The noise swelled into the room as the door opened and a figure slipped through.

“There you are, Lady Weston. I thought you might have come here.”

Gillian glanced at Palmerston, but he was still sleeping despite the noise. “Yes, but I should return,” she said, standing. “Noble will be wanting to leave…”

“He asked me to escort you downstairs,” Lord Carlisle said, grasping her arm and pushing her toward a back door.

“Noble asked you?”

“Yes. He’s taking his son to his carriage and asked if I would see you safely down. You don’t want to go out into the main rooms — they aren’t safe for a gentle lady.”

“But my cousin—”

“Has been taken outside already,” Lord Carlisle said with a worried smile. He pushed her gently toward the servants’ stairs. “We’ll go down the back way, then meet up with Weston outside.”

Ha, Gillian thought to herself some time later. What a fool she had been to trust Lord Carlisle. She hoped Palmerston would be sure to tell Noble who had urged her away. She struggled briefly against her bonds and wished she had the common sense God gave to slugs.

He had kidnapped her! Face down on the floor of his carriage, her arms bound at her sides, a foul taste in her mouth from the horribly musty black cloth that encased her, Gillian came to terms with the fact that the man she had thought was a friend was, in fact, a villain. Noble had been right all along.

“Just because I tried to stop the duel,” she muttered, spitting out a mouthful of the cloth and trying to work a foot out of the bottom of the canvas bag, “he decided to pay me back in kind. Well, he’ll soon see what a mistake he made in underestimating me!”

The carriage lurched over a hole in the paving stones, sending her flying into the side wall. She saw stars for a few minutes, then managed to curl herself up so her head didn’t pound against the wall interior of the carriage with each bump and jolt. Once she was satisfied she had enough air, she concentrated on trying to work her arms free of the ropes, but it would be hopeless until she could remove herself from the bag. She struggled for what seemed to be days until she had one foot free.

“Excellent,” she said to herself, and spent the next two years working her second foot free. Just as she emerged from her chrysalis, exhausted and sweaty but triumphant, the carriage swayed and jounced to a halt. She cautiously peeked out the window. They were in the yard of a posting inn, and it looked as if the horses were being changed. “More than excellent,” she said as she tried the handle of the carriage door. It was unlocked. She sent up a little prayer and threw the door open, leaping out of her prison.

And straight into Lord Carlisle’s arms. Or what would have been his arms if he had known she was going to come bursting out of the carriage just as he was opening the door to check on her. Instead she hit him head-on, knocking him backwards. Together they hit the ground with a resounding smack.

Gillian scrambled off the earl and stared at him for a moment. There was a pool of blood growing from beneath his head. She prodded him. He didn’t move. She put a hand to his mouth but felt no breath stirring.

“Bloody hell! I’ve killed him!”

“Aye, that you’ve done,” a raspy voice said from behind her. Gillian turned around to see a coachman backing away from her warily.

“But I didn’t mean to…he kidnapped me, you see…and then this…he was opening the door as I was coming out…it was an accident. You can see that, can’t you?”

The coachman looked at her with wide, nervous eyes, which widened even more when he looked around her again. “Here, I’m fetching the landlord. If you’ve gone and murdered my lord, it’ll be the three-legged mare for you, lady or no!”

“But, wait—” Gillian started toward the coachman, but he turned and fled before she could get near him.

“Well, now what do I do?” she wailed to the still figure of the earl. “I can’t just leave you here — good lord, Sir Hugh! Whatever are you doing here?”

A small yellow curricle raced into the yard and pulled up directly before her. The baronet leaped from the seat, took one look at the scene before him, and ordered his tiger to tend his horse. “I shall assist Lady Weston home in this carriage.”

Gillian felt like kissing him for saying such a nice word. Home. “That would be excessively kind of you, Sir Hugh, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to stay. You see, the magistrate will be sure to want to know how I came to kill an earl…”

Sir Hugh peered down at the recumbent figure. “Dead, is he? Shame, but still, I’m sure it was an accident. He did kidnap you, after all.”

“Kidnapping or not, I don’t believe I should leave until I’ve spoken with the authorities,” she said with a reluctant look toward the inn. She had no desire to see the gallows, let alone make use of them.

Sir Hugh pulled his lip in thought. “I have an idea. I have a house not far from here — an hour’s drive at most — I’ll leave word inside as to your whereabouts, and you can come along and have a rest until Weston arrives.”

“Noble is coming?” Suddenly the situation didn’t seem to be quite so terrible. Surely he would be able to help her out of this horrible mess. “Is he right behind you?”

“No, he had to tend to some business first. I’ll just go inside and leave Noble a message where we’re going, and then we can be on our way.”

Looking back on the day, Gillian realized she should have been suspicious about Sir Hugh’s antics when he insisted on leaving the body of Lord Carlisle lying in the courtyard, but she had wanted to be away just as badly as Sir Hugh seemed to, so she accepted his explanation that the innkeeper was sending for a doctor before Carlisle was moved.

She also felt she should have seen signs of Sir Hugh’s madness before it became disastrously evident, but she hadn’t. She rode along with him, pleased with her savior up until he escorted her into a darkened bedchamber.

“Thank you, Sir Hugh,” she said politely, wishing he would leave her so she could tidy herself up. “I’m sure this will be most…oh, my. What…er…what exactly is that?”

“What?” Sir Hugh asked politely as he slid the bolt home in the door and began to light candles.

Gillian pointed at the raised circular platform. “That. That large thing, just there, taking up most of the room.”

She began to feel something was very, very wrong.

“Ah, that.” Sir Hugh came up behind her and put a hand to her back. “That is a little something I devised myself. A modified Catherine wheel. Notice that it spins.”

Gillian noticed that, just as she also noticed the four leather straps and what looked suspiciously like dried bloodstains. She tried not to sound scared to death when she spoke. “Ah. It’s…most ingenious, Sir Hugh.”

He smiled. Gillian’s stomach dropped into her boots. She was looking at a madman; she knew that just as well as she knew her own self.

Sir Hugh laughed. “Mad? I don’t believe so, my dear, although I should by rights be after suffering what your husband has done to me.”

Gillian took a step backwards. “Noble is your friend, Sir Hugh. He’s been your friend for many years.”

“Friend,” he snarled, stepping toward her. “Enemy, my dear, my bitterest enemy. Did you know he stole the fair Elizabeth from me? She had been promised to me, you see, by my papa. But then Noble came along, and suddenly he had to have her and no one else.”

Gillian stepped back again, but the madman followed. “If she was in love with him…”

He snorted. “She didn’t know how to love anyone but herself, the coldhearted bitch. No, first he took my Elizabeth, then he took my land.”

“Your land?”

A tic started beneath the baronet’s left eye. He rubbed at it absently as he spoke. “The solicitor blamed the gaming debts, but I know the truth. Weston bought him out, forced him to sell my land, my inheritance, forced me from my birthright!”

Gillian gasped as Sir Hugh screamed the last word. He was staring past her, his fists working, his face livid and twisted with hate. “He had everything. He had it all, handed to him by his dear papa, but still he had to take what was mine. Everything, he took everything.”

Suddenly his hand lashed out and he grabbed her by her arm, tugging her forward until she could feel his heated breath on her face. She tried to turn away from the horrible sight of his face tortured and knotted with madness, but he pulled her even closer.

“I showed him, though, didn’t I? Poor Hugh, nothing but a wastrel’s son, they all said, but I proved them wrong, didn’t I? Didn’t I?”

He shook her with the last words.

“I—”

“I did, I did and you know it! I even did away with that grasping, greedy bitch Mariah when he came close to tracking her down.”

Gillian stared at him with blank horror. He killed Mariah? Simply to keep her from speaking to Noble? She swayed for a moment, feeling as if she was going to be sick with the realization of just how mad Sir Hugh was.

“You cold bitch, you never did want me to succeed at anything either!” he snarled in her face. “I knew what you had planned, you know. I knew how you plotted with McGregor to have me shot in place of Weston.” Sir Hugh barked a short laugh. “I thought you’d learned your lesson the last time, but I see I shall have to punish you yet again, my dear Elizabeth.”

Gillian tried yanking her arm away from the baronet but wasn’t prepared when his fist shot into her face. Her knees buckled and she fought to catch her breath as mind-numbing pain radiated out from her jaw. She shook her head and tried to keep her heaving stomach contained but ended up retching onto the carpet. When she was finished, Sir Hugh yanked her to her feet and threw her onto the wooden platform. She was too dazed and stunned by the pain to do more than struggle feebly.