Instead he kissed her again.

We laughed. I don't know where that laugh came from, but it came, full blown and charmed at the two of them.

Lawrence wouldn't be home until Christmas. I had more than enough time to make plans and execute them.

The afternoon passed quickly. I met with Mrs. Redbreast and discussed the servants, the state of the linens in the servants' rooms and the replacement of dishes in the kitchen. I planned menus with Cook. I complimented Brantley on George's training, although I wanted my old dog back. This new George who sat obediently until told otherwise just wasn't as much fun. I looked in on Small Bess. Her back and her hock were healing nicely.

It was late that afternoon when I visited Miss Gillbank and Judith in the nursery. I learned how to say good day in Greek.

It was then that Judith reminded me that I had promised her that she was supposed to dine with the adults for a full week. I had forgotten. My brain was weighted down with fear. Ah, this would be a diversion, one that I sorely needed.

I smiled at this beautiful girl and told her I would speak to Mrs. Redbreast immediately so that Cook would make some Iced Charlotte for her dessert.

Actually, it was Brantley who agreed to see to the Iced Charlotte for Judith's dessert. I changed my clothes while Belinda fussed. I enjoyed her fussing. It made me feel safe, a feeling I knew well was an illusion.

I walked quickly down the main staircase, across the Old Hall and into the main drawing room. I hoped John would be here.

I was smiling.

Then I froze.

There was my husband, his head bent as he listened to something Miss Crislock was saying. She was seated gracefully in a winged chair, Judith and Miss Gillbank sat opposite. Amelia was standing behind a high-back chair, twirling her glass between long graceful fingers, looking somewhat distracted. Neither John nor Thomas was there.

"Good evening, my dear."

I didn't know what to do. Should I scream that my husband wanted to hurt me?

Perhaps slice my throat? I just didn't know what to do, and so I wiped the fear off my face and smiled.

"What a wonderful surprise, sir. So very unexpected." It was well-done, I thought. I knew I had managed to overlay any fear with lots of fresh excitement and pleasure at seeing him. What the devil was he doing here? He had just left early this very morning. I couldn't believe this.

Where the devil was John?

I stretched my hands toward him as he quickly placed his sherry glass on a table and walked over to me. He grasped my hands and leaned over to kiss my cheek, his warm breath fanning against my cheek. "Ah, my dear Andy, only a man who was an utter fool would not come home as quickly as possible with such a beautiful and very charming lady waiting for him."

What did I do to you? I wanted to ask him that so badly that I nearly had to bite my lip. Instead, what came out was "Lawrence, you just left. What happened?

Is there some sort of problem? Oh, yes you are also a dreadful deceiver, sir, all that flattery." And I laughed, I truly managed to laugh.

He leaned over and kissed my cheek again. I didn't jerk away, but it was close.

As he straightened, I looked directly up into his face. His eyes, I saw for the very first time, held no warmth at all. At least there was none directed at me.

They were a cold gray, like hard steel. He was smiling as he looked back at me, and I shivered. What was he thinking? Planning?

I looked away and said my good evenings to everyone. Judith was so excited she could barely sit still. Miss Gillbank looked particularly lovely in a dark gold muslin gown of mine that Belinda had made over for her. It flattered her. As for Miss Crislock, she was tatting a scarf, by the looks of it, in her own special chair by the fireplace. A beautiful screen protected her from the heat. A book lay open in her lap, a gift, she had told me, from my dear husband.

"What are you reading, Miss Crislock?"

"Ah, my dearest Andy, it is a novel Lawrence thought I would enjoy. It is about a girl who is very bad indeed, but her parents are resolute and teach her the path of righteousness."

"Oh, dear," I said, and turned to Amelia. Lawrence believed she would enjoy that?

"Where is Thomas? Don't tell me he has succumbed and is ill?"

"No, he walked up and down three flights of stairs ten times. He wants to make himself even more fit. I left him in his bathing tub, soaking away his sweat."

I laughed, a healthy laugh, one that just came out, despite the fact that my husband was standing not ten feet from me and I didn't have a clue what he was thinking.

"Lawrence," I called down the table to him once we were all seated in the dining room, "you have not yet told us what happened to your trip. You left this morning, and now here you are back for dinner."

"There was a simple misunderstanding. The men I was to meet with were coming here to see me. We conducted our business in Leeds. It is wonderful to be home.

I even had time to do some shopping for Christmas gifts." He was speaking toward Judith as he said this.

She immediately sat forward. "Would you perhaps like to tell us something of your shopping, Father?"

"Oh, no, you must wait, just like everyone else, including your lovely stepmother."

"Has anyone seen John?" I asked after Brantley offered me some braised goose with celery sauce. I knew I would gag if I ate any of that goose.

"Didn't you know, Andy?"

I blinked at my husband. "Know what, sir?"

"John has gone to the Cockburns' weekend Christmas party over near Harrowgate.

He wished to spend more time with Lady Elizabeth Palmer."

I didn't say a single thing.

Amelia laughed. "Well, it is about time. John must needs consider marrying soon and setting up his nursery. Lady Elizabeth certainly charmed him."

But he was only twenty-six, I wanted to say. Not at all old for a man. Naturally a woman of twenty-six?unmarried?was quite a different matter, an embarrassment, to say the least. Had Lady Elizabeth really charmed him?

"I like Lady Elizabeth," said Miss Crislock. "She is ever so lovely, and so very tall. John won't have to get a crick in his neck when he is speaking to her.

What do you think, Lawrence?"

He shrugged then took a sip of his wine. "I trust that she will not take a lover until after she has bred him an heir."

There was a heavy bit of silence until I cleared my throat. "I think Lady Elizabeth is charming. She is perhaps a bit imperious, but she is so beautiful, it would be difficult not to be. I do not believe she would be unfaithful were she to wed. After all, why marry in the first place if you planned to be unfaithful? It makes no sense. It is a disgusting thought."

I had been too passionate, the age-old bitterness showing through, I knew it.

Judith was staring at me across the table, and she was frowning. I tried to smile at her, to soften what I had said, but I couldn't. I sat there, saying nothing, waiting.

"We will see" was all my husband said. "Perhaps John will have better luck than most men."

Amelia immediately went on to talk of Thomas's new exercise regimen.

"If he becomes as strong as John," Miss Crislock said, "he will be formidable indeed. Thomas is already so beautiful, he sometimes makes even my ancient pulses flutter a bit."

Amelia loved that.

"Yes," I said, "Thomas is glorious."

Amelia loved that even more. She turned to Miss Gillbank, ready to have more husband-praises heaped upon her head, and that lovely young woman said easily, "I have never in my life seen a more handsome gentleman nor one who was so very kind."

I thought Amelia would begin to purr, she was so very pleased.

Dinner went on until finally Miss Crislock said, "Andy, my dear, don't you wish the ladies to go to the drawing room now?"

"An excellent idea," said my husband, rising with me. "I wish to have Andy to myself this evening. I have to regain my self-respect. She trounced me at chess last evening. It is my turn for retribution."

Amelia just stared at me. "I have seen Uncle Lawrence play. He has never been beaten."

"Yes," I said, looking at him straight on, "he has. I beat him."

We would be in the study. He couldn't very well do anything to me in the study.

After everyone went to bed, then I would act. I would be gone from here.

I realized, as I walked beside him to the study, after bidding everyone good night, that I wanted to play another chess game with him. I wanted to grind him into the dirt. Poor Judith. She, naturally, had not wanted the evening to end so quickly, but there was nothing I could do about that. The chances were that I would never see her again after tonight.

This time Lawrence pointed to my right hand. It held a white knight. I enjoyed playing black. I played the French Defense well.

He began with a king pawn opening, and I smiled as I moved my king pawn to king three.

"Ah," he said, "the French Defense. I wonder just how well you will play it."

"Very well indeed. It was my grandfather's favorite defense. As you realized last night, my grandfather taught me well," I said, never looking up from the board. When it was his move, I looked at his bent head, his dark hair streaked so gracefully with white. I wanted desperately to ask him about my father, but I kept my mouth shut. I just didn't know enough yet to do anything. Besides, I was alone here. All the servants were loyal to Lawrence. I had no idea about his wretched valet Flynt or if he had other villains hanging about the house.

No, I would keep my mouth shut, and then much later this night, I would leave.

Besides, he did not know that I had searched his bedchamber and that small little monk's cell of his, or that I had found that letter about my father.

Our play continued. I prayed I was safe for the moment, in my seeming ignorance.

But what would happen if?I was lightly tapping my fingertips against my chair arm. Lawrence cleared his throat. It was my move. It was time to castle. No reason to wait. I reached out to pick up my king. Then I looked down again at the board, really looked and dropped the king. Oh, dear God, I'd very nearly handed him the game, and all because I was so bloody scared I could scarcely keep my wits together.

I looked with my full attention, and quickly saw that if I had castled my king, my queen would have been lost a move later by a fork by his knight. It was a deceptively simple trap, one that would not pass unnoticed to a chess player of any merit. I realized then that he was smiling at me. It wasn't a nice smile at all. It was patronizing, as if I weren't worth much of anything at all. Perhaps, something warned me deep inside, perhaps I should let him win. Let him feel smug and superior. Let him think I wasn't worth anything at all.

But no, I just couldn't. There was too much anger in me?at him?at this man who had so deceived me, who appeared to hate me for no reason that I could discover.

I would show him that I was indeed an opponent to be reckoned with. I would wipe that self-satisfied look right off his face. He had seen my abstraction, possibly wondered at it, and knew he would win because I was naught but a female and I couldn't think logically, couldn't analyze, not like a man.

At that moment, the game of chess symbolized my own victory or defeat in this house.

He saw the difference in me immediately, of course. Soon his own concentration equaled mine. If he wondered what I was thinking now, if he wondered at all at my new absorption in the game, I didn't know. And he didn't say anything.

Brantley entered with the tea tray, and seeing us totally engrossed in the game, departed as silently as he had entered, pausing only long enough to add three more logs to the fire.

After about ten more moves, I managed to gain the advantage. I mounted a very strong king side attack that I knew would crush him. I moved my knight to the crucial king bishop five square. There was no challenge from him. Within a few moves my queen and her bishop were bearing down upon his king. A final move by my knight, and I had him boxed in.

A queer smile played over my lips as I looked up at him, straight into his eyes, and said ever so softly, "Checkmate, sir."

I felt I could conquer the world in that moment. I felt strong and whole and indomitable. My eyes glittered. I knew I was smirking.

After a few moments of silence, Lawrence gently lifted his conquered king, held it aloft for a moment in long, slender fingers, then gently laid the piece on its side. He sat back in his chair, his fingers lightly touching his pursed lips.

The firelight danced about us, casting fanciful shadows and shifts of light over his face. Finally he said in a slow, thoughtful voice, "A well-played game, my dear. Victory tastes sweet, does it not?"

I turned my head slightly, so that my face was in the shadows. I felt tense, afraid, and excited. "Of a certainty it does, my lord. Could victory ever taste otherwise?"

The oddest smile flitted across his face as he said, "No, there is nothing like it?to see, to feel, to deal the final blow to one's enemy. But do you not agree that the most important of victories, the sweetest by far, is the final and ultimate victory, the total devastation of the adversary?"

What was he talking about? What did he mean? I could not ask. I could not risk exposing what I knew. Ah, but I had just beat him.

I had beat him, I had beat him.

I was brilliant, I was strong, and so I said in a clear, overloud voice. "Yes, and that is exactly what I just did to you, sir. However, tomorrow is another day, perhaps even another game of chess, and then it begins all over again. In chess there is no ultimate victory. It is a good thing, but perhaps it is also a very disappointing thing."

Lawrence began to gather the chess pieces into the center of the table. He righted his fallen king and placed it in front of the white pieces, on the square directly opposite my black queen. He looked up into my face, his eyes narrowed and grim, the blue so dark as to be nearly black. I forced myself to look back at him steadily. It was he who looked away first, into the fire, and then down at his shapely white hands. I sat perfectly still, and waited. I had no choice at all. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, almost pensive. "You played with intelligence, finesse, and yes, courage, Andrea. Most unusual characteristics for a woman. As to your intemperance just now, perhaps in the glow of your small victory, I should let you revel in it, even if it will only last for a very short time."

He was a different man now. Perhaps he was finally the man he truly was. "I was not aware, my lord, that men were the sole proprietors of intelligence and courage."

He kept playing with his damned white king, turning it between his long fingers.

I wanted to throw the board at him. Then he sighed. "Ah, my dear, there you are wrong, and I think that you must perforce bow to my superior years of experience in the matter."

"I don't see why."

He stiffened. He was focused directly on me now. His eyes were cold, hard, utterly without feeling or compassion. His voice was as cold as his eyes now, and cutting, like a rapier through the silent air, "Oh, yes, your sex is weak, vain, and totally lacking in moral character. You are no different."

Still I could not see through this morass of anger in him, but I did realize that it had to do with a woman. I stood and leaned over the table toward him, my palms flat on the chessboard. My own voice matched his now, and I felt the harshness of my voice to my very soul. "Those are words of a bitter man, my lord, words that lack both measure and a balanced judgment. No, my lord, even your immense number of years, all your endless supply of experiences, none of it can justify such an unbalanced, even an unstable opinion."

He jerked forward in one swift movement, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me toward him across the table, so that my face was very close to his. I heard chess pieces roll on the wooden floor. "Brave words, my girl, but words without substance, without meaning. Ah, yes, you silly creature, you can taste fleeting victory at a game of chess, for you were well taught. But in life, Andrea, in life you have been but an insignificant pawn in a game of my own making. And now I have what I want, my girl. I no longer need you. I no longer need to pander to your foolish whims and laugh at your outlandish attempts at humor."

"I do not understand you. What are you talking about? What do you mean?"

His grip tightened. Pain shot up my arm, but I made no sound.

"You are mad."

"Mad, am I? We shall see."

I looked into his eyes then. I saw no madness there. He looked as cold as my grandfather's flesh had felt when I had given him a final good-bye. He looked deadly and calmly furious. I wondered if he was going to kill me, right here, right now.