Why had she ever insisted on this insane London scheme? Blinking back tears, she changed into her driving dress, then splashed cold water on her face from the ewer on the dresser. But she hadn't known she was in love with Hugo Lattimer then. She'd been so immersed in her plans for the future and the excitement of the present that she hadn't stopped to analyze her feelings. And now it was all dust and ashes.

So she would marry Denis DeLacy. It would be no worse a fate than any other, since she couldn't have the only future that mattered.

She crammed a velvet bonnet on her head and adjusted the plume. It was not a hat she liked-it was too

small and insignificant-but Hugo had selected it with customary firmness. Soon he'd have no say in her wardrobe, or any other aspect of her life. She swallowed, trying vainly to dislodge the lump in her throat.

She went back to the drawing room. Denis was so relieved at getting her out of the house and into the curricle that he failed to observe her unusual pallor or her absentminded responses to his attempts at conversation.

He drove fast through the fashionable streets. Absorbed in her unhappy thoughts, Chloe didn't notice at first how intently he was driving, or how he was pushing his horses. Only when they narrowly missed an oncoming coach on the approach to Primrose Hill did she jerk back to full awareness.

"Your horses are sweating," she said in surprise. It was a cardinal sin for any halfway competent whip. She glanced at him and saw the set of his jaw, the tightness of his mouth.

"What's the matter?"

He looked fully at her, and there was a light in his eye that sent a shiver of alarm through her. "Nothing, why should there be? Aren't you enjoying the drive?"

"It's colder than I thought it would be," she said, trying to sound her usual self. "It's very bad for your horses to push them so hard."

"They're my horses. I'll be the judge," he said coldly. One of the pair stumbled in a pothole. His whip curled and snapped, catching the animal's ear.

"Don't do that!" Chloe exclaimed even while she was trying to recover from the extraordinary coldness of his tone. "It wasn't his fault. If you drove with more care, he wouldn't have stumbled."

Suddenly she knew that something was very wrong. But for the life of her she couldn't imagine what. Except that Denis didn't look like the man she thought she

knew and that strange, predatory light was in his eye again.

"Stop the curricle," she demanded. "I want to get out." They were almost on Finchley Common and there was little traffic on the filthy road and no pedestrians, but she knew with absolute certainty that she didn't want to travel another inch in Denis DeLacy's curricle.

He didn't respond, except to crack the whip again so his horses surged forward onto the common with a final spurt.

The wind whipped across the snowy heath, bending the gnarled, leaf-bare trees and whistling through the sere brown bracken. The rutted road wound ahead, ice glittering in the hard, dry ridges, cracking under the pounding hooves.

Chloe shivered, dreadful apprehension prickling her scalp, lifting the fine hair on her arms. Then she saw the post-chaise up ahead, pulled to the side of the road under a stand of trees. A postilion, muffled to the ears in his cloak, stood beside the leaders.

The last time she'd seen a post-chaise waiting in such sinister fashion had been on the road to Manchester with Crispin. But on that occasion she'd been riding a swift horse and had her escape in her own hands.

"What's happening?" Her voice was barely a whisper as the nameless dread crept up her spine. "Hell and the devil, Denis, what's happening?"

Without answering, he drew rein as the curricle came abreast of the chaise. The horses panted and wheezed, sweat glistening on their glossy necks. Denis leapt down just as the postilion jumped into the curricle in his place.

Chloe struggled as Denis hauled her to the ground, but she was no match for his strength. Though she kicked and punched with the blind force of desperation, he lifted her off the ground and bundled her into the chaise as the door swung open.

She fell to her hands and knees on the floor as Denis leapt in behind her. A whip cracked and the vehicle surged forward with a violent jolt that sent her sprawling again as she struggled upright. Someone laughed. It was a familiar laugh.

Pushing backward, she righted herself so that she was kneeling. She looked up at the three men, two of whom were regarding her with varying degrees of amusement. Denis, on the other hand, bore the satisfied, slightly smug air of a man who has accomplished a singularly demanding task. What in the name of all that was good connected Denis to Jasper?

"Why?" she asked him. "Why, Denis?"

"You'll discover soon enough," Jasper said. "Sit up on the seat." His pale eyes, flat and expressionless, skidded over her face.

A wild rage abruptly overtook her, banishing the fear that had been born earlier out of uncertainty. If this was the enemy, she knew it… or thought she did.

She sprang at her brother, moving from her knees to a flying body of fury in one neat movement. She had no idea what she hoped to achieve, or even if she expected to achieve anything. Her gloved hands reached for those flat eyes that seemed to contain no soul, and her knee came up into his chest.

The next minute she was reeling as his open palm cracked viciously against her cheek. Her ears rang and she fell backward across Crispin on the opposite seat. Still she struggled, feet and arms flailing, making what destructive contact she could with the three bodies sharing the confined space with her.

Denis grabbed her ankle and she kicked viciously into his belly.

"Leave her to me. She's mine now." A rich certainty infused Crispin's voice. Denis released his hold, watching through narrowed eyes.

Crispin wrestled Chloe's slight frame facedown across his lap, wrenching her arms behind her as he held her. Jasper pulled off his cravat and tied her wrists. Then he picked her up and dumped her into the corner of the carriage next to Crispin.

"You've a great many lessons to learn, little sister," he said, breathing rather heavily. "Fortunately, I make a good teacher… maybe a little short on patience, but you'll learn all the quicker, I imagine."

Chloe was too stunned to reply. Her face throbbed, her wrenched arms were beginning to ache, and the cravat was uncomfortably tight around her wrists. Instinctively, she pressed backward into her corner, in no doubt as to the reason behind this abduction.

Her eyes slid sideways to Crispin. He was smiling in the way he had when he'd pulled the wings off butterflies as a child. She had once said to Hugo that Jasper couldn't force her to many Crispin. But then she hadn't fully understood the meaning of force.

The chaise jolted in another pothole and she fell sideways, unable to balance herself with her bound hands. Crispin pushed her upright again. She huddled backward into her corner again and closed her eyes to shut out the three pairs regarding her with the predatory interest of hunters who've finally snared their prey.

Where was Hugo? But what difference did it matter where he was? Never in a millennium would he connect Denis DeLacy with Jasper.

Vv here's Chloe, Dolly?" Hugo entered the drawing room before dinner, a somewhat mournful Dante on his heels.

"Why, goodness me, I thought she was with you." Lady Smallwood put down her embroidery and blinked at her cousin. "I haven't seen her since nuncheon."

"What!" Hugo impatiently pushed Dante's wet nose away from his thigh. "How could you not have seen her? Is she in her room?"

"I assumed she was with you," Dolly repeated. "I'm not usually told when you and she go off together." There was a hint of self-righteous grievance in the statement.