"The green dress proves even you can have a sense of humor."

In fact, Lina had ordered the dress from her modiste on a whim. The cut and line of the garment was simple, charming, but most definitely unalluring. It had reminded her of a gown she had worn before she was married, when everything was new and fresh and she still believed in happy endings.

Henry had cured her of that particular notion. He'd been a full forty years older than she was—fifty-eight to her eighteen—but so enormously wealthy her father had been aux anges. Henry had already buried three wives and two stillborn heirs, but he hadn't given up hope. A young, nubile beauty should have been just the thing to stoke his fires, he used to tell her, filled with disgust at her ineptitude. His efforts had been desultory, more often spilling his seed outside her in his inability to get hard enough for penetration.

It was a great deal too bad that he accidentally discovered the cure for his affliction. His frustration and contempt for his young wife grew until one night he'd slapped her, so hard she'd fallen against the bed. temporarily seeing stars.

His excitement was immediate and powerful, and the next thing she knew, he was on her like a wild dog, puffing and sweating, hurting her so that she cried out in pain. When she did, his excitement reached a fever pitch, and he spilled his seed deep inside her.

He'd been so rough she'd bled the next day, and he'd been furious, thinking her menses had started early. It had been a blessing. Henry had been a fastidious man and never liked to come near her during her courses.

But a week later he was on her anew. It had taken more and more pain to inspire him. In the beginning he avoided marring her face, but as time passed he enjoyed that most particularly. Seeing the evidence of his brutality seemed to make him feel more virile. Eventually he took his dazed young wife to one of his remote country estates, so no one could witness his increasingly dangerous pleasures.

The only thing that would have stopped him would have been a pregnancy. He wanted an heir with a ferocity stronger than his twisted needs.

In the end it had been her fault, Lina thought. She'd begun to stretch out the time of her menses for as long as possible to avoid the increasingly nightmarish couplings Henry forced on her. She knew full well there was no one she could turn to—a wife's duly was to submit. The only one who would have come to the rescue was Charlotte, and while she would have moved heaven and earth to help her, there would have been nothing she could do.

So Lina had told no one. And one summer her courses were late. Days passed, when her body had been as regular as clockwork no matter what indignities Henry had subjected her lo, no matter how brutal his assaults. She lied, of course, lo keep Henry from her, anything to have an extra day or two of reprieve.

A week passed, with Henry growing more and more impatient. By the time two weeks had gone by, her breasts were full and tender, her stomach was queasy, and she knew, she simply knew, the old man's foul ruttings had finally taken root.

She'd thought she'd be disgusted, hating what had begun in her belly. She was wrong. The thought of a baby changed everything. He would leave her alone now, and she would grow large and placid, and by the time she gave birth to his son he would have turned elsewhere for pleasure. He would leave her and her son alone, and sooner or later he would die. He was old and fat, and when he hit her his face would grow purple with rage and excitement, and exhaustion.

She waited too long. Her fault, her fault. She'd wanted to cherish her secret for just a little while longer before she had to bring him into it.

She remembered that day far too well. He'd appeared in her dressing room, sending the servants away.

"Your maid tells me you've been lying about your monthly courses," he said, his voice deceptively quiet. "Haven't you?"

She flushed. "Yes," she admitted. "In fact, I—" That was as far as she'd gotten. His fist had connected with her face, splitting her lip, and after that there had been no chance of speech.

She made the mistake of crying out, enraging him further. The small blessing was that this time he didn't rape her. He simply beat her, with his fists, kicking her with his booted feet when she fell to the floor.

She curled in on herself, trying to shield her body from his blows, but she'd already felt the fierce tearing in her belly, the wetness of blood gushing between her legs. He'd destroyed the one thing he'd wanted most in the world.

He finally stopped. She moaned, and clutched her belly. She could hear him gasping for breath, and she struggled to sit up, knowing the danger any sign of life might bring.

It took her three tries. She could barely see out of her swollen eyes, and the pain in her belly was a ripping, vicious one, but she managed to see Henry half lying on her bed, his legs twitching as he made hoarse, gasping noises. For one moment she thought his sexual excitement had been unbearable and he was using his fist to bring on his own climax—she'd heard those gasping, grunting noises far too many times.

She managed to pull herself to her feet, using a nearby chair for support. She would need a doctor, she thought, dizzy. Would he allow her one?

She could see Henry on the bed, gasping for air like a landed fish. His handsome, florid face was a deep purple, and she realized with almost detached interest that he'd finally gone too far. He was having a fit of apoplexy.

She struggled toward the bed, using various pieces of furniture to support herself, until she reached his side. He managed to focus on her for a moment.

"Get...a doctor," he wheezed.

She could feel blood dripping down her legs, into her slippers. She looked down at him. "You sent the servants away, Henry," she said with deceptive gentleness. "They won't hear me if I call for help. You're dying. No one could help you anyway. But I want you to know one thing before you go to the hell you so richly deserve." She moved closer. "I was finally pregnant, and you kicked me in the stomach, Henry. You killed your unborn child. Your heir."

His eyes bulged out, and she could see he understood her. She was unable to walk, so she pulled herself onto the large bed, far enough away that he couldn't touch her with his desperate flailing. She lay there and watched him die, a deep, cold satisfaction filling her. And she didn't allow herself to pass out until he was gone.

There was no scandal, of course. No one mentioned the widow's bruised face and broken arm, and her pale, bloodless complexion they attributed to grief, not blood loss and fever. By the time she called Charlotte to her side, her body, at least, had healed.

Lina looked out the window of Hensley Court, toward the just-visible spires of the ruined abbey, where the Revels went on without her. No orgy for her this time. No chance to once more show herself that men were crude and worthless. No chance to laugh and lie and play the part.

She didn't know what drove her, and she didn't care to find out. The adoration of men distracted her, and if their intense pleasure never migrated to her, she was too good an actress to let on.

Occasionally she would feel a twinge of desire, and she would hope that she would finally feel the pleasure so many talked of.

It never happened.

The green dress was just right for someone who most definitely wasn't attending an orgy. And ii would amuse Monty, who knew her better than anyone, even Charlotte.

At the last minute she took an outrageous beauty patch and placed it near the corners of her lush mouth. It would draw the good vicar's attention to her lips, and most probably fill him with outraged disapproval and contempt He thought she was a whore, knew she was a whore. Even in demure clothes she needed to remind him that his belief was correct.

It was just past dawn when she moved down the deserted hallway of Hensley Court. No one was in sight but an early-morning housemaid, lugging a bucket of coal. She turned in to the center wing of the large, Elizabethan house, built in the shape of the letter E to honor the reigning sovereign. It hadn't done much good, Monty had told her, since said ancestor had been deprived of his head anyway, but the house had remained in the family. At least as long as Montague lived. Since he had no issue, God only knew what would happen to the place and the title.

He must have an heir somewhere, a distant cousin or the like.

Someone was standing outside Montague's door, and in the unlit, shadowy hallway she thought it was Dodson, her friend and coconspirator. But Dodson was a skinny man, with slightly bowed shoulders. A footman, perhaps, she hoped with a dismal faith that she was right. The shape of the man showed him to be tall, well built, and Monty liked his footmen pretty. But it wasn't a servant.

The man moved away from the door out of the shadows, and she readied herself for battle.

"He needs sleep," Simon Pagett said.

"I have no intention of keeping him awake. I want to bear him company while he sleeps." She kept her voice calm and reasonable. If it came to a battle of wills she had no idea who Dodson and the servants would choose. On the one hand, they liked and trusted her. On the other, Pagett was a male, and a vicar, to boot, and none of them would fancy the idea of hell.

Someone had heard the sound of voices, and before Pagett could reply, a footman appeared, bearing a candelabrum. She reached out for it, but Pagett had longer arms, and he overreached her, taking it in one capable hand. "We shouldn't argue outside his door. Lady Whitmore," he said, his eyes taking in her somber garb, then rising to see the provocative beauty mark on her cheek. There was an arrested expression in his eyes, most likely disgust, though she couldn't be quite certain.

"I have no intention of arguing with you," she began, only to find her arm taken in his firm grasp as he propelled her away from the door, down the hall. She didn't struggle—it was too undignified. Besides, this proper vicar wasn't going to hurt her.

He took her all the way to the end of the wing, where a small salon waited. There were tall doors onto the terrace that ran the width of the house, and without asking her to leave, he pushed one open, ushering her out into the cool morning air and closing the door behind them. "I don't think we need anyone eavesdropping on our conversation, do you?" he said