"By God, man, I tell you, I have not done more than exchange a few words with your wife on the dance floor. Are you hurling accusations? If so, make them plain. Do not fence with me, Ravenwood."

"No accusations. At least, not against you. Just give me answers, Utteridge, and I will leave you in peace."

"And if I do not give them to you?"

"Why, then," Julian said easily, "we must discuss that dawn appointment you mentioned a moment ago."

"You would call me out simply because you're not getting the answers you seek?" Utteridge was clearly taken aback. "Ravenwood, I tell you, I have not touched your new bride."

"I believe you. If you had, rest assured I would not be content with putting a bullet in your arm the way I did with Ormiston and Varley. You would be dead."

Utteridge stared at him. "Yes, I can see that is a very real possibility. You did not kill anyone over the issue of Elizabeth's honor but you are obviously prepared to do so on behalf of your new lady. Tell me, why do you need answers about the ring, Ravenwood?"

"Let us merely say that I have assumed the responsibility of seeing justice done on behalf of someone whose name need not concern you."

Utteridge sneered faintly. "A cuckolded friend of yours, perhaps?"

Julian shook his head. "A friend of a young woman who is now dead along with her unborn child."

Utteridge's sneer vanished. "Are we talking about murder?"

"It depends on how you look at the matter. The one on whose behalf I am acting definitely thinks the owner of this ring is a murderer."

"But did he kill this young woman you mentioned?" Utteridge persisted.

"He caused her to take her own life."

"Some stupid little chit gets herself seduced and in trouble and now you seek vengeance for her? Come now, Ravenwood. You are a man of the world. You know that sort of thing happens all the time."

"Apparently the one I represent does not view that as a sufficiently mitigating circumstance," Julian murmured. "And I am bound to take the matter as seriously as my friend does."

Utteridge frowned. "Who are you representing? The mother of the girl? A grandparent, perhaps?"

"As I said, that need not concern you. I have told you enough to assure you that I am not going to put a bullet in you, Utteridge, unless you force me to do so. You need no more information."

Utteridge grimaced. "Perhaps I owe you something after all this time. Elizabeth was a very strange woman, was she not?"

"I am not here to discuss Elizabeth."

Utteridge nodded. "As you have approached me, I believe you already know a great deal about the rings."

"I know that you and Varley and Ormiston wore them."

"There were others."

"Now dead," Ravenwood noted. "I have already traced two of them."

Utteridge slid him a thoughtful, sidelong glance. "But there is one other whom you have not named and who is not dead."

"You will give me his name."

"Why not? I owe him nothing and if I do not tell you, I am certain you will get the name from Ormiston or Varley. I will tell you what you want to know, Ravenwood, if you will assure me that will be the end of it. I have no wish to arise at dawn for any reason whatsoever. Getting up early does not suit my constitution."

"The name, Utteridge."

Half an hour later Julian leaped down from his carriage and strode up the steps of his home. His mind was full of the information he had forced out of Utteridge. When Guppy opened the door, Julian stepped into the main hall with a short nod of greeting.

"I will be spending an hour or so in the library, Guppy. Send the staff to bed."

Guppy cleared his throat. "My lord, you have a visitor. Lord Daregate arrived only a few moments ago and is waiting for you in the library."

Julian nodded and walked on into the library. Daregate was seated in a chair, reading a book he had taken from a nearby shelf. He had also helped himself to a glass of port, Julian noticed.

"It's not even midnight, Daregate. What the devil has pried you out of your favorite gaming hell at this hour?" Julian crossed the room and poured himself a glass of the port.

Daregate put down the book. "I knew you planned to make further inquiries about the ring and I thought I would drop by and see what you have learned. You tracked down Utteridge tonight, did you not?"

"Could not your questions have waited until a decent hour?"

"I do not keep decent hours, Ravenwood. You know that."

"True enough." Julian took a chair and a healthy swallow of port. "Very well, I will endeavor to enlighten you. There are four members of that devilish fraternity of seducers still alive, not the two we learned about or the three Sophy discovered."

"I see." Daregate studied the wine in his glass. "That would make it Utteridge, Ormiston, Varley and…?"

"Waycott."

Daregate's reaction was startling. His normal appearance of languid disinterest vanished and in its place was a new, hard expression. "Good God, man, are you certain of that?"

"As certain as I can be." Julian set down his glass with a controlled movement that belied his inner rage. "Utteridge gave me the information."

"Utteridge is hardly a reliable source."

"I told him I would meet him at dawn if he were lying."

Daregate's mouth curved faintly. "Then he no doubt was convinced to tell you the truth. Utteridge would not have any liking for such a challenge. But, if it is true, Ravenwood, then there is a serious problem."

"Perhaps not. It's true Waycott has been hovering around Sophy for weeks and he did manage to convince her to feel some sympathy for him, but I have lectured her about his falseness."

"Sophy does not strike me as the type to be overly impressed with one of your lectures, Ravenwood."

Julian smiled faintly, in spite of his mood. "True enough.

Women in general have a nasty habit of believing that they and they alone can see the true nature of the downtrodden and the misunderstood. They are not inclined to give a man credit for any intuitive abilities. But when I tell Sophy that Waycott was the man who seduced her friend she will turn against him completely."

"That is not what I meant by a problem," Daregate said bluntly.

Julian scowled at his friend, aware of the seriousness in Daregate's voice. "What are you talking about, then?"

"This evening I heard that Waycott left town a day ago. No one seems to know where he was headed but I think that, under the circumstances, you must consider the possibility that he went into Hampshire."

EIGHTEEN

"You went to the old witch, just as Elizabeth did, didn't you? There is only one reason a woman would seek her out." Waycott's tone was eerily conversational as he set Sophy on her feet and pulled the cloak away from her face. He watched her with an unnatural brightness in his eyes as he slowly removed his mask. "I am quite pleased, my dear. I will be able to give Ravenwood the coup de grace when I tell him his new Countess was determined to rid herself of his heir, just as his first Countess did."

"Good evening, my lord." Sophy inclined her head graciously, just as if she were meeting him in a London drawing room. She was still bound in the cloak but she pretended to ignore that fact. She had not spent the past weeks learning to conduct herself as befit a Countess for nothing. "Imagine meeting you here. Rather an unusual location, is it not? I have always found this place very picturesque."

Sophy gazed around the small stone chamber and tried to conceal a shudder of fear. She hated this place. He had brought her to the old Norman ruin she had loved to sketch until the day she had decided it was the scene of her sister's seduction.

The ramshackle old castle, which had always looked so charmingly scenic, now appeared like something out of a nightmare to her. Late afternoon shadows were falling outside and the narrow slits of windows allowed very little light inside. The bare stones of the ceiling and walls were darkened with traces of old smoke from the massive hearth. The place was disturbingly dank and gloomy.

A fire had been laid on the hearth and there was a kettle and some provisions in a basket. The most disturbing thing of all about the room, however, was the sleeping pallet that had been arranged against one wall.

"You are familiar with my little trysting place? Excellent. You may find it very useful in the future when you begin betraying your husband on a regular basis. I am delighted I shall be the one to introduce you to the pleasures of the sport." Waycott walked over to a corner of the room and dropped the mask onto the floor. He turned to smile at Sophy from the shadows. "Elizabeth liked to come here on occasion. It made a pleasant change, she said."

A dark premonition swept over Sophy. "And was she the only one you brought here, Lord Waycott?"

Waycott glanced down at the mask on the floor and his face hardened. "Oh, no, I used it occasionally to entertain myself with a pretty little piece from the village when Elizabeth was occupied with her own strange fancies."

Rage surged through Sophy. It had a strengthening effect, she discovered. "Who was this pretty little piece you brought here, my lord? What was her name?"

"I told you, she was just a village whore. No one important. As I said, I only used her when Elizabeth was in one of her moods." Waycott looked up from his contemplation of the mask, clearly anxious for Sophy to understand. "Elizabeth's moods never lasted long, you know. But while they were upon her, she was not herself. There were… other men at times. I could not tolerate watching her flirt with them and then invite them to her bedchamber. Sometimes she wanted me to join them there. I could not abide that."