"I did, my lord. But she said she didn't feel able to make up your mind for you." John blushed and he pulled awkwardly on his right ear, wishing he hadn't been put in the position of conveying Lady Carrington's forthright opinion to her husband. But his lordship merely shrugged.

"Very well, I'll discuss them with her." He dropped the bills to the table and picked up the pile of embossed cards, wrinkling his nose in distaste. The number of irksome invitations that came into the house of a married man far exceeded those he'd received as a bachelor. Everyone knew he didn't care for social events, and he couldn't understand why all these overzealous Society matrons now soliciting his company imagined that marriage would change the habits and interests of a lifetime.

"If that'll be all, my lord, I'll go and work on your speech to the House of Lords on the Corn Laws."

Marcus grimaced. "Can't you find something more interesting for me to talk on than the Corn Laws, John?"

His secretary looked startled. "But there is nothing more important at the moment, my lord."

"Nothing to do with the army or the navy… further reforms in the Admiralty, how about that?"

"I'll do some research, my lord." With a hurt look, John left the book room.

Marcus smiled. John's political interests were unfortunately not his employer's. He turned back to the papers on the desk, picking up the pile of bills again.

Gregson came in with the claret. "Is her ladyship in, Gregson?"

"Yes, my lord. I believe she's in the yellow drawing room." The butler drew the cork, examined it carefully, poured a small quantity of claret into a shallow taster, and sniffed and sipped with a critical frown.

"All right?"

'Tes, my lord. Very fine." He filled a crystal goblet and presented it to his employer. "Will that be all, sir?"

"For the moment. Thank you, Gregson."

Marcus took the scent of his wine before sipping appreciatively. He wandered over to the long narrow windows overlooking a small, walled garden. The leaves of a chestnut tree drifted thickly to the grass under the brisk autumnal wind. A gardener was gathering the richly burnished mass into a bonfire. Marcus was abruptly reminded of Judith's hair, glowing in the candlelight, spread over the white pillows… the silky matching triangle at die apex of those long, creamy thighs…

Abruptly he turned back to the desk and picked up the pile of bills again, tapping them against his palm. Judith certainly didn't count the cost when it came to her personal expenditures. She was beautiful and passionate in bed and he paid her well for it.

Why in God's name did he resent it? He was a generous man and always had been. Money had never concerned him-his fortune was too large for it ever to be an issue. And yet, as he looked through his wife's bills, saw what she'd spent on her wardrobe, he could think only of how different it must be for her now, after all those years of living from hand to mouth, of making over her gowns and wearing paste jewelry, of living in cheap lodgings… of pretending publicly that she had access to all the things she now had at her fingertips.

A house in Berkeley Square, a country estate in Berkshire, an unassailable social position… She must congratulate herself every moment of every day on how well her strategem had succeeded.

Marcus drained the claret in his glass and refilled it. Since Waterloo, they'd skimmed the surface of their relationship. There had been no further mention of the encounter in the taproom. And no reference in their lovemaking to his continued precautions against conception. Socially, they obeyed convention and went their separate ways. Except during the quiet, private hours of the night. Then the needs of their bodies transcended the bleak recognition of the true nature of their partnership, so that he would wake in the morning, filled with a warmth and contentment, only to have it destroyed immediately with the full return of memory.

She never talked of her past and he never asked. In all essentials they remained strangers, except in passion. Was that enough? Could it ever be enough? But it was all he was going to have, so he'd better learn to be satisfied.

He put his glass down and left the book room, still holding the sheaf of bills. The yellow drawing room was a small salon upstairs, at the back of the house. Judith had laid claim to it immediately, eschewing the heavy formality of the public rooms: the library, main drawing room, and dining room. He opened the door, to be greeted by a light trill of feminine laughter; it was abruptly cut off as the three women in the room saw who had entered, and for an instant he felt like an intruder in his own house.

"Why, Carrington, have you come to take a glass of ratafia with us?" Judith said, quirking her eyebrows with her habitual challenge.

"The day I find you drinking ratafia, ma'am, is the day I'll know I'm on my way to Bedlam," he observed, bowing. "I give you good afternoon, ladies. I don't wish to intrude, Judith, but I'd like to see you in my book room when you're at liberty."

Judith bristled visibly. She hadn't yet succeeded in moderating her husband's autocratic manner. "I have an appointment later this afternoon," she fibbed. "Maybe we could discuss whatever it is at some other time."

"Unfortunately not," he replied. "It's a matter of some urgency. I'll expect you in-" He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. "-within the hour, shall we say?"

Without waiting for her response, he bowed again to his wife's guests and left, closing the door gently behind him.

Judith seemed to have a natural talent for making friends, he reflected, and the door knocker was constantly banging, female trills and whispers filling the corners and crevices of his previously masculine-oriented house. Not only women either. There were men aplenty, anxious to play cicisbeo to the Marchioness of Carrington. Not that Judith had so far stepped out of line with her courtiers. Her flirtations were conducted, as far as he could see, with the light hand of an expert. But then that's only what he would expect from an expert.

As he reached the hallway, the door knocker sounded. He paused, waiting as the butler greeted the new arrival. "Good afternoon, Lady Devlin."

"Good afternoon, Gregson. Is her ladyship at home?" The visitor nervously adjusted the ostrich feather in her hat.

"In the yellow drawing room, my lady."

"Then I'll go straight up. There's no need to announce me… Oh, Marcus… you startled me."

Marcus regarded his sister-in-law in some puzzlement. Sally's complexion was changing rapidly from pink to deathly white and back again. He knew she tended to be uncomfortable in his company, but this degree of discomposure was out of the ordinary.

"I beg your pardon, Sally." He bowed and stood aside to let her pass him on the stairs. "I trust all's well in Grosvenor Square." He waited with bored resignation te be told that one of his nephews had the toothache or come down with a chill.

To his surprise, Sally looked startled and, instead of launching into cne of her minute descriptions of childish ailments, said, "Yes… yes, thank you, Marcus. So good of you to be concerned." Her gloved hand ran back and forth over the banister, for all the world as if she were polishing it. "I was hoping to see Judith."

"You'll find her in her drawing room."

Sally almost ran up the stairs, without a word of farewell. Marcus shook his head dismissively. He didn't object to Jack's wife, but she was a pretty widgeon with no conversation. Judith seemed to like her, though. Which was interesting, since he'd noticed that his wife didn't suffer fools gladly.

"Sally… why, whatever's the matter?" Judith jumped up at her sister-in-law's precipitate entrance.

"Oh, I have to talk to you." Sally grasped Judith's hands. "I don't know where to turn." Her eyes took in the other two women in the room. "Isobel, Cornelia… I'm at my wit's end."