"The present heir is, to put it kindly, somewhat slow-witted. Oh, he's a nice enough soul but could no more pull Edgecombe out of the mire into which Lucien has plunged it than he could read aq page of Livy. Lucien is dismembering Edgecombe. I intend to put a stop to that. And I intend to ensure that his heir is my ward."

He smiled, but it had none of the pleasant quality of his earlier smiles. "I shall thus have twenty-one years to put Edgecombe back together again… to repair the damage Lucien has done-as much as anything, I believe, to spite me.

"Why can't your cousin find his own wife?" she asked, staring incredulously.

"Well, I suspect he might find it difficult," the duke said, turning his signet ring on his finger with a considering air. "Lucien is not a pleasant man. No ordinary female of the right breeding would choose to wed him."

Juliana wondered if she was going mad. At the very least she had clearly stumbled among lunatics. Vicious, twisted lunatics.

"You… you want a brood mare!" sht exclaimed. "You would blackmail me into yielding my body as a vehicle for your cousin's progeny, because no self-respecting woman would take on the job! You're… you're treating me like a bitch to be put to a stud."

Tarquin frowned. "Your choice of words is a trifle inelegant, my dear. I'm offering a marriage that comes with a title and what remains of a substantial fortune My cousin doesn't have long to live, hence the urgency of the matter. However, I'm certain you'll be released from his admittedly undesirable company within a twelvemonth. I’ll ensure, of course, that you're well looked after in your widowhood. And, of course, not a word of your unforunate history will be passed on."

He sipped his wine. When she still gazed at him, dumbstruck, he continued: "Your secret will be buried with me and the Dennisons. No one will ever connect Lady Edgecombe with Juliana… whoever-you-were." His hand moved through the air in a careless gesture. "You will be safe, prosperous, and set up for life."

Juliana drained her champagne glass. Then she threw the glass into the fireplace. Her face was bloodless, her eyes jade stones, her voice low and bitter as aloes. "And to gain such safety… such rewards… I must simply bear the child of an undesirable invalid with one foot in the-"

"Ah, no, not precisely." The duke held up one hand, arresting her in midsentence. "You will not bear Lucien's child, my dear Juliana. You will bear mine."

“I cannot imagine how we can help you, Sir George." Sir Brian Forsett offered his guest a chilly smile. "Juliana ceased to be our responsibility as soon as she passed into the legal control of her husband. Your father's unfortunate death leaves his widow her own mistress, in the absence of any instructions to the contrary in Sir John's will."

"And it leaves you, sir, holding her jointure in trust for her," snapped Sir George Ridge. He was in his late twenties, a corpulent, red-faced man, with hands like ham hocks. The son of his father, physically if not in character, he was the despair of his tailors, who recognized that all their skill and all their client's coin would never make an elegant figure of him.

"That is so," Sir Brian said in his customarily austere tones.

When he offered no expansion, his choleric guest began to pace the library from window to desk, muttering to himself, dabbing with his handkerchief at the rolls of sweating flesh oozing over his stock. "But it's iniquitous that it should be so," he stated finally. "Your ward has murdered my father. She runs away, and you still held her jointure-a substantial part of my inheritance, I tell you, sir-in trust for her. I say again, sir, she is a murderess!"

"That, if I might say so, is a matter for the court," Sir Brian said, his nose twitching slightly with distaste. The warmth of the summer afternoon was having a malodorous effect on his visitor.

"I tell you again, sir, she is a murderess!" Sir George repeated, his nostrils flaring. "I saw the mark on my father's back. If she was not responsible for his death, why would she run away?"

Sir Brian shrugged his thin shoulders. "My dear sir, Juliana has always been a mystery. But until she is found, there is nothing we can do to alter the current situation."

"A murderess cannot inherit her victim's estate." Sir George slammed a fist on the desk, and his host drew back with a well-bred frown.

"Her children can, however," he reminded the angry young man. "She may be with child, sir. Her husband died in such circumstances as to imply that…" He paused, took a pinch of snuff, and concluded delicately, "As to imply that the marriage had been consummated."

His visitor stared in dismay. Such a thought had clearly never entered his mind. "It couldn't be." But his voice lacked conviction.

"Why not?" gently inquired his host. "You, after all, are proof that your father was not impotent. Of course, we may never know about Juliana. One would have to find her first."

"And if we don't find her, then it will take seven years to have her declared legally dead. Seven years when you will hold her jointure in trust and I will be unable to lay hands on half my land."

Sir Brian merely raised an eyebrow. He'd negotiated his ward's marriage settlement with the cold, calculated pleasure of a man who was never bested in a business deal. Bluff and kindly Sir John Ridge, heading into his dotage utterly infatuated with the sixteen-year-old Juliana, hadn't stood a chance against the needle wits of his acquisitive opponent, 's benefit had been a mere sideline for Sir Brian in the general pleasures of running rings around the slow-witted and obsessed Ridge.

"Well, how are we to find her?" Sir George flung himself onto a sofa, scowling fiercely.

"I suggest we leave that to the constables," Sir Brian stated.

"And just how much do you think that lazy gaggle of poxed curs will bestir themselves?"

Sir Brian shrugged again. "If you have a better idea…"

"Oh, indeed I do!" Sir George sprang to his feet with an oath. "I'll go after the damned girl myself. And I'll bring her back to face the magistrates if it's the last thing I do."

"I commend your resolution, sir." Sir Brian rose and moved toward the door, gently encouraging his guest's departure. "Do. I beg you, keep me informed of your progress."

Sir George glared at him. There was only form politeness in Sir Brian Forsett's tone. The longer Juliana remained at large and in hiding, the longer Forsett would have to manage her jointure as he chose. It didn't take much imagination to understand that he would prove expert at diverting revenues from the trust into his own pocket.

"Oh, Sir George… pray accept my condolences… Such a terrible tragedy." The crisp tones of Lady Amelia Forsett preceded the lady as she entered the library through the open terrace doors.

A tall woman of haughty demeanor, she sketched a curtsy. George, intimidated despite his anger, bowed low in return. Lady Forsett's clear pale-blue eyes assessed him and seemed to find him wanting. A chilly smile touched the corners of her mouth. "I trust I haven't interrupted your business with my husband."

"Not at all, my dear," Sir Brian reassured smoothly. "Sir George was just leaving." He pulled the bell rope.

Amelia curtsied again, and George, thus dismissed, found himself moving backward out of the library under the escort of a footman who seemed to have appeared out of thin air.

"What did that lumpen oaf want?" Amelia came straight to the point as the door closed behind their guest.

"As far as I can gather, he wishes to consign Juliana to the hangman with all dispatch, so that he can reclaim that part of his inheritance that formed her jointure."