“Are you asking me to believe that the letters I have had from you were not written by you?” interrupted Ravenscar.

“I don’t care what you believe!” replied Miss Grantham, a good deal upset. “Of course I did not write them! I did not want to write to you at all, only Lucius Kennet persuaded me to let him answer that horrid letter of yours. And he did ask me to try to trick you into meeting me, so that he could kidnap you, but I would not do such a thing, and so I told him! Oh, I was never so provoked! I see it all now! That was why he wanted to answer your letter in his own hand, so that you should think it was my writing!” The colour rushed up again into her face; she looked remorsefully down at Ravenscar, and said: “Indeed, I am very sorry, and I quite see that you might be excessively angry with me. The truth is that I told Lucius Kennet and Silas to kidnap you for me, but I thought they could do it without using any horrid stratagems! That was fair enough! There could be no possible objection, for how could I kidnap you myself?”

Mr Ravenscar was sitting in a position of considerable discomfort, with cords cutting into his wrists and ankles; and his head was aching as well, but his lips twitched at this, and he burst out laughing. “Oh, no objection at all, Miss Grantham!”

“Well, I think it was perfectly fair,” argued Miss Grantham reasonably. “I am very sorry you have been tricked, but what is to be done? It cannot be helped now.”

“What do you propose to do with me?” inquired Ravenscar.

“I don’t mean to hurt you,” she assured him. “In fact, I told Lucius I did not wish them to hurt you more than was needful, and I do hope they did not?”

“Oh, not at all, ma’am! I like being hit over the head with cudgels!” he said sardonically.

Mr Wantage, who had come back into the cellar in time to hear this remark, said: “I disremember when I’ve been more put-about by anything.” He set down the glass he carried, and proceeded to draw the cork out of a dusty bottle. “I’ve brought a bottle of the good burgundy, Miss Deb.”

“Yes, of course,” Deborah said. “You will feel more the thing when you have drunk a little of it, Mr Ravenscar.”

“I should feel still more the thing if I had a hand free,” replied Ravenscar grimly.

“Don’t you go a-letting of him loose, Miss Deb!” Silas warned her. “We’ll keep them bunches of fives of his fast behind his back, or you’ll be having a mill in the cellar, which your aunt won’t like. Here you are, sir!”

Mr Ravenscar drank the wine which was being held to his lips, and once more looked Miss Grantham over. “Well?” he said. “What now, ma’am?”

“You’d best make haste, Miss Deb,” said Wantage. “I’ll have to get back to the front-door, or we shall have I-dunno-who walking into the house.”

“I don’t need you, Silas,” Deborah replied. “You may go now, and leave me to tell Mr Ravenscar what I mean to do.”

Silas looked a little doubtful, but when his mistress assured him that she had no intention of releasing Mr Ravenscar from his bonds, he consented to withdraw, reminding her, however, to be sure to lock the door securely when she left the cellar.

“Will you have some more wine, sir?” asked Deborah, apparently conscious of her duties as his hostess.

“No,” said Ravenscar baldly.

“You are not very polite!” she said.

“I do not feel very polite. If you cam to untie my ankles, however, I will engage to offer you my chair.”

Miss Grantham looked rather distressed. “Indeed, I fear you must be very uncomfortable,” she owned.

“I am.”

“Well, I do not see what harm there can be in setting your legs free,” she decided, and knelt down on the stone floor to wrestle with Silas Wantage’s knots. “Oh dear, they have bound you shockingly tightly!”

“I am well aware of that, ma’am.”

She looked up. “It is of no use to sound so cross. I dare say you would like to murder me, but you should not have tried to threaten me. It was very ungentlemanly of you, let me tell you; and if you thought I could be so easily frightened into giving up your cousin, you see now how mistaken you were! I have brought you here to get that mortgage and those dreadful bills from you.”

He laughed shortly. “You have missed the mark, Miss Grantham. I don’t carry them upon my person.”

“Oh no! But you can write a letter to your servants, directing them to place the bills in a messenger’s hands,” she pointed out.

He looked down at her bent head. “My good girl, you’ve mistaken your man! Bring on your thumbscrew and your rack! You will get nothing out of me.”

She tugged at the knot. “I don’t mean you the least harm, sir, I assure you. No one will hurt you in this house. Only you will not leave it until those bills are in my hands.”

“Evidently my stay in your cellar is to be a prolonged one.”

“Oh, I hardly think so!” she said, her eyes glinting up at him for an instant. “I have not forgotten, if you have, that you are driving in an important race tomorrow.”

He stiffened, his mouth shutting hard. She pulled the last knot undone, and stood up. “I trust you are more at ease now, sir,” she said kindly. “But I am persuaded you will not languish for very long in this horrid cellar. So noted a sportsman as Mr Ravenscar will scarcely let it be said of him that he dared not match his famous greys against Sir James Filey’s pair: After such a prodigious bet, too!”

“You doxy!” he said deliberately.

She flushed, but shrugged her shoulders. “Calling hard names won’t help you, Mr Ravenscar. You stand to lose twenty-five thousand pounds on tomorrow’s race.”

“What do you think I care for that?” he demanded harshly.

“Not very much, perhaps. I think you care a good deal your reputation, and will not readily lose by default.”

“You may go to the devil!” he said.

“You cannot have considered your position, Mr Ravenscar. No one but myself, and Lucius Kennet, and Silas, knows your whereabouts. If you think to be rescued, you will be disappointed. There is nothing for you to do but to agree to terms.”

“You may have those bills when, and when only, I am satisfied that my cousin has no longer any intention of marrying you,” said Ravenscar. “There is no pressure you can bring bear on me that could prevail upon me to yield one inch such a Jezebel as you are!”

“I feel sure you will change your mind when you have time to reflect, sir. Only fancy how odious Sir James would be if you failed to keep your appointment tomorrow. I do think that a man of your pride could bear that!”

“More easily than to be worsted by a jade, ma’am!” he retorted, stretching his long legs out before him, and crossing his ankles. “You will find it very inconvenient to keep me in you cellar indefinitely, I imagine, but I must warn you that I have not the smallest intention of leaving it, except upon my terms.”

“But you cannot let the race go like that!” cried Deb aghast.

“Oh, have you backed me to win?” he said mockingly. “Which is much the worse for you, my girl!”

“No, I have not, and I do not care if you win or lose!” so Deborah. “There is nothing that you can do that I care for the least, for I find you beneath contempt! But this is foolish and you know it!”

“I can see that it is very inconvenient folly,” he agreed maddeningly cool.

She stamped her foot. “You will have the whole town sneering at you!”

“I will bear that for the pleasure of seeing you in Bridewell.”

“You will not see me in Bridewell!” she retorted. “Do not imagine that I did not take that into account when I had you kidnapped! You may be poltroon enough to threaten a female with ruin, but you are a great deal too stiff-necked to admit to the world that you were done-up by a female, and locked him a cellar, and kept there by her!”

“How well you think you know me!” said Ravenscar.

She checked the hot words that rose to her tongue, and picked up the branch of candles. “I will leave you to reflect,” she said coldly. “When you have thought the matter over, you will no doubt see it in another light.”

“Don’t raise your hopes, ma’am! I can be quite as obstinate as you.” He watched her ironically, as she moved towards the door. “Why did you refuse my first offer?” he asked abruptly.

She looked back, magnificent in her scorn. “Yes! You thought I could be bought off, did you not, Mr Ravenscar? You thought you had only to dangle your money-bags before my eyes, and I should be dazzled! Well, I was not dazzled, and I would not touch one penny of your money!”

“If that is so, why am I here?” he inquired.

“The mortgage and those bills are different,” she replied impatiently.

He looked amused. “So it seems.”

“Besides, they are not mine, but my aunt’s.”

“Then why worry about them?”

“You have a very pretty opinion of me, I declare!” she exclaimed. “Not only am I the kind of abominable wretch who would entrap a—” She broke off in some confusion, and said hurriedly: “But there is no talking to you, after all! I shall marry your cousin whenever I choose, and I shall get the mortgage too, and you are at liberty to call me what names you like, for I do not care a button!”

Mr Ravenscar, on whom the first part of this speech had not been lost, sat up, frowning heavily. “Now, what the devil are you playing at, Miss Grantham? So you are not the kind of abominable wretch who would entrap a boy into marriage? Then why in God’s name—”

“Certainly not!” Miss Grantham said, making desperate efforts to retrieve her slip. “There is no question of entrapping Adrian! He is quite devoted to me, I assure you! You will find it very hard to persuade him to give me up.”