"Just the doctor."

"How long will he be staying?"

"He's on holiday, and a fortnight is planned, but that is subject to change. Doctors of his caliber rarely get

to take their full vacations. I shall keep you apprised."

"Thank you. I shall see that a flexible menu is prepared, with enough of a variety in the entrees and viands

to allow for restrictions, but you shall need to broach the subject with him early on once he arrives, and inform me of anything urgent."

"Of course," he muttered, finally spearing his Scotch egg. She wanted to cheer.

"Very well, then," she said, rising. She wasn't about to let him eat the egg-at least not while it was still

hot.

He bolted to his feet.

"You can inform Mrs. Bromley that I shall require her presence in the morning room at two o'clock sharp

this afternoon. And now if you will excuse me, Nicholas, I have much to do beforehand. Good morning."

She was just about to cross the threshold, when he blocked her exit. He reached toward her then

retracted his hand, as though he'd nearly plunged it into the fire, and jammed it-white-knuckled andfisted-into his pocket. The other soon followed."Sara, I deserved some of that just now, I'll concede," he said, "but you cannot behave in that manner when my guest arrives. When any of my guests arrive.""Don't worry, Nicholas," she said, brushing past him into the corridor, scattering the eavesdropping footmen. "I shall be the soul of propriety, good manners, and grace. Now, I do not mean to be rude, but you really must excuse me. I need to prepare myself to attend to house business."

Turning on her heel, she floated off and left him no less abruptly than he had left her in the study.

Nicholas didn't join her for nuncheon, which was just as well. She hadn't worked out the strategy of their next meeting yet. There hadn't been time. Before the day was gone, she'd held interviews with Mrs. Bromley; Agnes Knott, who answered only to "Cook;" and both Searl and Robbins, the two footmen who presided over meals at Ravencliff.

Mrs. Bromley made suggestions for the menus, and gave her a list of Nicholas's preferences and dislikes. The housekeeper also walked her through a room off the dining hall, where china and silver were housed in elaborate cabinets. There were breakfast, nuncheon, and dinner dishes, several different sets for each meal, one lovelier than the next, and silver to coordinate with each. Glassware was also housed here. The array was staggering. Grand parties were once held at Ravencliff, Mrs. Bromley told her. Some of the china hadn't been used in thirty years. Well, it was going to be used now, Sara vowed. Nicholas Walraven was in for a surprise.

It was nearly dusk when she returned to her suite. Nell would soon come to help her dress for dinner. She set the tablet containing her menu notes on the writing desk in her sitting room, and went to the window, studying the view through the mullioned panes. The seas were running high. White-capped combers crested far from shore; their sighing echo reached her where she stood. It was a soothing sound that could lull her to sleep if she'd let it.

Her gaze drifted toward the south. A figure was traveling the edge of the cliff in the soft semidarkness. It was Nicholas, and her heart tumbled in her breast following his long-legged stride as he paced along the seawall. There was no anger in his posture; something more akin to restless agitation moved him. This was a man wrestling with some demon yet to be named, and she longed to fly down the grand staircase, out through the great hall, over the sculptured grounds to his side, and make him tell it. This, of course, was a fantasy. She didn't even know if it were possible to access the cliff from the circular drive. It hadn't seemed so when she arrived. There had to be another entrance, one closer to the west side of the house and the sea. I'll bet Nero knows, she realized. He was soaking wet when he paid his visit. She shrugged. Since the animal had no voice to tell, she made a mental note to inquire of the servants in the morning.

She was just about to leave the window, when Nicholas took a different direction. All at once, he broke his stride and began to climb down the cliff. The means of his descent was hidden from her, but she assumed it to be the stairs hewn in the rock leading to the strand. He had warned her away from those stairs. Was it just as he'd said, that it was unsafe to climb down, or was there something down there... something that he didn't want her to see? She'd negotiated such descents at Dover and Lyme, and come to no harm-steep, treacherous descents, often slick from spindrift and backwash. She would do so here as well. When the time was right.

She couldn't see Nicholas any longer, and she turned away from the window. The notes she'd taken during her interviews drew her to the desk. She'd been hasty in her boast; three days really wasn't nearly enough time to prepare for a houseguest, considering, and she began forming her notes into lists. She was still poring over them when Nell came to dress her for dinner an hour later.

"I think I shall have a tray here in my rooms," Sara said, looking up from the stack of papers her notes had become. "See to it, will you, Nell?"

"Yes, my lady. Are ya feelin' poorly, my lady?" said the abigail, studying her with knitted brows.

Sara responded by exhibiting a sheaf of papers. "No, no, I'm just bogged under with all this. We're to have a house-guest Thursday week. There are menus to be worked out, accommodations-all sorts of issues to be addressed. I fear I shall be closeted here until the gentleman's arrival."

"Yes, my lady," said the abigail. "Do ya want ta send your regrets?"

"Ah!" Sara cried, taking a piece of parchment and red sealing wax from the drawer. She scribbled a few lines, folded it, then took up a candlestick, and sealed it shut with a stamp embossed with a Win scrollwork. Indeed, she would send her regrets. She wouldn't make that mistake again. The last thing she wanted was another late-night visit from Nicholas Walraven. "Would you see that his lordship receives this?" she said, handing it over. "Afterward, you may do as you please. I'll dress myself for bed. I have all this to see to before I retire, and I don't want to be disturbed again tonight."

"Yes, my lady," Nell said. She sketched a curtsy, and left as quietly as she'd come in.

The dinner tray arrived soon after, and Sara set a portion of her larded pheasant aside in case Nero should pay a visit. Once the tray was collected, the draperies drawn, and the fire stoked with fresh logs for the night, she left the foyer door open a crack, and went back to the stack of papers on her desk.

It was nearly midnight when she set the lists and menus aside, and blew out all the candles except for a branch on the stand beside her bed. She was exhausted, but she'd chosen the china to be used at breakfast, nuncheon, and dinner during the doctor's stay, and formed a workable menu plan that would cover meals for a sennight. The rest could be done at her leisure. At least she had an impressive accomplishment to submit to Nicholas in the morning. She would take it with her when she went down to breakfast. That should show Baron Nicholas Walraven just what sort of investment he'd made in purchasing a hostess. Thinking on that revived her, and she kicked off her Morocco leather slippers, and flopped on the bed to gloat over her success. She didn't mean to fall asleep there, fully dressed on top of the counterpane, but she did. Her eyelids drooped then closed, and she drifted off almost as soon as she curled on her side and relaxed.

Her sleep was deep and dreamless, yet something woke her in the wee hours, something physical. The bedding beneath her moved, and her body moved with it, displaced by whatever phenomenon wrenched her eyes open. Dazed, she blinked awake. The candles beside the bed had burned down to nubs. One had gone out altogether, and wax frosted the shafts and shackled the candle branch to the mahogany stand with globs of unsightly tallow.

Blinking back sleep, she focused her eyes on what had awoken her. There, on the foot of the bed, sat Nero, like the Sphinx, licking larded pheasant grease off his jowls with his long, pink tongue, watching her. He looked just like a statue straight out of John Nash's neoclassical Egyptian decor, so fashionable among the ton that season.

"Nero!" she cried. Scrabbling to his side, she threw her arms around his neck, and he rewarded her by licking her face all over. She giggled. He tasted of pheasant, and he smelled clean, of the sea. She ruffled his thick, shaggy fur, and planted a kiss on the top of his head. "I told you I'd have a treat for you the next time you came," she said, hugging him again. "I see you've found it. Did you like it, boy?"

Nero whined in reply, and nudged her with his cold, wet snout.

His red-fire eyes almost seemed human, gazing at her in the semidarkened room. Aside from the glowing embers in the hearth that had colored those deep, soulful eyes, only one candle remained lit now, casting a halo of shimmering light about the animal's body "You've been outside," Sara whispered. "I smell the sea on your coat. I taste the salt. You know how to get out there, don't you, Nero? You'll show me, won't you? It'll be our secret."

There was such an expression of comprehension in the animal's eyes, as though he'd understood every word. The fingers of a cold chill crawled up her spine, watching the closest thing to a frown she'd ever seen on a dog's face manifest itself across Nero's broad, flat brow. It was a fleeting look that turned feral in a blink. Whining, the animal sprang off the bed, streaked through the open foyer door, and disappeared down the shadow-steeped hallway before she ever got to the threshold.

So much for the answer to her question; when she reached the corridor all that met her eyes was the faintest shudder of suggested motion that might have been Nero's bushy tail disappearing over the second-floor landing. She didn't even stop to think or collect her slippers. Moving on feet that made no sound, she raced along the carpeted hallway, flew over the landing, and ran down the grand staircase to the green baize door. Nero was nowhere in sight, and she was just about to try the knob, when it turned, and she ducked beneath the bifurcated staircase and held her breath.

The door creaked open. One of the servants was entering the main house from the servant's quarters below-a footman, or one of the hall boys. She couldn't be sure from her vantage, flattened against the wall in the shadows. Whichever, a candle branch lit his way, and she stood there, spine rigid, until the scuffling patter of his footfalls became distant, and the stairwell grew dark around her again.

Sara drew a deep, ragged breath, and slumped against the wall, but it wasn't a wall, it was a door! It came open, supporting her no longer, and she backpedaled trying to maintain her balance before it swung shut on her escape with a heart-stopping click.

Falling was her last conscious sensation.

Chapter Seven.

Sara groaned awake some time later in dank, cold darkness. The hard floor beneath her was slimy with dampness, recalling Fleet Prison. She screamed at the top of her lungs for help, but all that replied was the mournful echo of her cries drifting upward. Her head was splitting with pain, and vertigo starred her vision. The swirling white pinpoints before her eyes were the only light. There was a lump on her brow. She fingered it gingerly. By the swelling, she assessed it to be impressive. It wouldn't be easy to hide. How would she explain it to Nicholas? First things first, she decided. She would have to find her way out of wherever she was to do that, and she drew herself up to her knees, and began groping the floor.

All at once something brushed her neck, and she cried out, swatting it away. It was only her Mechlin lace insert that had come loose in the fall, and she heaved a gushing sigh of relief trying to tuck it back in place. That, however, was impossible. The dress was torn at the shoulder, one of the puffed sleeves was hanging where the neck was torn, and there was nothing to tuck it into. It barely covered her breast.

That's the trouble with fashions today, she thought ruefully. They're made too flimsy to be serviceable. But then, one wasn't supposed to go tumbling down stone staircases in them, was one? Which was what her fingers finally showed her-a narrow step, then above it another, and another. She staggered to her feet, climbed up, and found two more, then a wall. She felt it-every inch of it. Where was the door she'd fallen through? It wasn't there!

Panicked now, she screamed with all her might for help, but the sound echoed back at her, ringing in her ears. The wall was granite rock, impenetrable, and she slid back down to the bottom, and began searching the blackness with outstretched arms, and hands carving circles in the damp, stale air. Several steps more and she bumped into another wall. This, too, was granite. If she could only see!

Inch by inch, she felt her way around the cubicle-scarcely larger than a closet-stumbling over what must have sufficed for a bed, and a pile of debris beside the stairs. That, she presumed to be what had broken her fall, since she'd come to in the midst of it. It had spared her a much more serious injury than the lump on her head that she'd evidently gotten on the way down.

On the other side of the narrow stairs, she tripped over a small chest against the wall. She felt the top of it, and her hands came away slimed with mildew, but not before she found a little drawer recessed under the carved edge. Dampness had all but fused it shut, and it took some time, but she finally worked it open. There was a candle, and a tinderbox inside. Did she dare hope the tinder was dry enough to burn? Praying that the little metal coffer had protected it enough, she worked the flint and anonymous flammable bits until they finally ignited and lit the candle. It was short and squat and she anchored it to the top of the chest with tallow drippings and turned to survey her prison. Her breath caught. A priest hole, could it be? If the house went back beyond the Norman Conquest, it was very possible. Such things were common through the ages, and most old castles and houses had them. Ravencliff qualified in both cases.

All at once cold chills shook her body, and gripped her heart like a fist. She'd heard tales of men dying in such hidey-holes, of suffocation, and starvation-walled up inside and forgotten, sometimes deliberately. Their construction was inscrutable. The walls on this one had to be more than a foot thick. They would never hear her cries from above. Suppose no one thought to look for her here? Another glance around the room-at the heavy, undisturbed coating of mildew spread over everything-told her that it hadn't been used in some years. Did anyone even know it was here? She could only pray that they did.

She looked in dismay at her torn dress. It was filthy with dust and slime from the bleeding dampness that clung to the place. Her hands and bare arms were black with it. She was cold, and she hugged herself for warmth, searching the room with anxious eyes for something she could use as a wrapper. They finally came to rest upon a pile of old linens in the corner, and she fished out a piece of cloth that might have at one time been used as bed linen, so old it ripped when she tugged it around herself. It would have to do.

She glanced at the candle. Its flame was tall and straight. No drafts. Her heart sank. That meant no air was getting in. It also meant she had to save the candle for emergencies. There was precious little left of it as it was. Besides, she dared not leave it lit and risk burning up the oxygen, and she quickly paced off the area, and committed the dimensions of the cell and its contents to memory.

There was no use spending her energy and her lungs before daybreak. No one was abroad to hear her. All she could do was wait, and hope that the sounds of servants moving around above would tell her that dawn had broken, before she called out for help again. It couldn't be long, and she took one last look around, and snuffed out the candle.

Nicholas ate his breakfast alone in the morning. Sara didn't appear, and she hadn't sent her apologies. He was on his way up to her suite when Nell met him coming down from the second-floor landing.

"Oh, sir, I was just comin' after ya," she whined. "Some-thin's happened ta the mistress. I just know it!"

"Calm yourself, Nell," he responded. "What do you mean, something's happened to her?"

"She's gone, sir. Her bed ain't been slept in, and her shoes are on the floor up there. Where could she have gone off to barefooted in the dead o' night?"

"Show me," he said, bounding up the stairs ahead.

"That mangy old dog was in there, too," the abigail said, hurrying after him. "She must'a give him somethin' ta eat from her dinner tray. The empty serviette was on the floor, all streaked with grease, it was."

Nicholas loosed a string of expletives under his breath, and burst into the tapestry suite, his breast heaving with rage. Rage was dangerous. Anything was dangerous here now, considering, and he took deep, slow breaths as he entered the bedchamber.

"When did you see her last, Nell?" he demanded.

"When I brought up her tray," said the abigail. "I made up the fire, and drew the drapes while she was eatin', then she said she didn't want ta be disturbed-that she'd ready herself for bed, so I left her ta her business."

"That would have been approximately what time?" he persisted.

"I dunno, seven... eight-about the time you sat down in the dinin' hall."

Nicholas snatched up Sara's shoes from the floor, and examined them, his brow knit in a frown.

"That's what's got me worried, too," Nell said. "She couldn't have gotten far without them slippers. She's got ta be somewhere in the house, but where? We've searched it top ta bottom, sir."

"All right, Nell," said Nicholas. "I want you to remain here in these rooms until I tell you otherwise... in case her ladyship returns. In that event, come and fetch me at once." He exhibited the slippers. "I'll take these," he said, "in case I find her."

"Yes, sir," she replied, straightening the rumpled bedding. "See here?" she said, brushing short black hairs tipped with silver off the tufted surface. "That dog was in here just like I said-right on her bed, "he was." She clicked her tongue. "He's soiled the counterpane with grease here, too."

"Yes, well, I shall take Nero to task," Nicholas replied. "But for now leave the foyer door open. If the animal returns... follow him. If he was here last night, as you say, he might know where my lady has got to."

"Yes, sir," said Nell, "but, beggin' your pardon, sir, Nero... he ain't the kind o' dog for a fine house like this, all scruffy and wild-lookin' like he is-all skin and bones. He looks half-starved. That ain't our fault, neither. Half the time, he don't even eat what we set out for him. He's scary, he is, always sneakin' around in the shadows. I know it ain't my place ta say it, but it's not just me speakin'-it's what all o' us are sayin' below stairs. Ya ought ta get rid o' that animal."

"Yes, well, that is the plan, Nell," said Nicholas. "Hopefully, you shan't have to worry about Nero much longer... but for now let us see if we can't make him earn his keep, hmm?"

Try as she would, Sara couldn't hear any sounds coming from above. It was so hard to gauge the time entombed there in the darkness. Surely it must be daylight by now. She had to try something-anything -to free herself from the cold, dank cubicle, or go mad dwelling on what might happen if she were never found. How long would it take to die there? The atmosphere was close already. How much longer did she have before there was no air left to breathe? It would be a slow, horrible death, and she climbed the steps and began screaming, meanwhile pounding on the wall that once was a door, with both her fists. She soon realized the futility of that. It wasn't long before her tender skin was bruised and broken assailing the rough granite, and she groped her way back down the steps, snatched the tinderbox from the drawer in the chest, and began attacking the wall with that.

Again and again, she screamed at the top of her voice until it broke into hoarse whispers, then pounded the wall with the tinderbox until it slipped from her hands and fell to the floor below. Sara groaned in despair. She needed the tinder and flint inside the coffer to light the candle. How was she going to find it in the dark?

It all seemed so hopeless, and she sank down on the step with her head in her hands. After a moment, she caught her breath and ordered her thoughts. There had to be something she could do. Perhaps another look in the candlelight might show her something she'd overlooked before, and she groped her way down the steps and began searching the floor. When she finally found the tinderbox among the debris beside the stairs, her heart sank. It had broken open in the fall, and the flint and tinder were gone.

It was no use. Her throat was raw from screaming for help. Her head ached, the lump on her forehead was throbbing like a pulse beat, and her hands were cut and bleeding. Vertigo threatened her consciousness. How long had it been since she fell down those stairs? How long had she been unconscious afterward? If only the little cell weren't so small. If only it weren't so airtight. If only it weren't so free of drafts, which crept through every crevice in the rest of the house. Somewhere, she had heard that thrashing about would use up oxygen faster in confined spaces. It could already be too late to apply that knowledge. Exertion had sapped her strength. She could scarcely breathe, and she laid her face on the cold granite step, and shut her eyes.

"When I don't want that damnable creature, he comes quick enough," Nicholas railed, pacing the carpet in his dressing room. "Now, when it's vital..."

"Don't take on so, my lord," said Mills, picking up Nicholas's clothes as he shed them. "What do you think he can do that you cannot? You will find her, my lord."

"How?" Nicholas flashed, tossing his waistcoat on the floor. He untied his neck cloth, and threw it down as well. "We've searched the house from top to bottom-every deuced chamber. Good God, I even went below and searched the strand. I need Nero! But I cannot control him, can I? No, he controls me! Why is it always like this? Why can I never remember all of it? She hasn't been seen since the dinner hour yesterday, Mills. Nero hasn't surfaced since, either. That's more than twenty-four hours. If she's hurt somewhere..."

"You and my lady... argued, did you not?" said the valet, catching Nicholas's shirt before it hit the floor. "Have a care, my lord! That nearly went into the fire," he cried, adding the shirt to his burden before resuming. "Could she have... left Ravencliff?"

"Without her shoes, Mills? I hardly think it likely. It's a long, steep trek to the bottom of the lane, and the gate is always locked at dusk; you know that. Besides, it wasn't all that serious an argument, and Nell said Sara was working on menus for Dr. Breeden's visit when she was last seen. That hardly sounds like she was about to flee the place to me, though I cannot say I would blame her if she did. My God, I have to find her."

"Do you want your tub, my lord?"

"No cold bath tonight," Nicholas growled, flopping in the wing chair. He extended his foot. "Get me out of these damned boots."

"Perhaps a hot tub, my lord?" Mills suggested, straddling the outstretched leg.

"No," Nicholas snapped. Planting his other foot on Mills's narrow behind, he pushed, and the valet pulled off the Hessian with a grunt. "The last thing I need to do is relax."

"I'll fetch your dressing gown, my lord," the valet panted, having successfully removed the other boot. He tucked it under his arm with the rest.

"No," said Nicholas, peeling off his pantaloons, and then his drawers. "Just lay it out on the bed."

"My lord?" said the valet, slack-jawed, as Nicholas resumed his pacing, stark naked before the hearth.

"Just leave it out for me, and go to bed!" Nicholas snapped. He snatched up Sara's Morocco leather slippers from the footstool beside the fire, and studied them like a hound on the scent as he strode back and forth.

"But, my lord, what if-"

"I know where to find you if I need you, Mills," Nicholas interrupted. "Go to bed. At least one of us needs to get some sleep tonight."

Sara woke, gasping for breath in the darkness. It was the sound of scratching that roused her. Rats! Fleet Prison! No, not the Fleet, that would have been heaven compared to this, her tomb in the bowels of Ravencliff Manor, where no one would find her but the rats. Adrenaline surged through her. Were they inside... or out? Had they tumbled down with her? Without the candle, there was no way to know, and she scrabbled up the stairs again and beat on the wall, screaming at the top of what was left of her voice.

The scratching stopped. Had she imagined it? There was no sound now, and she crawled back down the steps and collapsed on the cold, slimy floor. Time meant nothing then. She'd lost track of it. Totally. She was slipping away. Strange dreams bled into her consciousness until she could no longer part them from reality. Then, there came a grating sound that echoed through her body, setting her teeth on edge, and a sudden blast of fresh air funneled in on a beam of light. It smelled of mildew and must, but, oh how blessed it was to breathe again! A hallucination; she was going mad. She had to be.

All at once strong arms lifted her, and powerful legs carried her out of the tomb. She leaned her hot face against a familiar burgundy satin dressing gown. It smelled clean, of the sea, of him, sensual and feral. The heart beneath it thudded against her ear in a trembling rhythm that was both soothing and frightening. Sara leaned into it, nuzzling the satin, and slept.