“Has he slept with you?”

Harriet looked up slowly. “What did you say?”

Constance lowered her voice. “I asked if he has slept with you.”

“Ask him yourself.”

“I’m asking you.” Constance sifted through the broadsheets, holding one to Harriet’s face as if she had taken it from a rubbish heap. “Even if you cannot read, I assume you can decipher a cartoon.”

Harriet glanced in reluctant interest at the drawing. Some filthy-minded sod had depicted the duke, blade-nosed and in a billowing black cloak, bent over a woman sprawled in the gutter. If the crudity of the cartoon weren’t insult enough, the artist had portrayed Harriet’s thighs to be five times their natural size, like enormous satin bolsters. And, good grief, either she needed spectacles, or there were three of them.

“Do you have any idea how humiliating this is?” Constance said coldly. “Fortunately, most people with an ounce of intelligence ignore these outrageous fabrications. There are, however, those in the fashionable world who take gossip as gospel.”

Harriet drummed her fingers against her upper arm, her eyes fixed in a vacant stare at the window. Another carriage had stopped in the street. She heard the petulant voice that had become familiar. And those boots thundering up the steps. They had become welcome sounds.

“Do you understand what this means?” Constance asked in an urgent whisper. “The duke and I will live primarily in London. I will not be mocked by sly rumors that my husband is a ravaging beast when in truth he has been seduced by a common strumpet.”

“I see.”

“Do you? Then you must decry these rumors in public, accept your guilt, and go away.” Constance gathered up her papers and produced a small purse from her reticule. “I suggest country employment. Perhaps it is overly kind to do so, but I shall have letters of character written for you to take.”

She shook the purse as if the jingle of coins would rouse Harriet from the trance that had befallen her.

“All you have to do is admit the truth.”

“All I have to do is admit the truth.”

“And go away.”

“And go away.”

“Must you repeat everything I say? Oh, never mind. Just do as I tell you.” Constance stuffed the papers back into her rabbit muff. “If anyone asks, and they will, you will deny that the duke ravished you like a beast. You will admit that you seduced his grace.”

“I did what?”

Constance cast a nervous glance under the table as if to assure herself she’d left no other papers behind. “This has taken me longer than I thought. My driver is waiting across from the carriage house. Should I be spotted leaving at this late hour, you are to say that I called on Lady Powlis to ask after her health. These papers must have upset her, too.”

“Oh, they did,” Harriet said, rising from the chair.

Constance tucked the coin purse into Harriet’s bodice. “There. Remember what to say.”

The gesture would have been offensive enough if it had been made by a man, although in that event a measure of dubious flattery at one’s desirability might have eased the sting. But at Constance’s hand it became a vile insult. Harriet considered flinging the purse back in her face. But money was money, and she had a nephew now who could use a little gent’s wardrobe, if not a few warm blankets.

Constance spun on her heel, her scheme apparently executed to her satisfaction. Harriet waited until she reached the door before calling her back.

“There is only one problem,” Harriet said with an abashed smile.

Constance flashed her an impatient look. “Which is?”

“The truth. About the duke. And the darkness he cannot conquer.”

The color slowly faded from Lady Constance’s cheeks, and in that moment Harriet knew that the true monster in her nature had cast off its feeble grasp on gentility. “The rumors about the duke are true,” she said, her voice clear and articulate. “Every one of them.”

The fur muff drooped from Constance’s grasp. “He murdered his brother?”

Harriet waved her hand. “Probably. But that’s neither here nor there.”

“Then-”

Having chosen to take the low road, Harriet hurtled down it with wholehearted enthusiasm. “I meant the part about him ravishing me like a beast.”

The muff slid to the floor. Constance looked ill. “He… ravaged you?”

“Ravished, ravaged, pillaged, plundered. I might have been a tender rosebud bruised by a great storm, plucked from my virtuous-”

“He…” Constance wrinkled her perfect nose. “In the gutter?”

“Of course not. It’s bleedin’ cold on the cobbles, and there are rats, besides. I do have some pride.”

Constance drew a breath of distress. Clearly Harriet’s description implied a sacrifice on the altar of carnal affairs at which Constance would not kneel, even for a duchy.

“Would you care for a vinaigrette?” Harriet inquired solicitously. “I think the duke might still have one in the brandy cabinet from when he sent me into a swoon yesterday.”

Constance shook her head, opening the door and disappearing down the columned hallway as if the fiends of hell were nipping at her little behind.

“What about your money?” Harriet shouted, running after her.

“Oh-oh. Keep it!”

“Thank you.” Harriet grinned up at the chambermaids hanging slack-jawed over the stair rails. “I’ll buy you a pair of knickers if I’ve got anything left over.”

Well, she had done it again. She knew full well that she would have to admit to Lady Powlis what had happened and that she would have to pay for her sins. She had defamed the duke’s character, and she must be in shock over it, because she didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty. It was this lack of remorse that a magistrate had once warned her was the mark of the true criminal.

Wait. She thought she might be starting to feel a twinge of regret.

No, she wasn’t.

She’d do exactly the same thing if the nasty woman provoked her again. She dashed through the front hall and back toward the library. She might as well wring every drop of sweetness from her revenge. The only thing that could have made it better was if the fleeing damsel had run smack into the duke and popped him proper for being such a wicked defiler of paid companions.

And the only thing that could have made it worse was when his diabolical figure appeared from one of the columns behind her. Almost as if he had been lurking in the hall for quite some time. Perhaps even long enough to have overheard the inflammatory confession his aunt’s companion had made.

Chapter Twenty-three

She edged toward the door. “You’re-”

“-a ravaging beast?”

Heaven help her, he looked it, too, in the dark, speaking in the deep voice that seemed to enwrap her in heat. “I didn’t know your grace had returned.”

As he advanced on her, Harriet wove in and out of the marble columns until she stood, trapped, behind the middle pillar in the hall. “Do you know what you’ve done?” he asked quietly.

“I’ve… slandered you,” she whispered.

“And mortified Lady Constance right down to the hairs of her little white muff.” He circled the column, each step forcing her farther and farther down the hall. “You have cost me the wife I was supposed to bring home.”

She frowned. “You’re better off without her. Lady Powlis thinks so, too.”

“And when is it that I become this ravaging beast?” he mused. “At the stroke of midnight? Once a month, when the moon is full? Or do I merely need to throw off my cloak to make you tremble in terror?”

She stepped away from him. He followed, his eyes smoldering with dark intent. Her heart was pounding in her breast. She bumped up against the library door. He raised his hand. His leather-encased fingers traced the contours of her jaw.