“Nessie,” Katherine said, terror clutching at her heart. “The children?”

Vanessa shook her head, but it was Elliott who answered.

“I ought to have spoken to you after the garden party, Katherine,” he said, striding farther into the room, “though as it has turned out, I would have been too late even then. Your name has become inextricably linked with that of one of London’s worst rakes, I am afraid.”

Oh, this again! She did not pretend to misunderstand.

“Lord Montford?” she said. “There is some gossip, is there not? It is all very foolish and very baseless. Constantine warned me about it yesterday, and Meg and I stayed home from the Clarkson soiree last evening just to be on the safe side. It will doubtless blow over like yesterday’s wind once-”

“Oh, Kate,” Vanessa said, possessing herself of both Katherine’s hands and squeezing them rather painfully, “what has that man done to you? Why did you not tell us?”

“D-done to me?” Katherine looked from her sister to Elliott in some bewilderment and mounting alarm. “What do you mean? He has done nothing except dance with me and sit with me at the garden party. What exactly is being said?”

Margaret, she could see, had both hands pressed to her bosom.

Elliott sighed audibly. “We were not at the soiree last evening either,” he said. “We were at a private dinner instead. But Montford’s aunt and cousin were there for an hour or so, quite long enough to spread rumors that I hope are just rumors. Though even unfounded gossip can do considerable harm to your reputation. Katherine, did you meet Lord Montford three years ago soon after coming to town for the first time? Vanessa and I put our heads together on the way here and wonder if it might have been during that week when we went into the country with Margaret and Stephen and left you in my mother’s care. Did you meet him then?”

Katherine felt her head turn cold. If she could have trusted her legs sufficiently, she would have sat down on her chair again. But her knees seemed to be locked beneath her.

“Cecily and I had been invited to join Lady Beaton’s party at Vauxhall,” she said. “Miss Finley-now Mrs. Gooding-brought her brother without first asking Lady Beaton because Mr. Gooding had sprained an ankle.”

“Kate,” Vanessa said-she was still clutching Katherine’s hands, “what did he do to you?”

“Kate?” Meg’s voice was unnaturally high pitched.

“He did nothing,” Katherine said.

“Did he try to do something?” Elliott asked, looking keenly at her.

She opened her mouth to deny it. But clearly this was not the time for lies or evasion. Some trouble was brewing-and that was probably a colossal understatement-and it was going to be necessary that her family know the truth.

The tension in the room was thick enough to be sliced with a knife.

“He had made a wager,” she said. “It was in the betting book at one of the gentlemen’s clubs-I do not know which. He was to seduce me within two weeks. He had persuaded Mr. Gooding to sprain his ankle, and then he had persuaded his sister to allow him to escort her instead.”

Elliott’s blue eyes were boring into hers. Both Meg and Nessie were standing as still as statues.

“And?” Elliott asked, his voice rather like a whip. “Did he succeed?”

Katherine shook her head.

“No,” she said, her voice a mere whisper of sound. “No, he did not. And he went back to his club and said so. He did not claim victory. And he was not lying. He did not win that wager. He did nothing to me.”

She could not after all bear to tell the full truth.

Vanessa had one hand pressed over her mouth. Margaret was weeping with choking sobs, which she was trying to smother.

“Forester-Sir Clarence Forester,” Elliott said, sounding suddenly weary, “will be answering a few of my questions as soon as I have found him-he was not at any of the clubs when I tried them earlier. Whatever grudge he may have against his cousin, his manner of taking revenge is unpardonable. Then I will need a few answers from Montford himself. Maybe he did not win his wager, Katherine-indeed, I trust your word that he did not-but I have to dispute your claim that he did nothing. He took on that dastardly wager, did he not, and set about winning it?”

Margaret spoke up.

“Sir Clarence Forester and his mother are the pair who stopped us in the park,” she said, her voice trembling, “and made us all feel so very dreadful as if we had done something wrong. They are the ones who have done wrong-vicious, deliberate, irreparable wrong. What has Kate ever done to deserve their spite? Oh, if I could just get my hands on them.”

“I’ll do it for you, Margaret,” Elliott said grimly. “In the meanwhile, you had best stay in the house here, both of you. There is much-”

The door crashed open again and Stephen strode in, his hair a halo of unruly curls about his head after a morning ride, his eyes wild, his face as pale as his shirt.

“I am in time, thank God,” he said, fixing his eyes on Katherine. “You are on no account to go out this morning, Kate. There is a damned scoundrel and liar loose on the town and I have just drawn his cork. I would have done more, but the sniveling bast-The sniveling coward ran away. He took a purple nose and a bloodied shirt with him, though, by thunder. I know this is all a pack of lies, Kate-Monty is a friend of mine and you are my sister. But even so-”

The door did not crash open again for the simple reason that Stephen had not shut it behind him. But Constantine, when he appeared in the doorway, looked as if he would have come through the door without opening it if it had stood in his way.

“Constantine,” Katherine said, holding up one shaking hand. “If you have come here to tell me that you told me so, I shall first scream very loudly and then slap your face very hard.”

And she burst into tears to her own terrible chagrin. Soon she had four arms about her, and Meg and Nessie were murmuring words of comfort when really there was no comfort to be found.

“Forester is a clever bastard,” Constantine said. “By the time I appeared at his door a short while ago, he had his mother stationed there instead of a servant, and short of planting her a facer, which I was sorely tempted to do, I could not get in. If she is to be believed, Forester met with an accident this morning at the hands of a large gang of fierce footpads and lost a courageous battle against them.”

“They were me, Con,” Stephen said.

“Glad to hear it,” Constantine said. “It’s the first good news I have had all morning. I missed that damned soiree last evening. Oh, sorry for the language, Margaret. Sorry, Vanessa and Katherine. But now I have seen that Katherine is safely at home, I’ll pay Monty a little visit.”

“You can safely leave that to me,” Elliott said stiffly, and Katherine looked up to see the two of them-first cousins who had grown up like brothers and who looked more like twins-glaring at each other and almost squaring off.

“Oh, stop it!” she cried. “It is not Lord Montford who has been spreading spiteful stories-and untrue ones too if they claim that he won that ridiculous wager all those years ago. He did not win it because he chose not to pursue it. He told me about it and… and we had a laugh over it. I do not suppose he is enjoying this scandal any more than I am. It is all stupid and ridiculous, and I will not have everyone bloodying everyone else’s nose and fighting one another to be the one to defend my honor and all the other stupid stuff that goes by the name of manly honor. I will not have it. Do you hear me, Stephen?”

She had risen to her feet again. Her sisters stood at her sides, silent sentinels.

“I hear you, Kate,” he said. “But it is not-”

“And do you hear me, Elliott?” she asked.

“Loudly and clearly,” he said. “But-”

“And you, Constantine,” she said, “do you hear me?”

He shrugged with both shoulders and both hands.

“And I will not have you and Elliott carrying on your ridiculous feud in my presence or Meg’s,” she continued, unable to stop, it seemed now that she had started. “I have no idea what it is about, and I do not want to know. I do not care. Men are so foolish. Take your quarrel elsewhere if you must. Shoot each other if you must. But not here. Now go away all of you. All of you. I want to be alone. No, better yet, I shall go up to my room-alone.”

She swept past them all, her chin up.

She neither knew nor cared what they decided to do about her predicament or about the two men who between them had brought her to this.

She was ruined.

She was in no doubt about that.

And, as she had admitted to herself when she was with Constantine in Hyde Park, she was at least partly to blame.

She had thought herself far more grown up and worldly wise this year than she had been three years ago. But she had fallen prey to the practiced charms of a rakehell just as easily this time as last. It would be useless to deny it.

And now she was ruined.

She did not stop to consider that perhaps the punishment far exceeded the crime.

12

BY the time Jasper arrived at the house where Lady Forester and Clarence were staying, they had already left it and were presumably bowling along the highway to Kent as fast as wheels would turn or horses gallop.

He did briefly consider going after them, but unfortunately there were more pressing concerns to keep him in London.