Author: Anne Stuart

"If I'm going to marry you I'll need an answer."

"You know, you're a pain in the arse," Rohan shot back. "You'd think you'd spent your life being a saint.”

“You're never too old to change your ways," he said. "Why?"

“It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"And Miss Spenser agreed?"

"Miss Spenser is refusing to marry me," he said in a cranky voice. "I expect you to show her the error of her ways."

"I'm afraid I can't do that I want what's best for her, and I doubt you're it."

"For God's sake! " Adrian shouted, goaded to distraction. "What the hell do you want from me?"

"When you figure it out, lei me know. In the meantime I have things to do." He was about to walk past Rohan, when Lina appeared at the door, her black hair coming undone, a look of wrath on her perfect face.

"I'm going to kill you," she said. Pagett paused, looking back. "No, you're not. Leave him alone, Lady Whitmore. He needs to figure this out on his own.

"Don't you dare tell me what to do!" Her fury at Pagett seemed oddly misplaced. "This is between me and Lord Rohan."

"No, it's between Charlotte and Lord Rohan. It's none of your business," Pagett returned. "This is your fault, for taking Miss Spenser to the Revels in the first place, for someone like Lord Rohan to prey upon."

"Excuse me!" Adrian protested, but the two were facing off against each other, and he was forgotten.

"I brought her here to show her just how worthless men are. She was curious, and I thought she'd be better off knowing that she wasn't missing anything," Lina said furiously.

"How very altruistic of you. Lady Whitmore. Had I known you were capable of such charitable gestures I could have come up with a number of ways you could better use your misguided energy."

"I can think of any number of ways..."

Adrian slipped into the house, going in search of Charlotte once more. Their angry voices carried after him, and he stopped, glancing back at them.

"Why did you kiss me?" Lina was saying, glaring at him.

The unruffled vicar was looking ruffled indeed. "I believe you were the one who kissed me. Inappropriately, I might point out."

"I started it, you finished it."

"I thought you needed a lesson," he said stiffly.

"A lesson in what? Kissing? I assure you I've kissed a great many men."

"I know your reputation. Lady Whitmore. I'm certain you've lost count of how many men you've... kissed."

"And what business is it of yours?" she demanded,

“Absolutely none."

Idiots, Adrian thought, taking the marble stairs two at a time. When he slammed open Charlotte's door she was alone in the bed.

He came and stood over the bed. "You're marrying me. I'm not giving you a choice in the matter. I won't have my child born a bastard."

-I won't have my child be the son of a swiving, mean-spirited, libidinous troll who—"

"Troll?" he echoed, momentarily distracted. "Surely not a troll, my precious."

"Troll," she said firmly. "I won't have you."

"You have no choice. He's my child, and he's not being born on the wrong side of the blanket. I've spoken to Pagett. Six o'clock at the parish church. I'm not taking no for an answer. If you're not there I'll drag you there by your hair.”

She reached for the closest thing she could find, a heavy book, and she threw it at him, but he ducked. He was already in rough enough shape—another few days and there wouldn't be enough left of him to mangle.

He'd calm her down once he got her naked. If he had to haul her out of bed and carry her to the church in his arms she was going to marry him. This was making him crazy, and the only way he knew to calm things down was to get her back in bed with him. Legally. Permanently

In the meantime he needed to keep as far away from her as possible, or they'd either end up back in bed together or she'd kill him. And he wasn't sure which he preferred.

Charlotte looked at the door, vibrating with fury. How dare he think he could just come in and order her about? He thought she was just going to show up at the church? Ridiculous.

She slid out of bed. Meggie had gone to fetch her discarded clothes, and she dressed quickly. It wasn't that she didn't trust Lina to keep Rohan at bay, but Lina had her own troubles with Simon Pagett. If Charlotte simply disappeared for a little while it would be better all around.

How she was going to accomplish that was the challenge. She wouldn't be able to leave the house without one of Monty's countless servants seeing her, and they would have no choice but to report to Rohan. But perhaps once she made it out of the house she could change direction. The village was only a two-mile walk across the fields, and there was a coaching inn directly in the middle of it. She could safely assume that at least one of the available coach routes would lead to London, and once there it would be a fairly simple matter to come up with an alternative.

At least, she hoped so.

The hall was empty when she slipped out of her room. She did her best to appear cheerfully casual as she walked down the stairs, ready to break into a run if Rohan should put in an appearance. But for once luck was with her. Even the faithful Dodson was nowhere around, and Monty's bevy of handsome footmen were in short supply as well. She didn't bother trying the heavy front door; instead she slipped through the library, coming out on the wide terrace that led down to the formal gardens.

She moved quietly, keeping to the edge of the walled gardens. By the time she reached the end, her heart was pounding in her chest. Turning the corner, she barreled into a huge figure, and she let out a frightened shriek that quickly turned into a cautious sigh of relief.

"Monsieur de Giverney," she said. Adrian's cousin. What the hell was he doing here?

“Monsieur le Comte," he corrected. "The French government may have outlawed my title but I still account it as worth something."

"Indeed. I beg your pardon, my lord," she said swiftly, mentally cursing him. She didn't have time to deal with the man's vanity, she needed to get away.

"I'm here to offer you my help. Mademoiselle Spenser.”

She was just about to come up with a quick excuse and exit when his words penetrated. She glanced up at him.

He was a handsome man in a barrel-chested, florid style, with thick lips and eyebrows, a strong blade of a nose and flat black eyes. She'd never liked him, and she didn't like him now. Unless his idea of helping was to get her away from Adrian.

"Help me with what, my lord?" she asked in an even voice, resisting Ihe impulse to look over her shoulder. For all she knew, Rohan had realized she was missing and at this rate it wouldn't take long to find her.

"You're trying to get away from my young cousin, are you not? A good lad, but importunate. I presume you've fought?"

She said nothing for a moment. She didn't like him and she didn't trust him, but at that point she didn't have much of a choice. If she was to get away before Adrian came searching for her she was going to have to take the help offered. "Yes," she said. "He's trying to force me to marry him and I don't want to."

His thick eyebrows rose. "Indeed? Then you shouldn't have to. I can help you get away, mademoiselle. Otherwise you might find yourself...how do you clever British say it...leg shackled before you know what happened."

She looked at him for a long, cautious moment. Why would this man help her? He was Adrian's cousin—wouldn't he want to help him instead?

It wasn't as if she had any choice. "I would appreciate your help, monsieur," she said politely.

He smiled at her, warm and avuncular smile that wreathed his thick lips and didn't reach his eyes. But then, he was French, she reminded herself. Perhaps it took a lot more lo make him smile. 'Then I will take care of things. En avant! Come with me and I'll spirit you away where no one will ever find you."

"And where is that, Monsieur le comte?" she asked in a calm voice.

He took her hand in his heavy hand, bringing it to his mouth, and she wished she dared to pull it away. "You will have to leave it up to me, mademoiselle. Trust me, I can be quite ingenious. He may scour the earth to find you, but he will instead find failure."

"And how will you manage that? Sooner or later he's bound to figure out where I am. Where I've gone. Which is...?"

He smiled at her benevolently. She could see tufts of black hair in his ears, his nostrils, creeping over his high neck cloth. It wasn't his fault he was incredibly hairy, but it took all her social graces to keep from

He breathed on her, breath laden with odd cooking flavors that clung most unpleasantly. "Where will you be, mademoiselle, where no one can find you?" he echoed politely. "Why, I'm afraid you'll be dead."

Adrian couldn't find her anywhere. No one could. At some point, in between the time he went storming into Charlotte's room and gave her an ultimatum and when her maid had brought her a late luncheon, Charlotte had disappeared, taking her clothes, leaving a scribbled note for Lina and vanishing into thin air.

For a moment he wondered if they were all lying to him—some mass conspiracy to help Charlotte escape from the hideous punishment of marriage to a lenient and engaging husband. But they were just as mystified as he was, and the muted warfare that had existed between them all faded into worry, and in his case, something akin to panic.

He felt as if he were walking on ice, with no sense of when he would find steady ground again. He didn't know what he wanted, what he needed, but he couldn't shake the sense that something was very, very wrong.

No one else seemed to share his panic. They wanted him gone, he knew it, and indeed, he was ready to—inaction making him crazy—when he was called once more into Montague's bedroom.