Finally he had given in and retired to his own room. An hour or more had passed since. Elizabeth had just finished sponging the child's burning flesh with a cool, damp cloth and forcing some drops of water between his lips. She sat now quietly watching him and thinking of the man she had seen only briefly today through the window.

Perhaps it had all been partly her fault. At least she might have made it more difficult for him to abandon her if she had obeyed his final request and stayed in Devon.

The hours following his departure had been torture, the night a torment. Lady Both well had not returned that day. And during the following morning Elizabeth's father himself had arrived. He had been very angry, threatening to tear Denning apart limb by limb. When his daughter had told him that she was alone, he had turned the full force of his fury against her. His anger was caused not so much by the fact of the elopement, it seemed, as by the poverty of her husband. Had she no sense? Had she no love for the father who had spent years of his life raising her? What did she hope to gain for herself or her family by marrying a penniless pup?

Elizabeth had let his fury blow itself out around her head before telling him about the deaths of Robert's father and brother.

"So you are a marchioness?" he had sneered, and strangely enough, it was the first time Elizabeth had realized the fact. "A fat lot of good such a grand title will do you, my girl, when the father had not a feather to fly with, either."

"We do not care for money," Elizabeth had replied primly.

"You will, my girl, when you find yourself with a position to maintain, and creditors knocking on your door," he had said harshly. "I suppose there is no chance of an annulment?"

"An annulment?" she had asked blankly.

"Has he bedded you, girl?" he had asked impatiently.

Elizabeth had blushed painfully, but had not answered.

"Well," he had said, "we shall have to do the best we can. You will come home with me, Lizzie, until the young puppy has finished all his business in London. Perhaps there will be more money than I think."

"I must not leave here, Papa," she had protested. "I have promised Robert that I shall stay, and Lady Bothwell should be here today."

"Nonsense!" he had said. "The old lady may not come at all. Who better to take care of you than your father? And Norfolk is a great deal closer to London than Devon is. He will be thankful not to have to travel so far."

Elizabeth had argued. Even when she gave in, she did so reluctantly. But she had been very young. Obedience to her father had been the habit of a lifetime. She had not yet learned obedience to a husband. Lady Bothwell had not been there to advise her. What her father had said about the remoteness of Devon from London made sense. So she had gone, pausing only to pack her bag and to write a note to Lady Bothwell explaining that her father had come for her and that she was returning with him to Norfolk.

And so she had made it easy for Hetherington. He no longer had her embarrassing presence in his grandmother's home to deal with.

Elizabeth turned as she heard the door of the nursery opening quietly. She opened her mouth to scold John and send him back to bed. But it was her husband who stepped into the room and closed the door softly behind him.

He came across to the crib and stared down at the child for a while. Elizabeth watched him, tight-lipped. He was dressed only in his breeches and a shirt open at the neck.

"Poor little devil!" he said. "Is there no change?"

"None," she answered shortly.

He drew up a chair and sat down beside her. "Can I persuade you to rest awhile?" he asked. "I do not wish you to become overtired."

"I slept during the day," she replied. "I do not need rest now, thank you."

He regarded her in silence for a while. "Why do you hate me, Elizabeth?" he asked.

She turned to him incredulously. "You ask me that?" she hissed.

He raised his eyebrows. "Yes, I believe I did," he said.

"I shall not answer," she replied in a loud whisper. "If you do not know the reason, you must be totally lacking in conscience and I was the more deceived in you."

"I see that you have convinced yourself that you were the wronged party," he continued. "I believe that such is often the case with guilty persons."

"You should know," she shot back.

He leaned back in his chair and linked his fingers behind his head. He smiled. "You were very young and naive, were you not?" he said. "I suppose it did not take you very long to realize that you had settled for very little. And you have blamed me ever since. Poor Elizabeth!"

She stared at him stonily. "I settled for very little indeed, my lord," she said. "I wish you would go to bed now. Indeed, I do not need your company, and I believe the room should be kept quiet."

"I shall sit here with you, nevertheless," he replied. He glanced at the baby, who was becoming restless again. "Will he live, do you think? Poor little mite! He could be ours, do you realize that, Elizabeth?"

She made a strangled sound, but clamped her lips tightly together. And so they sat, side by side, in silence, watching Jeremy as he clung stubbornly to life.

It was Hetherington who first noticed the change. He sprang to his feet, startling Elizabeth, who had been deep in thought.

"There are beads of perspiration on his brow," he said. "The fever is breaking, love. Stay here. I shall go for your brother."

He ran from the room and was back in seconds, it seemed, with both John and Louise. The four of them stood and watched tensely as the child broke out in a bath of perspiration, which Louise tried to sponge away with a cool cloth. Eventually the baby lay very still.

"Is he dead?" Louise asked in a voice that sounded shockingly normal.

No one answered for a moment.

"I believe he is sleeping," Hetherington said, and he reached out one slim hand and took the baby's tiny wrist between gentle fingers.

"If he is dead," he said, smiling at Louise, "he has a very steady pulse to take with him to heaven."

"Ohhh!" Louise wailed and collapsed, sobbing, into her husband's arms.

Elizabeth's eyes locked with Hetherington's. He cocked an eyebrow at her as he closed the distance between them.

"I thought you were the stiff-upper-lip type," he said quietly, grinning at her swimming eyes. "But if you must cry, it had better be on my shoulder, ma'am."

She was horrified at her own inability to resist such inappropriate levity. How dare he push his way into such an intimate family scene and proceed to laugh at everyone! She fumed inwardly as she sobbed on his shoulder and leaned into the warm strength of his body. She felt deep resentment against the arms that encircled her and stroked comfortingly over her back. But her anger was all on the surface when she felt him kiss the top of her head. She jerked her head back and glared at him.

Before she could say a word, he had laid a finger to his lips. His eyes were still brimming with laughter. "This is not the time or the place," he said softly.

And she watched him have the great impertinence to turn back to John and Louise and proceed to take charge of the situation. Before any of them could have the presence of mind to realize that he had no right to give orders in that house, Louise had been packed off to bed, John had been sent to rouse the nurse in the next room, the housekeeper had been woken to prepare warm milk to send to her mistress's room and chocolate to send to everyone else's, and John and Elizabeth were also retiring meekly to their rooms.

"You are going to bed too, Hetherington?" John asked in a feeble attempt to have the last word.

"Oh, most certainly," his guest replied. "If I do not have my sleep, I am quite hagged the next day, you know."