"Heavens." She lay back, arms stretched over her head in the enormous bed. "Is that your mother's or your father's voice I'm hearing?" He reared up, startled. "Are you going to throw me out of bed?" she asked languidly.

"Possibly."

"I may be an actress, my lord, but I'm not stupid." He closed his fingers around her wrists, and she let him stretch his length upon her; allowing him the upper hand, she felt more secure in digging deeper.

"What about the boy," she asked, "the shadowy one who follows you? He's not a relative, too, is he?" "Leave the boy alone," he said sharply. "Nobody touches Marcus."

"Not even you?"

His fingers dug into her wrists. But he made his voice light. "I would be very much surprised if he ever asked me to. Meanwhile, you are not to bother him. Do you understand?"

She said, "When we quarreled, Lord Ferris said that I had played too many Empresses. What he meant was that I thought I was his equal. You would never say that, but you might be under the illusion that I am a creature of huge uncontrollable lusts for everything that moves, including awkward young boys."

"I never-"

"It's all right. I'm just telling you how annoying it is for me when people confuse me with my roles, that's all."

"Believe me, I have no desire to sleep with the Empress."

"Good. Do you know, I don't think you're mad at all."

"Stick around."

"I will."

"And tell me more," he said, "about Lord Ferris."

Sweetest Katherine, my One True Friend- How long it seems since we were girls together, innocently comparing beaux at the Tr--Ball!

How I treasure our time together! I still have the feather I wore in my hair that night-some might call it a plume-but its lustre is sadly faded-or perhaps 'tis the dullness of mine eye that makes it seem so. I am sure that if you saw me now, you would not look twice-for my eyes are red with perpetual weeping-and yet, such is the virtue of your eyes that I know you would see into my heart as you have always done, and view with kindness the crushed flower hiding there. Oh, when I think of him I feel vile and disgusting! But then I picture your dear face, flushed with righteous wrath, and it is as if your angry tears can wash away my stain.

Like Stella at the races, I see much but say little-and I believe that, like Fabian, you keep faith with me despite appearances. Oh, do let me hear from you! If only to tell me that you are well, and remember your loving- A F-L.

The handwriting was large and loopy and violet, and it just about broke my heart. But what could I do?

I'd challenged Lord Ferris, and he'd refused me. Poor Artemisia! I'd hoped at least the challenge would frighten the Crescent into crying off, but it hadn't done even that. Nevertheless, she must be answered. I dashed off a reply.

Lady S- Know that you and your grievance, though little talked on, are far from forgotten. I watch and wait, and will prevail.

Have you seen the play yet?

Your assured friend, KT.

I sealed it with candlewax and stuffed it in my jacket, and set out to find my delivery boy. But in the hallway I met Marcus, capped and booted and mufflered, a handkerchief in his fist.

"It's the chairs," he snuffled. "He wants to go see the chairs."

"What are you doing out of bed?"

"I'm bored. I want to see them, too."

"What chairs?"

"New ones." He coughed. "New design. It's a fine day. Like spring. We're walking. Want to come?"

"Love to."

So the fine springlike day found the three of us sloshing through the fine Riverside mud on our way to a shop that would have been more than happy to bring the chairs to us if we'd been content to stay indoors. Ever since my trip to the theatre, I'd been taking more care to dress well when I went out; if people saw me, I wanted them to see someone who mattered. Today I wore my green suit, though not my velvet cloak, with an embroidered scabbard and a shirt whose cuffs were trimmed with lace.

My uncle noticed. "Pretty," he said, "but hardly practical. You're my swordsman, not my maid of honor.

Steel catches on lace; Richard would never wear it. If it comes to a fight, now, you'll tuck your cuffs under. I know you're a young girl full of nameless lusts involving fashion, but you don't want to die of vanity your next fight. Whenever that may be." He looked around and shrugged. "It's a wonder you've gone unchallenged, after your triumph at Sabina's ball. In the old days, they would have been lined up around the block to try you, the bright new blade in town. No one has any ambition anymore-they just want to sit on their nicely muscled asses drawing nobles' pay to defend the indefensible."

"I'm in your household," I pointed out before he could say any more about swordsmen's anatomy.

"They might be afraid a challenge to me is an insult to you."

"Riverside." He sighed gustily, and stepped around an indescribable pile of something that had emerged from the melted snow. "It's not what it was."

"Whose fault is that?" Marcus muttered. We crossed the Bridge, and picked up a couple more guards at the Tremontaine postern.

I had a thought. "But," I asked, "if Iwere to maybe challenge someone, challenge him on my own, I mean, without your authority-would I be able to do that?" The duke stopped in the middle of the street. Marcus and the guards and I stopped with him and narrowly missed being run over by a carriage that was barreling up behind us. Our retainers and the carriage lackeys had it out while His Grace of Tremontaine regarded me fixedly from above.

"Such as?" he asked. "What sort of hypothetical person were you hypothetically thinking of maybe challenging?" I couldn't say anything. "Not some bravo," the duke hypothesized, "in a tavern brawl or street fight...not your style. Those are boys' games."

"Do you think," I asked, momentarily distracted, "they don't even want to fight me? They think, because I'm a girl, I'm not even worth bothering with? Or is it just because I'm related?"

"I don't know," the duke said. Behind us the two factions were close to blows. "Tremontaine makes place for no one!" shouted Ralph, our man. That was certainly true. The duke was placidly ignoring the whole fracas. "But I would very much prefer that you not spill your blood for anything trivial."

"It's not trivial!" I blurted out.

"My Lord of Tremontaine!" a well-bred voice called from the carriage. "If you please! I have a very sick rabbit in here!"

"A rabbit?" said Marcus. "May I see?"

"Bloody Furnival and his stupid pets," the duke growled. "It bites. And he said it's diseased. What are you all doing, standing in the middle of the street-you're supposed to be protecting me, not encouraging nobles with unnatural tastes to run me down!"

But he did not forget.

We went and saw the chairs, and he ordered a dozen, all curvy and strange-very modern, he said approvingly-and we were going to stop at White's for chocolate when he suddenly said, "No, let's go on to Tremontaine House. I want to see the room they'll go in, while it's fresh in my mind. Do you know," he said cheerfully as we trudged on up the Hill, "maybe I should have the whole room redone to match them? Soften the angles of the walls, with molding, maybe, so it's all nothing but curves? That would help take the curse off the place."

We were passing the street that Lucius Perry's sweetheart lived on. I glanced over at Marcus to see if he'd catch my eye, and I didn't like what I saw. My friend's face was pale, his eyes were bleary and his forehead looked damp. I sidled over to him. "Go home," I said.

Marcus coughed. "We're almost there."

"All right, but when we get to Tremontaine House, you're going straight to bed." He didn't have the strength to do anything but nod, and when we hit a steep part, he actually took my arm.

Astonishingly, Tremontaine House was ready to receive us. Marcus went upstairs to collapse on clean sheets. The staff set a table in the pretty room overlooking the garden, and the duke and I sat down there to a small collation of chocolate and biscuits, dried fruit and nuts. Outside the tall windows, the blooming witch hazel and forsythia made streaks of bright color against the general gloom.

"Almost spring," my uncle remarked. "Riverside is turning into a swamp already. We'll bring the household back up here soon." Just when I'd gotten used to Riverside, he wanted to move me again. It figured. "It's so quiet up here," I said. "Kind of boring, don't you think?"

"I do my best," he drawled, "to enliven it. Tell me, Katherine: does this hypothetical challenge of yours involve one of the neighbors up here?"

I sloshed chocolate all over my saucer. "What challenge?"

"The one everybody in the city appears to know about but me."

"That isn't so! No one knows about it except Lord-" I felt myself flush with the embarrassment of having walked right into his trap. "I was very discreet," I added lamely.

"Discreet is good," my uncle said encouragingly. He was leaning across the table toward me, like a tutor trying to help me with my arithmetic. "Now, then, where does he live?"

"I don't know, exactly."

"You can't fight him if you can't find him, Katherine."

"I can find him."

"I can help-discreetly, of course. This is, as you say, your fight. What's the cause?"

"It's-personal."

His whole body tightened like a string that had been pulled. "How personal? Has someone offered you insult?"

He was so like a father in a book, I couldn't help smiling. "Please," I said as airily as possible, "I can manage."

"Of course you can, I've seen to that. But if anyone has done anything, anythingbad to you, rest assured that I-"

It was his usual polished hauteur, all drawly and annoying, but I paid attention and saw that his green eyes were glittering and very fierce. I actually reached across the table and touched his hand. "Nothing like that. I'm fine. It's for someone else, a friend."

He looked, if anything, fiercer. "Not your friend Marcus?"

"Marcus? Of course not. Someone else. I can't tell you, though. It's a secret."

The duke nearly choked on his chocolate. "My dear! I've got more secrets than you've got teeth in your mouth. Believe me, I can keep a secret." I didn't say anything. "Never mind," he said, "I can find out.

Will you tell me who it is you're challenging, or do I have to lock you in your room and feed you on bread and water 'til I starve it out of you?"

"It doesn't matter," I said glumly. "He refused me." My uncle put down his cup. "Hold on. You issued a public challenge to a noble of this city, and he turned you down?"

"It wasn't very public. Just one or two other men there, and then he took me aside and told me not to be silly. I could kill him just for that. He wasn't taking me seriously at all. He kept thinking I'd come from you, even though I told him I hadn't."

My uncle raised his eyebrows, and then his face broke into a slow, delighted grin. "It's Ferris," he said.

"You've challenged the Crescent Chancellor. No wonder he never comes to see me anymore."

"He's not-is he a friend of yours?" I hadn't thought of that. I'd never seen Lord Ferris at any of Tremontaine's gatherings, but clearly he didn't have much self-control when it came to the kinds of things the duke didn't either, so maybe...

"The ways in which Ferris is no friend to me are beyond counting. That goes for Tremontaine in general: he's got a grudge against the lot of us; he'll kill you if he thinks he can. Fortunately I know some of his secrets, so he's chary of us. Old ones, and new ones, too. What's the latest? What has he done to this friend of yours?"

"I can't tell you," I said miserably. "It's too shameful. And it isn't my secret. It's a question of honor."

My uncle took a deep breath. "Look. Did you tell Ferris what the challenge was about?"

"Of course I did. He did it!-the thing. The thing I'm challenging him about."

"La, la." My uncle shook his head sadly. "She'll tell Lord Ferris what she won't tell me." His eyes met mine. He looked serious all of a sudden. "There are quite a few things Ferris has to be ashamed about.

One of them concerns money. One of them concerns the Black Rose." The mention of the actress startled me. My uncle watched me for a moment, and then, satisfied that the challenge did not concern her, went on, "Now, Ferris doesn't know I know about either of those things, not yet. He won't be pleased when he finds out, assuming he ever does. But I can take care of myself; indeed, knowing things about him can be very useful to me. For you, though...for you, it's different. If you know something bad about him that no one else knows, he isn't going to feel entirely safe around you. And a worried Ferris can turn very nasty."

My uncle leaned back in his chair; I thought of a tutor again, as he raised his chin to the ceiling. "Think of secrets," he told me, "as being like money. The more you have-of other people's, I mean-the richer you are, and the more likely to be able to afford something you want when you really need it. Now, I'm the head of the family, which means I hold most of the family fortune: houses, land...and secrets. You are a junior member, and you hold-one. Give it to me, and you add to the family fortunes. Keep it, and I'm going to set a guard on you. Just in case the Crescent Chancellor decides he'd rather you didn't tell anyone after all."

I stared down at my knuckles. I didn't think he was bluffing. He was really worried.

"If I tell you," I said, "do you promise not to tell anyone else?"

My uncle nodded.

"And if you think it's stupid, you won't lock me in my room and refuse to let me fight?" He looked at the ceiling. "Good question. Will I? Let's say I won't, this time."

"What you were saying before," I muttered, "when you thought it might be me? It wasn't me; it was someone else."

"Forgive my bluntness, but I need to get this straight: Anthony Deverin, Lord Ferris, raped a girl, and now you want to kill him for it?"

"I'm not sure I'm going to kill him. He has to admit it was wrong, and beg her forgiveness."

"Are you in love with her yourself?"

I could feel myself turning an interesting color. But I wasn't going to give way to him now. I said, "Is that all you can think about?"

"Not all. I just wanted to make sure."

"Well, it's not the point. The point is, he did this awful thing against her will, and he doesn't care, and her family doesn't care-they all want her to get married to him anyway, and she doesn't want to, and nobody's going to do anything about it if I don't!"

"Ahhh." The duke nodded in satisfaction. "The little Fitz-Levi." He shook his head mournfully. "Oh, Ferris. Those years in Arkenvelt have coarsened you, I fear, and given you a trader's soul: tasting the wares before the final sale." He said to me, "You are quite right to call him out. That's no way to behave, with him thinking he can have whatever he wants whenever he wants it. Let him learn some humility first.

It's a lesson he's got long a-coming; he's always treated women badly, and only the one time did we make him pay for it." Lost inside a memory, the duke cut a long spiral of apple peel; then he looked up and said, "He's not young, you know. He can't go on like this forever. Tell your little friend to do her utmost, and maybe he'll drop dead on his wedding night."

I said, "That's disgusting. Aren't you listening? She doesn't want to marry him."

"You're not thinking it through," he said at his most superciliously annoying. "She's damaged goods.

Now that she's ruined, marriage to Ferris is the only safe course open to her."

"How can you say that," I hissed, "you of all people? How can you say it'ssafe for her? To live for the rest of her life with someone who could do something like that?" I found that I had risen to my feet and was leaning over the table glaring at him. "Someoneyou don't even like?"

"Oh, thank you," he said dryly. "Sit down, please. I only meant, safe in the eyes of the world. I didn't say I approved. You should know that-you, of all people."

But I did not sit down. "Thendo something," I said. "Why don't youdo something, if it matters to you so much? The truth is, you don't care about her. You don't care about any of us, and you're not going to do anything. But I do, and I will."