them will be elected the most charming by us," Lady Elizabeth said. Then she laughed and nodded to me, as if seeing me with new eyes. "That was clever of you."

The marchioness with the immense bosom said, "I heard it said that Napoleon had many mistresses and that it infuriated Josephine. She began to tell anyone who would listen that Napoleon wasn't all that much of a man, if you know what I mean."

It was obvious that I didn't know what she meant, because when I said brightly, "Well, if he continues with mistresses now that he is married to Marie-Louise, then he surely isn't much of a man at all." Every one of the sixteen ladies in the drawing room stared at me like I was an idiot.

Elizabeth Palmer laughed. "My dear countess, you are a married lady. I can't imagine that Lawrence hasn't showed you exactly how much of a man he is."

I just looked at her.

My precious Miss Crislock said comfortably, "Lord Devbridge is very solicitous of his precious young wife. He is patient. He is understanding. Do give me a snifter of brandy, my dear."

With those well-intentioned words, the ladies didn't desist, rather, they crowded around me. There were raised eyebrows. There were snickers. There were smiles barely hidden behind hands. Amelia stayed back. Miss Gillbank looked frantic.

"You mean that you are still a virgin, my lady?" Mrs. Birkenhead said, leaning so close I nearly gagged on her heavy perfume. Attar of roses, I thought, splashed on much too liberally.

Amelia cleared her throat, loudly. "I suggest that Andrea play a Mozart sonata for us. She is very talented. She can also sing, only not as well as she plays.

Come along, Andy, perform, now."

"I doubt her performance could top the one she gave to the gentlemen when we all left the dining room." This was from a motherly lady whose name I couldn't remember.

I walked to the pianoforte and began to play. I played the sonata well enough.

When I looked up, it was to see my husband standing very close to me.

I said quickly, just as soon as the applause died down, "I'm sorry, Lawrence.

The devil made me do it."

He laughed, turned to the gentleman at his elbow, cleared his throat, and announced to the room at large, "My wife informed me that the devil made her do it."