She stared at him.

"Desertion?" he continued. "It would not succeed. You left me, remember? It was my express command that you stay at my grandmother's house in Devon until I sent for you. You disobeyed and went home to your father. If questioned, I should make it quite clear that I am willing to return to you anytime you so desire."

"You would be prepared to lie so?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"Oh, I never lie," he said, smiling into her eyes. "I would remind you that there is documentary evidence that you and I spent a night together at a certain inn just a few weeks ago. You are a remarkably attractive woman, Elizabeth, and six years has been a long time. I should not say no to an invitation to your bed."

His hand shot up to grasp her wrist as her hand flashed toward his face. "No, not this time," he said, eyes narrowing. "That last time you had the advantage of surprise, my love, but I learn by experience. Hit me again, Elizabeth, and I may reply in kind. You would not escape with a kiss this time." He released her wrist.

She turned away from him. "Where is William?" she asked.

"He suddenly remembered pressing business that will keep him in London for an indeterminate length of time," he replied.

"And you are staying at Ferndale?"

"Under the circumstances, that would not be good ton," he replied. "The inn at Granby seems comfortable enough."

"What does he intend to do about me?" Elizabeth asked, and then despised herself for having spoken out loud.

"What can he do?" Hetherington asked. "I told him that he may not marry my wife, and like the honorable gentleman that he is, he has retreated to lick his wounds."

"You are utterly heartless," she cried, turning on him once more in fury. "You are enjoying this situation, are you not? It gives you pleasure to cause pain for two people."

"You are wrong, madam," he snapped, his face showing anger for the first time. "It is precisely because I care for William Main waring that I am behaving as you see. You have ruined my life, Elizabeth, making it quite impossible for me to lead a normal life or to love another woman. Do you think I would stand idly by while you do the same to my friend? He may hate me now, he may be suffering now, but I would prefer to feel his hatred and watch his pain than see him later with all faith in life and love shattered."

Elizabeth had clutched her throat with one hand and sunk down onto a sofa. "What are you saying?" she whispered. "What have I done to make you hate me so?"

He came to stand in front of her and glared down into her eyes. "Money was more important to you than I was," he said, "and you professed to love me. William, by his own account, you claim to hold only in affection. But I'll wager that you love his money, Elizabeth. It will be so much more accessible to you than mine was."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, barely able to get the words past her lips. "This is not the first time you have accused me of being mercenary, Robert. What do you mean? You were poor when I married you."

He smiled unpleasantly. "Ten thousand pounds was so much more attractive to you than a husband who had only love and a title to offer, was it not?" he asked.

"Ten thousand pounds?"

"Had you planned it all along, Elizabeth?" he asked. "Or was it just the momentary temptation to which you succumbed?"

"Oh, Robert," she whispered, feeling the blood draining from her head and fighting waves of faintness, "what are you talking about?"

His expression changed. A kind of wild fear was in his face. He grabbed her by the upper arms. "Are you ill?" he asked harshly, and when she did not reply, he pulled her to her feet and folded her in his arms. She sagged against him, dizzy with faintness.

"Oh, God, Elizabeth," he said against her hair, his voice heavy with pain, "tell me you did not plan it. Tell me that you were merely tempted, that it was a decision you made on the spur of the moment. Tell me you loved me when you married me, that those days and nights in Devon were not just an empty sham. Please, darling, give me that much consolation at least."

Elizabeth fought the buzzing in her ears and the coldness in her head. "Tell me what you are talking about," she said.

His hand came beneath her chin and lifted her pale face. "Ah, don't lie to me," he said. "Believe me, I want to understand, I want to forgive. When I see you and when I hold you, I cannot believe that you are capable of the villainy that I have accepted all these years. I want you, Elizabeth."

His mouth was on hers with a passion and an urgency that she could not have denied even had she wished to. As it was, in her semiconscious state, the embrace seemed like one of the many she had dreamed of in the previous years, only more delightful. She pressed herself to the warmth of him and allowed his demanding lips to tilt her head back and part her own. Her mouth relaxed beneath his so that his tongue plunged an easy entrance and set her afire. His one hand had somehow dealt with the row of buttons down the back of her gown and was caressing the naked flesh of her back beneath her chemise. His other hand fondled one breast and then dropped behind her hips and brought her hard against him. She gasped and regained some of the consciousness that had been slipping from her. He was looking at her with passion-heavy eyes and then stooped down and swung her up into his arms.

"Tell me the way to your room," he said, beginning to move around the sofa.

Elizabeth was fully conscious again. "Put me down, Robert," she said distinctly.

"I shall carry you, love," he said, looking down into her eyes. "You always were the merest feather."

"Put me down, Robert," she said again, willing her voice to steadiness.

The passion was gone from his face instantly as he set her feet back on the floor. "You are a tease, ma'am," he said, "and I fell for it again."

"Enough!" she yelled, her control snapping altogether. "I am sick, Robert, sick of hearing your accusations. I am heartless, I am a tease, I am mercenary. I know myself as none of these things. You have accused me of accepting ten thousand pounds for something. I know nothing of ten thousand pounds. I have never even seen so much money. Now, if you care to explain what you have hinted at, please do so. If not, if your purpose here is merely to insult and accuse me, you may leave, my lord. You are not master here, and in the absence of the Rowes, I command. Now, which is it to be?"

She sat down straight-backed on the nearest chair. He too sank onto the sofa that she had occupied earlier. He looked at her narrowly for a long while, and Elizabeth almost lost her nerve. She set her chin and glared back.

"I refer, of course, to the ten thousand pounds that you accepted from my uncle," he said tonelessly.

"From your uncle?" she asked, a frown creasing her brow.

Hetherington got restlessly to his feet and paced the room. "My uncle was opposed to our marriage from the start," he said. "You told me that yourself. What you did not tell me was that he had offered you money even then to break off with me. Two thousand pounds, I believe. You laughed at him and told him it would take a lot more than that paltry sum to buy you off."

Elizabeth had whitened again. "The details are not quite as I remember them," she said, "but yes, he did talk of money."

His penetrating look again almost unnerved her.

"After we were married, he might have let us alone," he continued, "though you probably thought you could push up his price. Circumstances certainly played into your hands, my dear. How you must have cheered when you realized that I was the new marquess. You must have waited in great glee for my uncle to contact you."

Not a muscle moved in Elizabeth's face. "Go on," she said.

"My uncle responded like a puppet on a string, of course," he said. "When he came to offer you eight thousand pounds, you forced him to pay out ten. You were foolish, my dear. He would have paid double the sum to rid the family of such an unsuitable connection."