“She ran from me like the startled virgin she is,” he said. “I do believe she was terrified. Stephen Armitage cannot have had her when they were betrothed. Or perhaps he did-perhaps that was why she took fright.”

Priscilla’s mouth tugged on him and he groaned. “At least you were spared the appalling tedium of having to make love to her,” she murmured. “Do you think she will accept you?”

“I’ll make sure she does,” Tom said. His mind was starting to splinter with pleasure. He really did not want to talk, could not talk. But Priscilla kept accompanying her attentions with questions; questions it was becoming more and more difficult for him to concentrate on.

“Did you speak to your sister?” she asked, fondling him, stroking until he thought he would burst. “Did you?” Suddenly she bit him, not quite gently.

“Ow! Yes!” Smarting, Tom almost pushed her away, but already she was soothing the hurt, laving it away with her tongue and he started to relax again as renewed pleasure swept away the pain. “I told her about Waterhouse being paid to wed her,” he gasped, shifting in his chair to aid Priscilla’s movements. “She was very distressed, though she hid it well.”

“Good.” Priscilla rewarded him with the subtlest and sweetest of caresses. “She is an evil little witch and she deserves to suffer for what she did to me.”

When Tom had first heard about the doctored lavender water he had been filled with admiration for Lizzie-and contempt for Priscilla in believing for a moment that Nat Waterhouse would have sent it. Now, though, as Priscilla urged him to the most exquisite climax, he was not inclined to do anything other than agree with whatever she said.

“I think,” he panted, “she is suffering very much indeed.”

“Good,” Priscilla said again and he heard the satisfaction in her voice and thought she was smiling as she teased him over the edge, and he came with a triumphant shout and the release rolled over him leaving him spent and almost-almost-regretful that he was to marry Mary rather than her cousin.

NAT HAD BEEN DISAPPOINTED not to see Lizzie before he had come out. Mrs. Alibone had said that she had gone riding and Nat had been glad of it for he knew that riding was one of the things that made Lizzie very happy. He wanted her to be happy and manifestly she was not. He could not understand why things seemed so different from how they had been before he and Lizzie wed, but evidently they were and it was his task to discover why and to solve the problem. That was what he had been doing from the first: solving the problem of Celeste’s disgrace, solving the problem of Lizzie’s lost reputation, protecting his family, trying to make all well again because he cared deeply for them all and, devil take it, dealing with problems was what men did. It was the most damnable thing that everything seemed to be going to hell in a handbasket rather than sorting itself out. His father was dangerously ill, Tom Fortune was circling and threatening further blackmail, Lizzie was grief-stricken and seemed wilder by the day and under the circumstances the July meeting of the Oyster Club, a most exclusive gentlemen’s dining club with very restricted membership, excellent food and ample wine, was exactly what Nat needed to help him forget for a few short hours that the rest of his life was in chaos.

He reached for his glass. They served wine in half pint glasses at the Oyster Club and that always loosened men’s tongues. It was Nat’s task, along with Dexter and Miles, to listen for anything that might throw some light on the Fortune murder case for they were lamentably short of leads. No one appeared to have seen or heard anything on the night that Monty Fortune had died, other than a vague rumor of a masked woman seen flitting about the village. There had been the argument between Monty and someone else several nights before his death but again, no one had seen the other person or could identify them. They were making little progress, and yet in cases of this kind something usually gave in the end. It was a matter of patience and endurance, rather like his marriage.

Further down the long table, Nat could see Dexter and Miles talking to various acquaintances. The Club was eclectic, membership comprising local businessmen, professional men and gentry. The food arrived, the famous oysters that gave the Club its name followed by a prime beefsteak. Nat started to relax and tried not to think about Lizzie, left at home. For some reason the image made him feel edgy. The last time he had left her alone in the evening she had gone out and almost gambled away the Scarlet Diamonds. The village was still talking about it. It was surely impossible that she could do anything else even remotely as outrageous but he was painfully aware that they had never really discussed the matter properly, had not really talked about anything of importance in the last few weeks because Lizzie seemed so locked in her grief that he could not reach her and he knew he had used his work as an excuse not to try as hard as he should…

Some sort of disturbance was taking place at the other end of the room. Servants were seen scurrying in all directions, diving for cover. He heard masculine voices exclaim:

“I say! Lady Godiva!”

“What ho! What a filly!”

Men were standing now, craning their necks to see, raising their glasses in a toast. The dazzling lights of the chandeliers shone in Nat’s eyes and he blinked, completely unable to believe what he was seeing.

A woman on horseback was coming up the sweeping staircase. The horse’s hooves made no sound on the thick red carpet and the soft jingle of its harness was the only noise as the whole banqueting hall fell silent. The woman was young and she sat very tall and straight in the saddle, moving gently with the motion of the horse. There was a little smile curving her lips and a wicked spark in her green eyes. Her long titian hair tumbled in glorious array over her shoulders and down to her waist. Her white thighs gripped the horse’s side as she urged it up the staircase.

Nat’s brain refused to accept the evidence of his eyes.

She was stark naked.

Her lissom, pale skin looked like alabaster. One small but perfectly rounded breast peeked from beneath the cascade of her hair, the nipple pink and pouting from the ministrations of the cool night air. The other breast was hidden, but the auburn strands of her hair seemed only to emphasize its tempting curve. Her hands were holding the reins in her lap covering what little was left of her modesty.

Nat heard the men around him draw in their breath sharply as they saw what he saw. And what he saw was his wife, the new Countess of Waterhouse, and she was completely nude, displaying herself in all her wanton beauty in front of the assembled company of the Oyster Club.

Nat’s first response was complete denial. This simply could not be Lizzie. Not even she would do something so outrageous, so scandalous. The room spun about him and he closed his eyes for a moment, but when he opened them and the world steadied, Lizzie was still there and she was still very, very naked in front of forty extremely appreciative gentlemen. She was riding along the corridor now, toward the big balcony windows and there was a very indiscreet rush of men in her wake.

Swift on the heels of Nat’s disbelief came shock, sharp and sickening, and a mixture of fury and mortification. Men were smacking their lips now, eyes bulging from their heads, the coarsest of jests on their lips. Coarse jests about his wife. They were looking on his wife with lust. No doubt they all wanted to ravish her senseless. And Lizzie herself, provocative, triumphant Lizzie, was smiling at them alluringly, enjoying the admiration and the attention.

Nat watched as Lizzie approached the open doors of the balcony window. It was a good twelve-foot drop to the ground and a ripple of apprehension spread about the room as the assembled company took in her intention.

“Thirty guineas says she will make it!” One enterprising gambler declared, slapping his coins down on the table.

“Fifty against!”

The crowd jostled for the best view.

Nat pulled himself together and strode toward his wife. “Elizabeth!”

His voice was perhaps a little less authoritative than he might have desired, whether from anger or shock or a combination of emotions. Whatever the reason, Lizzie ignored him completely and walked the horse up to the edge of the balcony.

There was a moment’s pause and then they jumped, horse and rider united in a most elegant and perfectly executed leap down to the street. Nat-and everyone else-was afforded the most perfect view of Lizzie’s pert, rounded buttocks and the quickest, tantalizing flash of the crease between her thighs. A concerted sigh ran through all the men in the room, and then the place erupted into chaos as they abandoned the landing and ran down the stairs to see if both horse and rider had survived the jump. Nat ran, too, down the staircase and out into the warm, damp night, torn between fear and an anger so intense he had never experienced it before. Men were pushing and shoving to get a view and as Nat ruthlessly cut his way to the front of the crowd he saw Lizzie trotting demurely away down the street. The lamplight gleamed on the pale skin of her bare back and buttocks and on the lovely curves and hollows of her body. The crowd burst into spontaneous applause.

“I say! How marvelous!”

“Splendid creature!”

Nat felt the relief rip through him followed swiftly by ungovernable rage. He saw Miles approach him and then his friend put a hand on his arm and started to speak but Nat did not seem able to hear him. He shook Miles off violently and set off down the street in the direction that the horse had gone. He could still hear the sound of hoofbeats echoing through the night air.