"Why didn't you mention it before?"

"Because I knew you'd be stuffy about it." She gave him a roguish smile. "And you would have been, so don't deny it."

"I wasn't going to. A public ridotto is no place for the Marchioness of Carrington."

"I know, but no one recognized us… there was no one there to recognize us."

"Your brother's idea of evening entertainment leaves much to be desired. However, I assume he didn't escort his prospective fiancee?" he asked aridly.

"No, of course not," Judith said. "He doesn't even like it when Harriet goes into a card room. But it's different with me."

Marcus wondered how Harriet would feel once she came face to face with the exclusivity of her husband's relationship with his sister. "It would seem that Sebastian and I have similar attitudes to what's appropriate for a wife," he observed. "I could wish that occasionally he'd remember that as well as being his sister, you're also my wife.

"He doesn't forget that. But neither does he make decisions for me," Judith pointed out. "As it happens, going to Ranelagh was my idea." Not entirely true, but near enough.

"I would have escorted you if you'd asked." His hands slipped from her shoulders to clasp her arms. "Do you prefer Sebastian's company to mine, lynx?"

"No, how could you think such a thing?" She was genuinely distressed at such an interpretation, but the sticky threads of deceit were entangling her again. She couldn't tell the truth about the evening, but without the truth, it appeared that she had chosen her brother's company over her husband's-indeed, had deliberately excluded her husband.

"It's very easy to think such a thing," he said quietly. "I didn't think it would have amused you," she improvised, with a touch of desperation. "London is still quite new to us and we're accustomed to thinking of different things to do in new places. We just fell into an old habit."

He let it go, although the ring of truth was somehow lacking despite the plausibility of the explanation. "Very well, let's leave it at that." His hands slipped from her arms.

It sounded rather grudging to Judith. She turned back to the bed, ebullience vanished in a fog of dejection. "Just a minute."

Something in his voice banished melancholy. She paused, one knee on the bed, the other foot on the floor. "There remains the small matter of penance." Judith looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes now sparkling with anticipation. "Yes, my lord?" Eagerness laced the dulcet tones.

He trod over to the bed. "I think I'll let you choose your own… later. For the moment, kneel on the bed." Reaching across her, he pulled the pillows out, tucking them against her belly as he unfastened his britches.

Judith laughed softly, drawing her nightgown up to her waist, falling forward over the piled pillows. "A fitting end to a ribald evening, sir."

"Abominable woman," he said, one hand in the small of her back as he guided himself within her. "If I had a grain of common sense, I'd banish you to Berkshire, where you couldn't get up to any more mischief." Judith had no immediate rejoinder and shortly was beyond any coherent verbal response, although her body spoke to him with perfect fluency.

26

"So what now?" Agnes said, looking up from the hothouse roses she was arranging in a wide crystal bowl. "Are you still set on revenge?"

"Certainly," Gracemere said. "It was annoying, meeting Davenport like that, although I wish you could have seen the pair of them. They couldn't see straight." He smiled contemptuously at the memory. "They're such simpletons, I almost wonder if they're worth the trouble I'm taking."

Agnes tossed a fading bloom into the basket at her feet. "One must never underestimate, Bernard."

"No," he agreed, taking snufle "And I have every intention of holding Judith to her wager. She will pay her debt at a private dinner at a place of my choosing. And this time there'll be no possibility of unwanted company.

You will see her with me and you'll accidentally let the gossip fall within Carrington's earshot. Since his wife's an eager participant in this amusing liaison, he won't be able to challenge me over it, without exposing both of them to public ridicule, so he'll have to swallow it… and his pride."

"It'll ruin his marriage," Agnes commented with a cynical laugh.

Gracemere shrugged. "But of course. The main object of the exercise, really. I don't believe Judith cares a whit for him, anyway. She's all too eager to flout his authority." He smiled. "Where shall I arrange this intimate little dinner, my love? Somewhere rather more compromising than Ranelagh this time."

"A private parlor in a small hotel on Jermyn Street," Agnes suggested casually. "I'm sure you know such a one."

Gracemere gaped at her, then roared with laughter. "You never cease to amaze me, my dear. A brilliant idea. I'll entertain Carrington's wife in a whorehouse."

"It is an amusing idea," Agnes agreed. Her lip curled. "There's something about that little bitch… I don't know what it is, but whenever I'm in the same room with her, I feel she's trouble." She shook her head. "She never misses an opportunity to do or say something to annoy me. And I don't understand why I should allow myself to react to her insolence. But I can't help myself." She sucked a bead of blood off her finger where a rose thorn had pricked. "I shall really enjoy watching you humble her."

"Then you shall do so, my love," Gracemere said. "I shall entertain Carrington's wife in a house run by a lady of the night, and I'll lay odds his naive bride won't understand where she is."

"Therein lies the cream of the jest," Agnes assented.

"She'll flutter and feel it's all most improper, but she'll have no idea how grossly improper… how could she?"

"How indeed?" Gracemere went to the secretaire. "Come and help me compose my second invitation. It needs to be a little more inviting-or do I mean compelling-than the last, but still couched in terms of calling in a debt of honor. Whatever second thoughts she may have had, she'll not renege when it's put in those terms. She likes to think of herself as a true gamester, willing to play high and lose with panache." He laughed, shaking his head. "I wonder where the Davenports sprang from."

"Oh, as you said before, one of those hybrid foreign families." Agnes drew up a chair to the secretaire. "Now, let's compose this compelling missive."

Half an hour later the earl sanded the single sheet, folded it, and sealed it with his signet ring. "You struck just the right note, my love: a challenge to the chit's willingness to play high and take risks. She'll not be able to resist the temptation to prove herself daring and reckless, pursuing an amusing adventure to pique her husband."

Agnes smiied. "And once you've finished playing games with the Devlins, what do you intend with Harriet?"

"Simple abduction. She's always in your company. You'll bring her to me in a hired chaise. Perfectly straightforward, my love."

"You'll marry her out of hand. ' Agnes nodded. "One night is all it will take to persuade her to go before a preacher in the morning. And once she's married, then her parents will be able to do nothing. They'll want to put the best light upon it, for fear their precious reputation be ruined. We'll have our thirty thousand, my dear, and the story will be of a runaway love match-the exigencies of a powerful passion, et cetera, et cetera." Her cynical laugh hung in the air, and Gracemere recognized as always that when it came to cold-blooded assessments of human nature, his mistress matched him step for step.

The invitation arrived in conventional fashion with Judith's chocolate the following morning. The dinner was set for that very night, the arrangements crisply laid out. She would find an unmarked chaise awaiting her as before. The destination was a secret, but it was one the earl thought she would enjoy, appealing as it would to her sense of adventure and the gamester within her.