Juliana was now wide-awake. Her eyes flew to the door, tantalizingly open. But eager spectators pressed close behind them, and she was pinned to the table's edge. The mood in the room was ugly. Lucien and his friends, with drawn swords, faced a veritable army of knife-wielding rogues. The dice lay abandoned in the middle of the table, and the rowdy clamor died as a moment of expectant silence fell.

It was Freddie Binkton who broke the menacing tension. They were hopelessly outnumbered, their retreat cut off by the spectators. "Let's not be hasty, now," he said with a nervous titter. "Lucien, dear fellow, you must have something about you to raise a bit of blunt. We can all contribute something." He patted his pockets as if he could conjure coins from their depths.

"I'd put in my watch," Bertrand said, adding dolefully, "but I wagered it on that damn red cock . . . had no more spirit than a mewling lamb. Gave up without a fight. . . lost my watch . . . worth all of fifty guinea . . . lost it for a paltry ten-pound wager." His voice trailed off with his wandering attention, the sword in his hand drooping.

As if acceding to the truce, the ruffianly group lowered their knives, relaxed their aggressive stance, and glared at Lucien, waiting for his response.

Lucien looked around, his mouth tight, a pulse throbbing in his temples, the same febrile flush on his face, as garish as a clown's paint. Juliana, standing so close to him, could feel the savage fury emanating from his skin, mingling with the sour smell of fear and sweat. His gaze fell on her, and she shrank back, instinctively trying to merge with the people around her. Something flared suddenly in the pale-brown eyes, and he smiled slowly with a ghastly menace.

"Oh, I believe I've something to sell," he said, barely moving his lips.

"No!" Juliana whispered, her hand at her throat as she understood what he intended. "No, you cannot!"

"Oh, but I believe I can, madam wife," he said airily. "Wives are their husbands' chattel. You are mine, and I may dispose of you how I please. You should be glad to be of service, my dear." His hand shot out and gripped her wrist again in that painful vise. "Someone bring me a length of rope. We should do this properly."

"Come now, Lucien, it isn't right." Frank mumbled, half-apologetically. He looked uneasily at Juliana, who simply stared back at him, unseeing in her horror.

"Don't be such a ninny," Lucien said with a petulant scowl. "It's not for you to say what's right or not when it comes to my wife. Ah, rope." He took the rope handed him by a grinning ostler and looped it into a halter. "Here, madam. Bend your head."

"No!" Juliana pulled back from him, terrified as much by the evil embodied in the grinning death's-head countenance as by his intention. Someone grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her so she was forced to stand still. Lucien, still with that venomous grin, roughly pulled the halter over her head. Hands tugged and pulled at her, shoving her up onto the table. She fought them, her rage now superseding her terror. She kicked and scratched, barking her shins on the edge of the table as she was pushed and pulled and dragged upward. But despite her struggles, they got her onto the table, and Lucien seized the end of the halter.

Juliana, blinded by her wild rage, kicked at him. catching him beneath the chin with the sole of her shoe. He went reeling backward, dropping the rope. She made to jump from the table, but two men grabbed her ankles, holding her still as Lucien came up again, his eyes narrowed, one hand to his chin.

"Bitch," he said softly. "You'll pay for that."

She would have kicked him again if they hadn't been holding her ankles so tightly. She swayed dizzily on her perch, nausea rising in her throat, a cold sweat breaking out on her back. How had she walked into this nightmare? She'd known Lucien was vile, but not even in her darkest imaginings could she have suspected him capable of such viciousness. But the duke had known. He had always known what his cousin was capable of. He'd known but it hadn't stopped him from using her . . . from exposing her to this evil.

Lucien was calling in a drunken singsong, "So what am I bid for this fine piece, gentlemen? Shall we start at twenty guineas?"

A chorus of responses filled the air. Juliana looked down and saw little red eyes peering greedily up at her. stripping her naked, violating her with their lascivious grins. She couldn't move, her ankles were circled so tightly, and Lucien was pulling on the rope so that it cut into the back of her neck.

George Ridge awoke from his postprandial sleep as the shouts around him grew even more raucous. He raised his head, blinking, for a moment disoriented. He remembered where he was when he saw that he'd been sleeping in the midst of the detritus of his dinner. He belched loudly and lifted the bottle of port to his lips. There was a swallow left, and he smacked his lips, set the bottle down, and turned to call for another.

His eyes fell on the scene at the far side of the room. At first he couldn't make out what was going on, the noise was so loud, the crowd so thick. They were wagering on something, and there was a frenzied edge to the bidding that struck him forcefully. He blinked, shaking his head to rid his brain of muzziness. Then he blinked again and sat up.

Juliana was standing on the table. It couldn't be anyone else. Not with that tumbling forest fire of hair, those jade-green eyes flashing with such desperate fury, that tall, voluptuous figure.

But what in the devil's name was going on here? He pushed back his chair and stood up slowly, trying to isolate the words from the general hubbub. He heard someone call, "A hundred guineas. Come, gentlemen. My wife is worth at least that."

Wife! He approached the outskirts of the crowd. The bidding was getting livelier. A hundred and fifty, two hundred. Juliana stood like a stone. The man holding the rope, the man calling himself her husband, worked the crowd to renewed frenzy as he began to point out Juliana's attractions.

George's mouth was dry. He swallowed, trying to produce some saliva. The situation was unbelievable, and yet it was real. He pushed through the crowd, cleared his throat. "Five hundred guineas!" His voice sounded cracked and feeble, and at first no one seemed to hear him. He tried again, shouting. "I bid five hundred guineas for her."

Juliana heard George's voice, penetrating the trance into which she'd retreated from the unbearable humiliation, the waves of terror sucking at her. Don 't look at him. Don 't react. The instruction screamed in her brain even through her daze. She mustn't acknowledge him. If she refused to know him, then he couldn't prove her identity. She was still Viscountess Edgecombe. She was still under the protection of the Duke of Redmayne. Dear God, was she?

"Five hundred guineas'," Lucien said, turning to George with another of his savage grins. "Why, sir, that's a jump bid if ever I heard one. But she's a prime article, and you've a fine eye."

George didn't seem to hear him. He was staring at Juliana, willing her to look at him. But she was a graven image, her eyes fixed straight ahead. He reached to touch her ankle, and she didn't move.

"Any advance on five hundred for my dear wife, or shall this gentleman have her?" Lucien called out merrily. "He's got a bargain, I'm telling you."

"There are times, Edgecombe, when you surprise even me with the depths of your depravity." The cool voice cut through the raucous merriment as the Duke of Redmayne crossed the room from the door, where he'd been standing unnoticed for the last few minutes.

The nightmare had such a grip upon her that for a moment Juliana didn't react. Then the clear tones of salvation pierced her trance. Slowly she turned on her perch, George forgotten in the flood of incredulous relief. He'd come for her.