Elizabeth made the four-day journey from Helmshead to London in two and a half days-a feat she managed to accomplish by the expedient, if dangerous and costly, method of paying exorbitant sums to coachmen who reluctantly agreed to drive at night, and by sleeping in the coach. The only pauses in her headlong journey were to change horses, change clothing, and gulp down an occasional meal. Wherever they stopped, everyone from post boys to barmaids talked about the trial of Ian Thornton, Marquess of Kensington.

As the miles rolled past, day receded into black night and gray dawn, then began the cycle again, and Elizabeth listened to the pounding hooves of the horses and the terrified pounding of her heart.

At ten o’clock in the morning, six days after Ian’s trial had begun, the dusty coach she’d been traveling in drew up before the Dowager Duchess of Hawthorne’s London town house, and Elizabeth hurtled out of it before the steps were down, tripping on her skirts when she hit the street, then stumbling up the steps and hammering on the door.

“What in heaven’s name-” the dowager began as she paused in the hall, distracted from her worried pacing by the thundering of the brass knocker.

The butler opened the door, and Elizabeth rushed past him. “Your Grace?” she panted. “I-”

“You!” the dowager said, staring woodenly at the disheveled, dusty woman who’d deserted her husband. caused a furor of pain and scandal, and now presented herself looking like a beautiful dust mop in the dowager’s front hall when it was all but too late. “Someone should take a strap to you,” she snapped.

“Ian will undoubtedly want to attend to that himself, but later. Now I need”-Elizabeth paused. trying to still her panic. to carry out her plan step by step-”I need to get into Westminster. I need your help, because they’ll not want to let a woman into the House of Lords.”

“The trial is in its sixth day, and I don’t mind telling you it is not going well.”

“Tell me later!” Elizabeth said in a commanding tone that would have done credit to the dowager herself. “Just think of someone with influence who will get me in there someone you know. I’ll do the rest once I’m inside.”

Belatedly, the dowager comprehended that regardless of her unforgivable behavior, Elizabeth was now Ian Thornton’s best hope for acquittal, and she finally galvanized into action. “Faulknerl” she barked. turning to address what seemed to be the staircase.

“Your grace?” asked the dowager’s personal maid who materialized on the balcony above.

“Take this young woman upstairs. Get her clothes brushed and her hair into order. Ramsey!” she snapped. motioning to the butler to follow her into the blue salon, where she sat down at her writing desk. “Take this note directly to Westminster. Tell them that it is from me and that it is to be given immediately to Lord Kyleton. He’ll be in his seat at the House of Lords.” She wrote quickly, then thrust the missive at the butler. “I’ve told him to stop the trial at once. I’ve also told him that we will be waiting for him in front of Westminster in my coach in one hour. He is to meet us there so that he can get us into the House.”

“At once, your grace,” said Ramsey, already bowing himself out of the room.

She followed him out. still issuing orders. “On the oft’ chance Kyleton has decided to be derelict in his duties and not attend the trial today, send a footman to his house, another to White’s, and another to the home of that actress be thinks no one knows be keeps in Florind Street. You,” she said, bending an icy eye on Elizabeth, “come with me. You have much to explain, madam, and you can do it while Faulkner attends to your appearance.”

“I am not.” Elizabeth said in a burst of frustrated anger, “going to think of my appearance at a time like this.”

The duchess’s brows shot into her hairline. “Have you come to persuade them that your husband is innocent?”

“Well, of course I have. I-”

“Then don’t shame him more than you already have! You look like a refugee from a dustbin in Bedlam. You’ll be lucky if they don’t hang you for putting them to all this trouble!” She started up the staircase with Elizabeth following slowly behind, listening to her tirade with only half her mind. “Now, if your misbegotten brother would do us the honor of showing himself, your husband might not have to spend the. night in a dungeon, which is exactly where Jordan thinks he’s going to land if the prosecutors have their way.”

Elizabeth stopped on the third step. “Will you please listen to me for a moment-” she began angrily.

“I listen to you all the way to Westminster,” the dowager snapped back sarcastically. “I daresay all London will be eager to hear what you have to say for yourself in tomorrow’s paper!”

“For the love of God!” Elizabeth cried at her back, I wondering madly to whom she could turn for speedier help.

An hour was an eternity! “I have not come merely to show that I’m alive. I can prove that Robert is alive and that he came to no harm at Ian’s hands, and-”

The duchess lurched around and started down the stair” case, her gaze searching Elizabeth’s face with a mixture of desperation and hope. “Faulknerl” she barked without turning, “bring whatever you need. You can attend Lady Thornton in the coach!”

Fifteen minutes after the duchess’s coachman pulled the horses to a teeth-jarring stop in front of Westminster, Lord Kyleton came bounding up to their coach with Ramsey “ trotting doggedly at his heels. “What on earth-” he began..

“Help us down,” the dowager said. “I’ll tell you what I can on the way inside. But first tell me how it’s going in there.”

“Not well. Badly-very badly for Kensington. The head prosecutor is in rare form. So far he’s managed to present a convincing argument that even though Lady Thornton is rumored to be alive, there’s no real proof that she is.”

He turned to help Elizabeth, whom he’d never met, down from the coach while continuing to summarize the prosecutors’ tactics to the duchess: “As an explanation for the rumors that Lady Thornton was seen at an inn and a posting house with an unknown man, the prosecutors are implying that Kensington hired a young couple to impersonate her and an alleged lover-an implication that sounds very plausible, since it was a long time before she was supposedly traced, and an equally long time before the jeweler came forward to give his statement. Lastly,” he finished as they rushed past the vaulted entryway, “the prosecutors have also managed to make it sound very logical that if she is still alive, she is obviously in fear for her life, or she would have shown herself by now. It follows, according to them, that Lady Thornton must know firsthand what a ruthless monster her husband is. And if he is a ruthless monster, then it follows that he’d be fully capable of having her brother killed. The brother’s disappearance is the crime they believe they have enough evidence on to send him to the gallows.”

“Well, the first part of that is no longer a worry. Have you stopped the trial?” the duchess said.

“Stopped the trial,” he expostulated. “My dear duchess, it would take the prince or God to stop this trial.”

“They will have to settle for Lady Thornton,” the dowager snapped.

Lord Kyleton swung around, his gaze riveting on Elizabeth, and his expression went from shock to relief to biting contempt. He withdrew his gaze and quickly turned, his hand reaching for a heavy door beside which sentries stood at attention. “Stay here. I’ll get a note to Kensington’s barrister that he is to meet us out here. Don’t speak to a soul or reveal this woman’s identity until Peterson Delham comes out here. I suspect he’ll want to spring this as a surprise at the right moment. “

Elizabeth stood stock still, braced against the pain of his blistering look, aware of its cause. In the eyes of everyone who’d followed the stories in the newspapers. Elizabeth was either dead or an adulteress who’d deserted her husband for an unidentified lover. Since she was here in the flesh and not dead, Lord Kyleton obviously believed the latter. And Elizabeth knew that every man in the cavernous chamber on the other side of that door-including her husband-was going to think exactly the same thing of her until she proved them wrong.

The duchess had hardly spoken at all in the coach during their ride here; she’d listened closely to Elizabeth’s explanation, but she obviously wanted it proven in that chamber before she accepted it herself. That withholding of faith by the dowager, who’d believed in Elizabeth when scarcely anyone else had, hurt Elizabeth far more than Lord Kyleton’s condemning glance.

A few minutes later Lord Kyleton returned to the hallway. “Peterson Delham was handed my note a moment ago. We’ll see what happens next.”

“Did you tell him Lady Thornton is here?” “No, your grace,” he said with strained patience. “In a trial, timing can mean everything. Delham must decide what he wants to do and when he wants to do it.”

Elizabeth felt like screaming with frustration at this new delay. Ian was on the other side of those doors, and she wanted to burst past them and let him see her so badly that it took a physical effort to stand rigidly still. She told herself that in a few minutes he would see her and hear what she had to say. Just a few more minutes before she could explain to him that it was Robert she’d been traveling with, not a lover. Once he understood that, he would surely forgive her-eventually-for the rest of the pain she’d caused him. Elizabeth didn’t care what the hundreds of lords in that chamber thought of her; she could endure their censure for as long as she lived, so long as Ian forgave her.

After what seemed like a lifetime, not a quarter-hour, the doors opened, and Peterson Delham, Ian’s barrister, strode into the hall. “What in God’s name do you want, Kyleton? I’ve got all I can do to keep this trial from becoming a massacre, and you drag me out here in the middle of the most damning testimony yet!”

Lord Kyleton looked uneasily at the few men strolling about the hall, then he cupped his hand near Peterson Delham’s ear and spoke rapidly. Delham’s gaze froze on Elizabeth’s face at the same instant his hand locked on Elizabeth’s arm, and he marched her forcibly across the hall toward a closed door. “We’ll talk in there,” he said tersely.

The room into which he hauled her contained a desk and six straight-back chairs; Delham went straight to the desk and flung himself into the chair behind it. Steepling his fingers. he gazed at Elizabeth over the tops of them, scrutinizing her every feature with eyes like blue daggers, and when he spoke his voice was like a blast of ice: “Lady Thornton, how very good of you to find the time to pay us a social call! Would it be too pushing of me to inquire as to your whereabouts during the last six weeks?”

At that moment Elizabeth’s only thought was that if Ian’s barrister felt this way about her, how much more hatred she would face when she confronted Ian himself. “I-I can imagine what you must be thinking. “ she began in a conciliatory manner.

He interrupted sarcastically, “Oh, I don’t think you can. madam. If you could, you’d be quite horrified at this moment.”

“I can explain everything,” Elizabeth burst out. “Really?” he drawled blightingly. “A pity you didn’t try do that six weeks ago!”

“I’m here to do it now,” Elizabeth cried, clinging to a slender thread of control.

“Begin at your leisure,” he drawled sarcastically. “There are only three hundred people across the hall awaiting your convenience.”

Panic and frustration made Elizabeth’s voice shake and her temper explode. “Now see here, sir, I have not traveled day and night so that I can stand here while you waste time insulting me! I came here the instant I read a paper and realized my husband is in trouble. I’ve come to prove I’m alive and unharmed, and that my brother is also alive!”

Instead of looking pleased or relieved he looked more snide than before. “Do tell, madam. I am on tenterhooks to hear the whole of it.”

“Why are you doing this?” Elizabeth cried. “For the love of heaven, I’m on your side!”

“Thank God we don’t have more like you.” Elizabeth steadfastly ignored that and launched into a swift but complete version of everything that had happened from the moment Robert came up behind her at Havenhurst. Finished, she stood up, ready to go in and tell everyone across the hall the same thing, but Delham continued to pillory her with his gaze, watching her in silence above his steepled fingertips. “Are we supposed to believe that Banbury tale?” he snapped at last. “Your brother is alive, but he isn’t here. Are we supposed to accept the word of a married woman who brazenly traveled as man and wife with another man-”

“With my brother. Elizabeth retorted, bracing her palms on the desk, as if by sheer proximity she could make him understand.

“So you want us to believe. Why, Lady Thornton? Why this sudden interest in your husband’s well-being?”

“Delham!” the duchess barked. “Are you mad? Anyone can see she’s telling the truth-even I-and I wasn’t inclined to believe a word she said when she arrived at my house! You are tearing into her for no reason-”

Without moving his eyes from Elizabeth, Mr. Delham said shortly, “Your grace, what I’ve been doing is nothing to what the prosecution will try to do to her story. If she can’t hold up in here, she hasn’t a chance out there’“

“I don’t understand this at all!” Elizabeth cried with panic and fury. “By being here I can disprove that my husband has done away with me. And I have a letter from Mrs. Hogan describing my brother in detail and stating that we were together. She will come here herself if you need her, only she is with child and couldn’t travel as quickly as I had to do. This is a trial to prove whether or not my husband is guilty of those crimes. I know the truth, and I can prove he isn’t.”

“You’re mistaken, Lady Thornton,” Delham said in a bitter voice. -’Because of its sensational nature and the wild conjecture in the press, this is no longer a quest for truth and justice in the House of Lords. This is now an amphitheater, and the prosecution is in the center of the stage, playing a starring role before an audience of thousands allover England who will read about it in the papers. They’re bent on giving a stellar performance, and they’ve been doing just that. Very well,” he said after a moment. “Let’s see how well you can deal with them.”

Elizabeth was so relieved to see him stand up at last that not even his last remarks about the prosecution’s motives had any weight with her. “I’ve told you everything exactly as it happened, and I’ve brought Mrs. Hogan’s letter here to verify the part about Robert. She will come here herself, as I said, if it’s necessary. She can describe him for everyone and even identify him from portraits I have of him-”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps you’ve described him well for her and paid her to do this,” he remarked, again assuming the prosecutor’s role. “Have you promised her money for coming here, by the way?”

“Yes, but-”

“Never mind, “ he clipped angrily. “It doesn’t matter.” “It doesn’t matter?” she repeated dumbly. “But Lord Kyleton said the prosecution’s best case, and most damning case, has always been about my brother.”

“As I’ve just told you,” he said coldly, “it is not my primary concern at this moment. I’m going to put you where you can hear what I’m saying for the next few moments without being seen by anyone. My assistant will come to escort you to the witness box.”

“Will-will you tell Ian I’m here?” she asked in a suffocated little voice.

“Absolutely not. I want him to have his first glimpse of you along with everyone else. I want them to see his initial reaction and judge its validity.” With the duchess following behind he led them to another door, then stepped aside, and Elizabeth realized they were in a secluded alcove where they could see everything and everyone without being seen. Her pulse began to race as her senses tried to take in the entire kaleidoscope of color and movement and sound. The long, chamber with its high, vaulted ceilings was buzzing loudly with hundreds of muted conversations taking place in the galleries above and on the benches below, where lords of the realm sat, waiting impatiently for the trial to continue.

Not far from their alcove the scarlet-robed and bewigged Lord Chancellor was seated on the traditional red Woolsack, from where he would preside over the trial.

Below and about him were more grim-faced men in scarlet robes and powdered wigs, including eight judges and the Crown’s prosecutors. Seated at another table were men whom Elizabeth presumed to be Ian’s solicitors and their clerks, more grim-faced men in scarlet robes and powdered wigs. Elizabeth watched Peterson Delham striding forward down the aisle, and she tried desperately to see around him. Surely Ian would be seated at whatever table... her frantic gaze skidded to a stop, riveting on his beloved face. His name rose to her lips, and she bit down to stop herself from crying out to him that she was there. At the same time a teary smile touched her lips, because everything about him-even the nonchalant way he was sitting-was so achingly, beautifully familiar. Other accused men must surely have sat at rigid and respectful attention, but not Ian, she realized with a pang of pride and a twinge of alarm. As if he intended to display his utter contempt for the legality, the validity, of the proceedings against him, Ian was sitting in the accused box, his right elbow resting on the polished wooden ledge that surrounded him, his booted foot propped atop his knee. He looked dispassionate, cold, and in complete control.

“I trust that you’re ready to begin again, Mr. Delham,” the Lord Chancellor said irritably, and the instant his voice rose the great hall grew instantly quiet. In the galleries above and on the benches below, lords stiffened with attention and turned alertly toward the Chancellor-everyone did. Everyone, Elizabeth noted, except for Ian, who continued to lounge in his chair, looking impatient now, as if the trial was a farce taking his time away from weightier matters.

“I apologize again for this delay, my lords,” Delham said after pausing to whisper something to the youngest of Ian’s solicitors, who was seated at a table near Delham. The young man arose abruptly and started around the perimeter of the room-heading, Elizabeth realized, straight toward her. Turning back to the Lord Chancellor, Delham said with extreme courtesy, “My Lord, if you will permit me a little leeway in procedure at this time, I believe we can resolve the entire issue at hand without further debate or calling of witnesses.”

“Explain your meaning, Mr. Delham,” he commanded curtly.

“I wish to call a surprise witness to the witness box and to be permitted to ask her only one question. Afterward my lord prosecutor may question her at any length, and to any degree he desires.”

The Lord Chancellor turned to consult with a man Elizabeth surmised must be the bead prosecutor the Attorney-General. “Have you any objection, Lord Sutherland?”

Lord Sutherland arose, a tall man with a hawk nose and thin lips, garbed in the requisite scarlet robes and powdered wig. “Certainly not, my lord,” he said in a tone that was almost snide. “We’ve waited for Mr. Delham twice already today. What is one more delay in the execution of English justice?”

“Bring your witness forward, Mr. Delham. And after this I’ll countenance no more delays in these proceedings. Is that understood?”

Elizabeth actually jumped when the young solicitor stepped into the alcove and touched her arm. Her eyes riveted on Ian, she started forward on wooden legs, her heart thundering against her ribs, and that was before Peterson Delham said in a voice that carried to the highest tiers of seats, “My lords, we call to the witness box the Marchioness of Kensington!”

Waves of shock and tension seemed to scream through the huge chamber. Everyone leaned forward in their seats, but Elizabeth didn’t notice that. Her eyes were on Ian; she saw his entire body stiffen, saw his gaze snap to her face... and then his face hardened into a mask of freezing rage, his amber eyes turning an icy, metallic gold.

Shaking beneath the blast of his gaze, Elizabeth walked into the witness box and repeated the oath that was being read to her. Then Peterson Delham was strolling forward. “Will you state your name, please. for the benefit and hearing of all within these chambers?”

Elizabeth swallowed and. tearing her gaze from Ian’s. said as loudly as she could, “Elizabeth Marie Cameron.”

Pandemonium erupted all around her. and white-wigged heads tipped toward one another while the Lord Chancellor called sharply for silence.

“Will the court permit me to verify this by asking the accused if this is indeed his wife?” Delham asked when order was restored.

The Lord Chancellor’s narrowed gaze swung from Elizabeth’s face to Ian. “Indeed.”

“Lord Thornton,” Delham asked calmly, watching Ian’s reaction, “is this woman before us the wife whose disappearance-whose murder-you have been accused of causing?”

Ian’s jaw clenched, and he nodded curtly. “For the information of those present, Lord Thornton has identified this witness as his wife. I have no further questions,”

Elizabeth clutched the wooden edge of the witness box. her widened eyes on Peterson Delham, unable to believe he wasn’t going to question her about Robert.

“I have several questions, my lords,” said the Attorney General, Lord Sutherland.

With trepidation Elizabeth watched Lord Sutherland stroll forward. but when he spoke she was staggered by the kindness in his voice. Even in her state of fright and desperation Elizabeth could actually feel the contempt, the male fury, being blasted at her from all around the chamber -everywhere but from him.

“Lady Thornton,” Lord Sutherland began. looking con. fused and almost relieved that she was here to clear up

matters. “Please. there is no need to look frightened. I have

only a few questions. Would you kindly tell us what brings you here at this late date, in what is obviously a state of great anxiety, to reveal your presence?”

“I-I came because I discovered that my husband is accused of murdering my brother and me,” Elizabeth said, trying to speak loudly enough to be heard across the echoing chamber.

“Where have you been until now?” “I’ve been in Helmshead with my brother, Rob-” “Did she say brother?” demanded one of the Crown’s solicitors. Lord Sutherland suffered the same shock that rocketed through the chambers causing another outbreak of conversation, which in turn caused the Lord Chancellor to call for order. The prosecutor’s shock, however, did not last very long. Recovering almost at once, he said, “You have come here to tell us that not only are you alive and unharmed,” he summarized thoughtfully, “but that you have been with the brother who has been missing for two years-the brother of whom no one has been able to find a trace-not your investigator, Mr. Wordsworth, nor the Crown’s investigators, nor even those hired by your husband?”

Elizabeth’s startled gaze flew to Ian and ricocheted in alarm from the glacial hatred on his face. “Yes, that’s correct.”

“And where is this brother?” For emphasis he made a sweeping gesture and looked around as if searching for Robert. “Have you brought him so that we can see him as we’re seeing you-alive and unharmed?”

“No,” Elizabeth said. “I haven’t, but-” “Please just answer my questions,” Lord Sutherland admonished. For a long moment he looked nonplussed, then he said, “Lady Thornton, I believe we would all like to hear why you left the safety and comfort of your home six weeks ago, fled in secrecy from your husband, and have now returned at this last desperate hour to plead that we have all somehow made a mistake in thinking your life or your brother’s life could be in danger. Begin at the beginning, if you please.”

Elizabeth was so relieved that she was being given a chance to tell her story that she related it verbatim, just as she’d rehearsed it in the coach over and over again carefully leaving out parts that would make Robert seem like a liar or a madman bent on having Ian hang for murders he didn’t commit. With careful, rehearsed words she swiftly painted Robert as she truly saw him-a young man who had been driven by pain and deprivation to wrongly seek vengeance against her husband; a young man whom her husband had saved from the gallows or lifelong imprisonment by charitably having him put on a ship and taken abroad; a young man who had then suffered, through his own unintentional actions, great trials and even vicious beatings for which he had wrongly blamed Ian Thornton.

Because she was desperate and frightened and had practiced the speech so many times, Elizabeth delivered her testimony with the flat unemotionalism of a rehearsed speech, and in a surprisingly short time she was done. The only time she faltered was when she had to confess that she had actually believed her husband guilty of her brother’s beatings. During that awful moment her gaze slid penitently to Ian, and the altered expression on his face was more terrifying because it was bored-as if she were a very poor actress playing a role in an exceedingly boring play he was being forced to watch.

Lord Sutherland broke the deafening silence that followed her testimony with a short, pitying laugh, and suddenly his eyes were piercing hers and his raised voice was hammering at her, “My dear woman, I have one question for you, and it is much like my earlier one. I want to know why.”

For an inexplicable reason, Elizabeth felt icy fear starting to quake through her, as if her heart understood that something awful was happening-that she had not been believed, and he was now going to make absolutely certain that she would never be. “Why-why what?” she stammered.

“Why have you come here to tell us such an amazing tale in hopes of saving the life of this man from whom you admit you fled weeks ago?”

Elizabeth looked beseechingly to Peterson Delham, who shrugged as if in resigned disgust. In her petrified state she remembered his words in the anteroom, and now she understood them: “What I’ve been doing to her is nothing to what the prosecution will do to her story.... This is no longer a quest for truth and justice... this is an amphitheater, and the prosecution is bent on giving a stellar performance....

“Lady Thornton!” the prosecutor rapped out, and he began firing questions at her so rapidly that she could scarcely keep track of them. “Tell us the truth, Lady Thornton. Did that man”-his finger pointed accusingly to where Ian was sitting. out of Elizabeth’s vision-”find you and bribe you to come back here and tell us this absurd tale? Or did he find you and threaten your life if you didn’t come here today? Isn’t it true that you have no idea where your brother is? Isn’t it true that by your own admission a few moments ago you fled in terror for your life from this cruel man? Isn’t it true that you are afraid of further cruelty from him-”

“No!” Elizabeth cried. Her gaze raced over the male faces around and above her, and she could see not one that looked anything but either dubious or contemptuous of the truths she had told.

“No further questions!” “Wait!” In that infinitesimal moment of time Elizabeth realized that if she couldn’t convince them she was telling the truth, she might be able to convince them she was too stupid to make up such a lie. “Yes, my lord,” her voice rang out. “I cannot deny it-about his cruelty, I mean.”

Sutherland swung around. his eyes lighting up, and renewed excitement throbbed in the great chamber. “You admit this is a cruel man?”

“Yes, I do,” Elizabeth emphatically declared. “My dear, poor woman, could you tell us-all of us some examples of his cruelty?”

“Yes, and when I do, I know you will all understand how truly cruel my husband can be and why I ran off with Robert-my brother, that is.” Madly, she tried to think of half-truths that would not constitute perjury, and she remembered Ian’s words the night he came looking for her at Havenhurst.

“Yes, go on.” Everyone in the galleries leaned forward in unison, and Elizabeth had the feeling the whole building was tipping toward her. “When was the last time your husband was cruel?”

“Well, just before I left he threatened to cut off my allowance-I had overspent it, and I hated to admit it.”

“You were afraid he would beat you for it?”

“No, I was afraid he wouldn’t give me more until next quarter!”

Someone in the gallery laughed, then the sound was instantly choked. Sutherland started to frown darkly, but Elizabeth plunged ahead. “My husband and I were discussing that very thing-my allowance, I mean-two nights before I ran away with Bobby.”

“And did he become abusive during that discussion? Is that the night your maid testified that you were weeping?”

“Yes, I believe it was!” “Why were you weeping, Lady Thornton?” The galleries tipped further toward her.

“I was in a terrible taking,” Elizabeth said, stating a fact. “I wanted to go away with Bobby. In order to do it, I had to sell my lovely emeralds, which Lord Thornton gave me.” Seized with inspiration, she leaned confiding inches toward the Lord Chancellor upon the woolsack. “I knew he would buy me more, you know.” Startled laughter rang out from the galleries, and it was the encouragement Elizabeth desperately needed.

Lord Sutherland, however, wasn’t laughing. He sensed that she was trying to dupe him, but with all the arrogance typical of most of his sex, he could not believe she was smart enough to actually attempt, let alone accomplish it. “I’m supposed to believe you sold your emeralds out of some freakish start-out of a frivolous desire to go off with a man you claim was your brother?”

“Goodness, I don’t know what you are supposed to believe. I only know I did it.”

“Madam!” he snapped. “You were on the verge of tears. according to the jeweler to whom you sold them, If you were in a frivolous mood, why were you on the verge of tears?”

Elizabeth gave him a vacuous look. “I liked my emeralds.”

Guffaws erupted from the floor to the rafters. Elizabeth waited until they were finished before she leaned forward and said in a proud, confiding tone, “My husband often says that emeralds match my eyes. Isn’t that sweet?”

Sutherland was beginning to grind his teeth, Elizabeth noted. Afraid to look at Ian, she cast a quick glance at Peterson Delham and saw him watching her alertly with something that might well have been admiration.

“So!” Sutherland boomed in a voice that was nearly a rant. “We are now supposed to believe that you weren’t really afraid of your husband?”

“Of course I was. Didn’t I just explain how very cruel he can be?” she asked with another vacuous look. “Naturally, when Bobby showed me his back I couldn’t help thinking that a man who would threaten to cut off his wife’s allowance would be capable of anything-”

Loud guffaws lasted much longer this time, and even after they died down, Elizabeth noticed derisive grins where before there had been condemnation and disbelief. “And,” Sutherland boomed, when he could be heard again, “we are also supposed to believe that you ran off with a man you claim is your brother and have been cozily in England somewhere-”

Elizabeth nodded emphatically and helpfully provided, “In Helmshead-it is the sweetest village by the sea. I was having a very pleas-very peaceful time until I read the paper and realized my husband was on trial. Bobby didn’t think I should come back at all, because he was still provoked about being put on one of my husband’s ships. But I thought I ought.”

“And what,” Sutherland gritted, “do you claim is the reason you decided you ought?”

“I didn’t think Lord Thornton would like being hanged-” More mirth exploded through the House, and Elizabeth had to wait for a full minute before she could continue. “And so I gave Bobby my money, and he went on to have his own agreeable life, as I said earlier.”

“Lady Thornton,” Sutherland said’ in an awful, silky voice that made Elizabeth shake inside, “does the word ‘perjury’ have any meaning to you?”

“I believe,” Elizabeth said, “it means to tell a lie in a place like this.”

“Do you know how the Crown punishes perjurers? They are sentenced to gaol, and they live their lives in a dark, dank cell. Would you want that to happen to you?”

“It certainly doesn’t sound very agreeable,” Elizabeth said. “Would I be able to take my jewels and gowns?”

Shouts of laughter shook the chandeliers that hung from the vaulted ceilings.

“No, you would not!” “Then I’m certainly happy I haven’t lied.” Sutherland was no longer certain whether he’d been duped, but he sensed that he’d lost his effort to make Elizabeth sound like a clever, scheming adulteress or a terrified, intimidated wife. The bizarre story of her flight with her brother had now taken on a certain absurd credibility, and he realized it with a sinking heart and a furious glower. “Madam, would you perjure yourself to protect that man?” His arm swung toward Ian, and Elizabeth’s gaze followed helplessly. Her heart froze with terror when she saw that, if anything, Ian looked more bored, more coldly remote and unmoved than he had before.

“I asked you,” Sutherland boomed, “if you would perjure yourself to save that man from going to the gallows next month.”

Elizabeth would have died to save him. Tearing her gaze from Ian’s terrifying face, she pinned a blank smile on her face. “Next month? What a disagreeable thing to suggest! Why, next month is-is Lady Northam’s ball, and Kensington very specifically promised that we would go,” thunderous guffaws exploded, rocking the rafters, drowning out Elizabeth’s last words-”and that I could have a new fur.”

Elizabeth waited, sensing that she had succeeded, not because her performance had been so convincing, but because many of the lords had wives who never thought beyond the next gown or ball or fur, and so she seemed entirely believable to them.

“No further questions!” Sutherland rapped out, casting a contemptuous glance over her.

Peterson Delham slowly arose, and though his expression was carefully blank, even bemused, Elizabeth sensed rather than saw that he was silently applauding her. “Lady Thornton,” he said in formal tones, “is there anything else you have to say to this court?”

She realized that he wanted her to say something else, and in her state of relieved exhaustion Elizabeth couldn’t think what it was. She said the only thing she could think of; and she knew soon after she began speaking that he was pleased. “Yes, my lord. I wish to say how very sorry I am for the bother Bobby and I have caused everyone. I was wrong to believe him and to dash off without a word to anyone. And it was wrong of him to remain so angry with my husband all this time over what was, after all, rather an act of kindness

on his part.” She sensed that she was going too far, sounding

too sensible, and she hastily added, “If Kensington had had Bobby tossed into gaol for trying to shoot him, I daresay Bobby would have found it nearly as disagreeable a place as I. He is,” she confided, “a very fastidious person!”

“Lady Thornton!” the Lord Chancellor said when the fresh waves of laughter had diminished to ripples. “You may step down.” At the scathing tone in his voice Elizabeth dared a look in his direction, and then she almost missed her step when she saw the furious scorn on his face. The other lords might think her an incorrigible henwit, but the Lord Chancellor looked as if he would personally have enjoyed throttling her.

On shaking limbs Elizabeth permitted Peterson Delham’s assistant to escort her from the hall, but when they came to the far wall and he reached for the door leading to the corridor, Elizabeth shook her head and looked imploringly into his eyes. “Please,” she whispered, already watching over his shoulder, trying to see what would.happen next, “let me stay over there in the alcove. Don’t make me wait out there, wondering. “ she begged, watching a man striding swiftly down the long aisle from the main doors at the back of the chambers, heading straight for Peterson Delham.

“Very well,” he agreed uneasily after a moment, “but don’t make a sound. This will all be over soon,” he added consolingly.

“Do you mean. “ she whispered, her gaze glued to the man walking up to Peterson Delham, “that I did well enough up there for them to release my husband now?”

“No, my lady. Hush, now. And don’t worry.” Elizabeth was more puzzled than worried at that moment, because for the first time since she’d seen him, Ian seemed to take an interest in something that was happening. He glanced briefly toward the man talking to Peterson Delham, and for a split second she actually thought she saw a look of grim amusement flicker on Ian’s impassive face. Following the assistant into the alcove, she stood beside the dowager, unaware of the gruff, approving look that lady.was giving her. “What’s happening?” she asked the assistant when he evidenced no sign of needing to return to his seat.

“He’s going to pull it on,” the young man said, grinning. “My Lord Chancellor,” Peterson Delham raised his voice as he nodded quickly at the man who’d been talking to him. “With the court’s permission-indulgence, I might say-I would like to present one more witness who, we believe, will provide indisputable proof that no harm came to Robert Cameron as a direct or indirect result of the time he spent on board the ship Arianna. If this proof is acceptable to the court, then I feel confident this entire matter can be put to rest in short order.”

“I feel no such confidence’“ snapped Lord Sutherland. Even from there Elizabeth could see the Lord Chancellor’s profile harden as he turned to glance at the prosecutor.

“Let us hope for the best,” the Lord Chancellor told Lord Sutherland. “This trial has already exceeded the limits of decorum and taste, and that is due in no small part, my lord, to you.” Glancing at Peterson Delham, he said irritably, “Proceed.”

“Thank you, my Lord Chancellor. We call to the witness box Captain George Granthome.”

Elizabeth’s breath stopped as a suspicion of what was going to happen was born in her mind. From the side of the room the doors opened, and a tall, muscular man came striding down the aisle. Behind him a cluster of burly, tanned, and weathered men gathered as if waiting to be called. Seamen. She’d seen enough fishermen in Helmshead to recognize those unmistakable features. The man named Captain Granthome took the witness box, and from the moment he began to answer Peterson Delham’s questions, Elizabeth realized Ian’s acquittal of Robert’s “death” had been a foregone conclusion before she ever walked in. Captain Granthome testified to Robert’s treatment on board the Arianna and to the fact that he had escaped when the ship made an unscheduled stop for repairs. And he smoothly managed to indicate that his entire crew was also prepared to testify. It hit Elizabeth then that all her terror during the trip down, all her fears while she testified, were actually groundless. With Ian able to prove that Robert had come to no harm at his hands, Elizabeth’s disappearance would have lost all sinister implications.

She rounded in angry stupefaction on the grinning assistant, who was listening attentively to the captain’s testimony. “Why on earth didn’t you say in the papers what had happened to my brother? Obviously my husband and Mr. Delham knew it. And you must have known you could provide the captain and crew to prove it.”

Reluctantly, the assistant tore his gaze from the bench and said softly, “It was your husband’s idea to wait until the trial was under way before springing his defense on them.”

“But why?”

“Because our illustrious prosecutor and his staff showed no sign of dropping the case no matter what we claimed. They believed their evidence was enough for a conviction, and if we’d told them about the Arianna, they’d have kept stalling for time to look for more evidence to disprove Captain Granthome’s potential testimony. Moreover, the Arianna and his crew were on a voyage, and we weren’t completely certain we could locate them and get them back here in time to testify. Now our frustrated Lord Prosecutor has nothing readily at hand to use as rebuttal, because he didn’t anticipate this. And if your brother is never seen again, there’s still no point in his digging about for more circumstantial, incriminating evidence, because even if he found it-which he won’t-your husband cannot be tried twice for the same crime.”

Now Elizabeth understood why Ian had looked bored and disinterested, even though she still couldn’t comprehend why he’d never softened when she’d explained it was Robert she was with, not a lover, and offered the proof of Mrs. Hogan’s letter and even the promise of her testimony.

“Your husband orchestrated the entire maneuver,” the assistant said, looking admiringly at Ian, who was being addressed by the Lord Chancellor. “Planned his own defense. Brilliant man, your husband. Oh, and by the by, Mr. Delham said to tell you that you were splendid up there.”

From that point on, the rest of the proceedings seemed to move with the swiftness of a necessary, but meaningless ritual. Obviously realizing that he hadn’t a chance of discrediting the testimony of the Arianna’s entire crew Lord Sutherland put only a few perfunctory questions to Captain Granthome, and then allowed him to be dismissed. After that, there remained only the closing statements of both barristers, and then the Lord Chancellor called for a vote.

In renewed tension, Elizabeth listened and watched as the Lord High Steward called out the name of each lord. One after another, each peer arose, placed his right hand upon his breast, and declared either “Not guilty upon my honor,” or “Guilty upon my honor.” The final vote was 324 to 14, in favor of acquittal. The dissenters, Peterson Delham’s assistant whispered to Elizabeth were men who were either biased against Ian for personal reasons, or else they doubted the reliability of her testimony and Captain Granthome’s.

Elizabeth scarcely heard that. All she cared about was that the majority were for acquittal, and that the Lord Chancellor had finally turned to pronounce judgment and was speaking.

“Lord Thornton,” the Lord Chancellor was saying to Ian as Ian slowly rose, “it is the finding of this commission that you are innocent of all charges against you. You are free to leave.” He paused as if debating something, then said, in what struck Elizabeth as a discordant note of humor, “I would like to suggest informally that if it is your intention to abide under the same roof as your wife tonight, you seriously reconsider that notion. In your place I would be sorely tempted to commit the act that you have already been accused of committing. Although,” he added as laughter began to rumble through the galleries, “I feel certain you could count on an acquittal here on grounds of justifiable cause.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes against the shame that she hadn’t let herself feel over her testimony. She told herself that it was better to be mistaken for an absurd henwit than a scheming adulteress, but when she opened them again and saw Ian striding up the aisle, away from her, she no longer cared one way or another.

“Come, Elizabeth,” the dowager said, gently putting her hand on Elizabeth’s arm. “I’ve no doubt the press will be out there. The sooner we leave, the better our chance to evade them.”

That proved to be pure whimsy, Elizabeth saw as soon as they emerged into the sunlight. The press, and a mob of spectators who’d come to hear firsthand news of the day’s trial, had gathered in front of Ian’s path. Instead of trying to dash around them Ian shouldered his way through them, his jaw clenched. Drowning in agony, Elizabeth watched as they called epithets and accusations at him. “Oh, my God,” she said, “look what I’ve done to him.”

The moment Ian’s coach thundered away, the crowd turned, looking for new prey as the lords began emerging from the building.

“It’s her!” a man from the Gazette who wrote about the doings of the ton shouted, pointing toward Elizabeth, and suddenly the press and the mob of spectators were descending on her in terrifying numbers. “Quick, Lady Thornton,” an unfamiliar young man said urgently, dragging her back into the building, “follow me. There’s another way out around the corner.”

Elizabeth obeyed automatically, clutching the duchess’s arm as they plowed back through the lords who were heading for the doors. “Which coach is yours?” he asked, looking from one to the other.

The duchess described her vehicle, and he nodded. “Stay here. Don’t go out there. I’ll have your coachman drive around this side to fetch you.”

Ten minutes later the duchess’s coach had made its way to the side, and they were inside its safety. Elizabeth leaned out the door. “Thank you,” she told the young man, waiting for him to give his name.

He tipped his hat. “Thomas Tyson, Lady Thornton, from the Times. No, don’t look panicked,” he said reassuringly. “I haven’t any notion of trying to barge in there with you now. Accosting ladies in coaches is not at all my style.” For emphasis he closed the door of the coach.

“In that case,” Elizabeth told him through the open window with her best attempt at a grateful smile, “I’m afraid you’re not going to do very well as a journalist.”

“Perhaps you’d consent to talk to me another time-in private?”

“Perhaps,” Elizabeth said vaguely as their coachman sent the horses off at a slow trot, wending their way around the vehicles already crowding into the busy street.

Closing her eyes, Elizabeth leaned her head wearily against the squabs. The image of Ian being chased by a mob and called “Murderer!” and “Wife killer!” dug viciously into Elizabeth’s battered senses. In an aching whisper she asked the duchess, “How long have they been doing that to him? Mobbing him and cursing him?”

“Over a month.” Elizabeth drew a shattered breath, her voice filled with tears. “Do you have any idea how proud Ian is?” she whispered brokenly. “He is so proud... and I made an accused murderer out of him. Tomorrow he’ll be a public joke.”

The dowager hesitated and then said brusquely, “He is a strong man who has never cared for anyone’s opinion except perhaps yours and Jordan’s and a very few other’s. In any case, I daresay you, not Kensington, will look the fool in tomorrow’s papers.”

“Will you take me to the house?” “The one on Promenade?”

Elizabeth was momentarily shocked out of her misery. “No, of course not. Our house on Upper Brook Street.”

“I do not think,” the duchess said sternly, “that is a wise idea. You heard what the Lord Chancellor said.”

Elizabeth disagreed, with only a tremor of doubt. “I would much rather face Ian now than dread doing it for an entire night.”

The dowager, obviously determined to give Ian time to get his temper under control, remembered a pressing need to stop at the home of an ailing friend, and then at another. By the time they finally arrived in Upper Brook Street it was nearly dark, and Elizabeth was quaking with nerves-and that was before their own butler looked at her as if she were beneath contempt. Obviously Ian had returned, and the servants’ grapevine already had the news of Elizabeth’s testimony in the House of Lords. “Where is my husband, Dolton?” she asked him.

“In his study,” Dolton said, stepping back from the door.

Elizabeth’s gaze riveted on the trunks already standing in the hall and the servants carrying more of them downstairs. Her heart hammering wildly, she walked swiftly down the hall and into Ian’s study, coming to a halt a few feet inside, pausing to gather her wits before he turned and saw her. He was holding a drink in his hand, staring down into the fireplace. He’d removed his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves, and Elizabeth saw with a fresh pang of remorse that he was even thinner than he’d seemed in the House. She tried to think how to begin, and because she was so overwhelmed with emotions and explanations she tackled the least important-but most immediate-problem first, the trunks in the hall. “Are-are you leaving?”

She saw his shoulders stiffen at the sound of her voice, and when he turned and looked at her, she could almost feel the effort he was exerting to keep his rage under control. “You’re leaving,” he bit out.

In silent, helpless protest Elizabeth shook her head and started slowly across the carpet, dimly aware that this was worse, much worse than merely standing up in front of several hundred lords in the House.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” he warned softly. “Do-do what?” Elizabeth said shakily.

“Get any nearer to me.” She stopped cold, her mind registering the physical threat in his voice, refusing to believe it, her gaze searching his granite features.

“Ian,” she began, stretching her hand out in a gesture of mute appeal, then letting it fall to her side when her beseeching move got nothing from him but a blast of contempt from his eyes. “I realize,” she began again, her voice trembling with emotion while she tried to think how to begin to diffuse his wrath, “that you must despise me for what I’ve done.” “You’re right.” “But,” Elizabeth continued bravely, “I am prepared to do anything, anything to try to atone for it. No matter how it must seem to you now, I never stopped loving-”

His voice cracked like a whiplash. “Shut up!” “No, you have to listen to me,” she said, speaking more quickly now, driven by panic and an awful sense of foreboding that nothing she could do or say would ever make him soften. “I never stopped loving you, even when I-”

“I’m warning you, Elizabeth,” he said in a murderous voice, “shut up and get out! Get out of my house and out of my life!”,

“Is-is it Robert? I mean, do you not believe Robert was the man I was with?”

“I don’t give a damn who the son of a bitch was.” Elizabeth began to quake in genuine terror, because he

meant that-she could see that he did. “It was Robert, exactly as I said,” she continued haltingly. “I can prove it to you beyond any doubt, if you’ll let me.”

He laughed at that, a short, strangled laugh that was more deadly and final than his anger had been. “Elizabeth, I wouldn’t believe you if I’d seen you with him. Am I making myself clear? You are a consummate liar and a magnificent actress.”

“If you’re saying that be-because of the foolish things I said in the witness box, you s-surely must know why I did it.”

His contemptuous gaze raked her. “Of course I know why you did it! It was a means to an end-the same reason you’ve had for everything you do. You’d sleep with a snake if it gave you a means to an end.”

“Why are you saying this?” she cried.

“Because on the same day your investigator told you I was responsible for your brother’s disappearance, you stood beside me in a goddamned church and vowed to love me unto death! You were willing to marry a man you believed could be a murderer, to sleep with a murderer.”

“You don’t believe that! I can prove it somehow-I know I can, if you’ll just give me a chance-”

“No.”

“Ian-”

“I don’t want proof.”

“I love you,” she said brokenly.

“I don’t want your ‘love,’ and I don’t want you. Now-” He glanced up when Dolton knocked on the door.

“Mr. Larimore is here, my lord.”

“Tell him I’ll be with him directly,” Ian announced, and Elizabeth gaped at him. “You-you’re going to have a business meeting now?”

“Not exactly, my love. I’ve sent for Larimore for a different reason this time.”

Nameless fright quaked down Elizabeth’s spine at his tone. “What-what other reason would you have for summoning a solicitor at a time like this?”

“I’m starting divorce proceedings, Elizabeth.” “You’re what?” she breathed, and she felt the room whirl. “On what grounds-my stupidity?”

“Desertion,” he bit out. At that moment Elizabeth would have said or done anything to reach him. She could not believe, actually could not comprehend that the tender, passionate man who had loved and teased her could be doing this to her-without listening to reason, without even giving her a chance to explain. Her eyes filled with tears of love and terror as she tried brokenly to tease him. “You’re going to look extremely silly, darling, if you claim desertion in court, because I’ll be standing right behind you claiming I’m more than willing to keep my vows.”

Ian tore his gaze from the love in her eyes. “If you aren’t out of this house in three minutes,” he warned icily, “I’ll change the grounds to adultery.”

“I have not committed adultery.” “Maybe not, but you’ll have a hell of a time proving you haven’t done something. I’ve had some experience in that area. Now, for the last time, get out of my life. It’s over.” To prove it, he walked over and sat down at his desk, reaching behind him to pull the bell cord. “Bring Larimore in,” he instructed Dolton, who appeared almost instantly.

Elizabeth stiffened, thinking wildly for some way to reach him before he took irrevocable steps to banish her. Every fiber of her being believed he loved her. Surely, if one loved another deeply enough to be hurt like this... It hit her then, what he was doing and why, and she turned on him while the vicar’s story about Ian’s actions after his parents’ death seared her mind. She, however, was not a Labrador retriever who could be shoved away and out of his life.

Turning, she walked over to his desk, leaning her damp palms on it, waiting until he was forced to meet her gaze.

Looking like a courageous, heartbroken angel. Elizabeth faced her adversary across his desk, her voice shaking with love. “Listen carefully to me, darling, because I’m giving you fair warning that I won’t let you do this to us. You gave

me your love, and I will not let you take it away. The harder you try, the harder I’ll fight you. I’ll haunt your dreams at night, exactly the way you’ve haunted mine every night I was away from you. You’ll lie awake in bed at night, wanting me, and you’ll know I’m lying awake, wanting you. And when you cannot stand it anymore,” she promised achingly, “you’ll come back to me, and I’ll be there, waiting for you. I’ll cry in your arms, and I’ll tell you I’m sorry for everything I’ve done, and you’ll help me find a way to forgive myself-”

“Damn you!” he bit out, his face white with fury. “What does it take to make you stop?”

Elizabeth flinched from the hatred in the voice she loved and drew a shaking breath, praying she could finish without starting to cry. “I’ve hurt you terribly, my love, and I’ll hurt you again during the next fifty years. And you are going to hurt me, Ian-never, I hope, as much as you are hurting me now. But if that’s the way it has to be, then I’ll endure it, because the only alternative is to live without you, and that is no life at all. The difference is that I know it, and you don’t-not yet.”

“Are you finished now?” “Not quite,” she said, straightening at the sound of footsteps in the hall. “There’s one more thing,” she informed him, lifting her quivering chin. “I am not a Labrador retriever! You cannot put me out of your life, because I won’t stay.”

When she left, Ian stared at the empty room that had been alive with her presence but moments before, wondering what in hell she meant by her last comment. He glanced toward the door as Larimore walked in, then he nodded curtly toward the chairs in front of his desk, silently ordering the solicitor to sit down.

“I gathered from your message,” Larimore said quietly, opening his legal case, “that you now wish to proceed with the divorce?”

Ian hesitated a moment while Elizabeth’s heartbroken words whirled through his mind, juxtaposed with the lies and omissions that had begun on the night they met and continued right up to their last night together. He recalled the torment of the first weeks after she’d left him and compared it to the cold, blessed numbness that had now taken its place. He looked at the solicitor, who was waiting for his answer.

And he nodded.