Chapter Fifteen

Fifteen

S ebastian could not have looked any more shocked had she blown a cloud of cigar smoke in his face, Prudence mused. Under other circumstances, she might have found it comical. As he continued to stare at her, she gripped the decanter. The crystal cut against the tender pads of her fingers. Sebastian started to close the door, then propped it open, then pushed it shut. He circled her as if she were a wild beast, deserving of his utmost caution.

Prudence bowed her head. She had brushed the sausage curls out of her hair, and it lay like a heavy cloak across her shoulders.

He pointed at the half-empty decanter. "Did you drink all of that?"

She gave an apologetic shrug. "I accidentally kicked it when I heard you coming. I'm afraid Old Fish will be displeased."

He glanced at the darkening circle beside her chair with obvious relief. She lifted the decanter to her lips to take a nervous sip, but he plucked it from her hands.

"Must you be fortified with brandy to converse with me?"

"I didn't come here to converse with you."

He made an odd noise, as if his throat had suddenly gone dry.

She pointed to the garments folded neatly on his satin wood bureau. "I came to return your plaid."

Sebastian turned his back on her, gulping a swig of brandy before setting the decanter on the mantel.

He addressed the andirons. "Did it ever occur to you what might happen should Tricia find you here?"

"She won't."

He swung around, gazing suspiciously at her. "How can you be sure?"

She blinked at him over the rim of her spectacles. "Tricia is in the habit of lacing her nightly toddy with laudanum. I took the liberty of adding a few extra drops."

He threw back his head with a pained shout of laughter. "You'd make a fine lady bandit."

"Better than you. I wouldn't go getting shot and falling off my horse all the time. You should give serious consideration to another livelihood."

"I have. The husband of a wealthy countess."

She looked down and smoothed her night rail over her knees.

He sighed. "You sit there like the most innocent of angels and tell me you've poisoned your aunt. I'm afraid I can't help you hide the body. Murder isn't my forte."

She gave him a wounded look. "Nor is it mine. You know I'd never hurt Tricia." She glanced away, unable to meet his gaze. "Not deliberately anyway."

He knelt in front of her, covering her hands with his. She clamped her knees together to keep them from trembling.

"Prudence, I want you to listen very carefully. I am not a nice man. I am a reprehensible criminal and a duplicitous scoundrel. I would sell my proverbial grandmother for a chance at a woman with a title. My uncharacteristic bursts of morality and self-control where you are concerned are liable to lapse at any moment with grave and lurid consequences." He chucked her chin upward, favoring her with one of his most beautiful smiles. "Are you listening?"

She managed a weak nod and an answering smile.

"Very well." He rose and flung open the door. It crashed into the opposite wall. "Then get the bloody hell out of my bedchamber!"

Prudence jumped a foot in the air. She stood, painfully aware of his gaze raking over her as she glided toward the door. She wore no wrapper. The soft flax of her night rail brushed like fairy wings against her skin. The modest garment shielded her from throat to wrist to ankle, but was helpless to stem the teasing invasion of candlelight and shadow.

She reached around Sebastian and closed the door.

The top of her head brushed his chin. She heard his quick, indrawn breath.

He strode away from her, loosening his cravat. His laughter was strained. "For a smart girl, you make some very odd choices. You come to an isolated corner of the house. You drug the only person within screaming distance. Did it ever occur to you that even if you choose to go, I might keep you here?"

"I'm not afraid of you."

He spun on his heel, jerking off his coat. "Then you're a fool. I wouldn't be the first lecherous male relation to take advantage of a female dependent, not even among your high-handed gentry."

She bent to pick up his cravat, and tenderly folded it. "Are you trying to convince me or yourself?"

"I'm not sure. But you'd best leave before I succeed."

With a show of nonchalance, she resumed her position in the chair. Sebastian tore open the ties of his shirt. Like a lover's seeking caress, the flickering candlelight found the gold scattered over the smooth muscles of his chest. Her mouth went dry, and she pushed her spectacles up on her nose.

He stared helplessly at her, as if he hoped she might have vanished. Dragging a hand through his hair, he freed the leonine mass from the satin queue. His expression was so wild, she half expected him to lapse into an unintelligible burr or leap upon her with a Highland battle cry. The latter might be a relief. At least she would know where she stood with him.

"All I'm trying to say, lass," he said, his soft tone raising gooseflesh on her arms, "is that you don't really know me."

She met his gaze evenly. When she spoke, her voice was so dispassionate she might have been cataloguing a chemical formula rather than a life. "You fled the Highlands at the age of thirteen before Killian MacKay could boot you out of your father's castle. The first thing you stole was a wheel of cheese because you were hungry."

He sank down on the edge of the bed.

She continued. "You weren't a much better bandit at that time than you are now. You were caught and thrown into jail to await your hanging. A relation of your mother's found you, had you released, and took you to France. He picked off the lice and gave you your first real bath and a brief, but thorough, education." She paused. "How am I doing?"

"Marvelous," he said flatly. "Do go on."

"You returned to Scotland a few years later, both older and wiser, and began your remarkable stint as the Dreadful Scot Bandit Kirkpatrick, spreading terror and mayhem along the Scottish border, plotting and dreaming of the day when you could return to the Highlands and avenge yourself on the dastardly MacKay."

"Careful. You're lapsing into melodrama."

"Sorry. It's a weakness of mine."

"I've noticed. Along with charging rashly into situations you're unprepared for."

Prudence felt her composure slipping. "After the ball tonight, I felt I had nothing to lose."

He slipped off the bed with catlike grace. She resisted the urge to turn as he circled her chair.

His elegant fingers cupped her chin from behind, and he tilted her head back. "You, my dear, have everything to lose." His lips brushed hers in a brief, dry caress.

She shivered as he released her. Her scalp tingled and she realized with wonder that he was brushing her hair. He drew the bristles upward, lifting and separating the silky strands into a crackling cloud.

She inclined her head shyly, daring to luxuriate in the delicious sensation as he swept the brush along her hair. A decadent joy coursed through her at the innocent pleasure of being tended to. When she was a child, her papa had spent hours patiently working the tangles from her unruly hair. The same feeling of security touched her now, but it was tempered with the dangerous knowledge that between herself and this man, security was only a fragile illusion. Sebastian caught her hair at its crown and drew the brush back in a long, lingering stroke. A tiny moan of satisfaction escaped her throat, and she closed her eyes.

His silken burr caressed her, tempting her to drop all defenses. "So you know who I am. Shall I tell you who you are?"

She laughed nervously without opening her eyes. "No mystery there. I've no bandits or mysterious French relations lurking in the wings. I'm only Prudence Walker, spinster niece and poor relation of Tricia de Peyrelongue."

He lifted the brush, exposing her delicate ear to the soothing heat of his breath. "You came to live with Tricia after your father died. She clucked sadly over what a plain, little thing you were and said you had too many brains to ever make a decent match."

Prudence flinched. She would have pulled away, but his hand replaced the brush. She was caught by his possession of her hair.

His voice poured over her, soft but merciless. "In the years that followed, she paraded past you a steady stream of leering younger sons, pompous parsons, and elderly squires. With each dreaded foray into the parlor to meet your suitors , you became smarter"—he twisted his hand in her hair, binding it tightly away from her face—"and plainer."

Tears pricked her eyes. How could he be so cruel? He freed her hair, and it fell around her face and shoulders. She was thankful for its sheltering weight as burning humiliation tinted her cheeks.

But Sebastian was ruthless. He walked around the chair and squatted in front of her. "What did Tricia tell you? Did she tell you your nose was too thin, your teeth too prominent?"

Prudence bit her lower lip and turned her face away from his avid scrutiny.

He cupped her cheeks in his palms and forced her head back. His thumbs curved around to trace the dark wings of her brows. "Did she murmur her sympathy over your heavy brows, your pale skin?"

"Stop it!" She could not bear for him to see her cry, and lifted her hands to break his grip.

He captured both of her wrists in one of his hands and took off her spectacles. She cringed away from him, blinking back tears.

"Aren't you weary of hiding, Prudence? Behind these spectacles? Behind books? Behind Tricia? Hasn't it been lonely all these years?"

She struggled to pull out of his grasp, helpless to stop the tears from trickling down her cheeks. "I wasn't lonely. I had a happy life before you came along."

"A happy life? Buried behind books. Living other people's lives because you had no life of your own. A happy life? Without one breath of excitement to stir it?"

"Is that why you think I came here tonight? For excitement?" She finally broke his grip and bolted from the chair. She stood with her back to him, clinging to the bedpost for support.

He slowly straightened. "Why did you come here, Prudence?"

"Because I thought you cared for me." She added softly, almost as an afterthought, "I would have left you alone. You didn't have to remind me I was ugly."

His laughter rang out, harsh and mocking.

She fled for the door. With one long stride, he reached it before she did and she collided with his unyielding chest. When she would have recoiled, his arms enfolded her, holding her hard against him until her struggles subsided. She buried her mouth in the fur of his chest, refusing to begrudge herself the last taste she would know of his arms.

He rubbed his cheek across her hair. "Tell me, Miss Walker, if you're so damnably smart, how could you believe the twisted musings of an envious woman far past the bloom of her own youth?"

His heart thundered against her lips. For a long moment, she did not comprehend his words.

"Can't you see what Tricia's jealousy has done to you?" He again caught her face in his hands, smoothing her hair away. "You are the most uncommon and utterly beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on. I've wanted you from the first moment you trod upon my broken ankle." Her eyes widened in misty wonder, and he laughed. "And, oh, when you look at me like that, all I want to do is lay you beneath me and taste every inch of your lovely fair skin."

Prudence's breath came out in a squeak. "You can't be serious."

"Let's get this off, shall we, and I'll show you how very serious I am." He bunched the soft flax of her night rail in his hands and began to draw it upward.

She clung to his shoulders. "But you haven't even kissed me."

His tongue traced the outer rim of her ear. "I will," he whispered. "Everywhere."

His hands rode up over her hips, drawing the night rail with them. "The candle," she said frantically.

"I know. One candle is not enough. I'd like to carry you down to the ballroom and make love to you beneath the chandelier." His knuckles brushed her belly. "I wonder what Old Fish would think about that."

She squirmed in his arms. "Sebastian! You say the wickedest things! I meant for you to put the candle out."

He drew back, smiling a tender, lopsided smile. "No more hiding, love. No more masks." He pressed his mouth to her ear. "Please, my darling, be naked for me."

Prudence had never imagined herself the recipient of such an odd request. But Sebastian's loving smile was irresistible, and she lifted her arms in surrender. He gently pulled the night rail over her head. A heated blush crawled up her skin, and she squeezed her eyes shut, believing like a child that if she could not see him, he might not be able to see her. His soft groan proved her wrong.

Her hands flew up instinctively to cover herself, desperate to hide the flaws of legs too long, breasts too heavy for her slender frame. He caught her hands, lacing his fingers around hers and bearing them back against the door on each side of her head. Even with her eyes closed, she could feel the heat of his gaze on her.

Sebastian drank in her beauty. Her hair absorbed the candlelight, deepening to rich and magical hues. The sight of it spilling like wine over her alabaster breasts both inflamed his tender lust and tempered it with a curious desire to protect. It was as he suspected. Prudence's stiff-necked pride hid a blossom as precious and fragile as petals of honeysuckle.

She hid her face in her hair. "Please. I'm so embarrassed."

"Of what? Perfection?"

She dared to open her eyes.

He brought their linked hands down to brush the creamy skin between her breasts. All traces of humor had vanished from him. "Everything I've ever possessed that was worth having, I've stolen. You're the only gift anyone has ever given me."

He lifted her palm to his lips. Prudence took a step away from the door and melted into his embrace, knowing she would never forget the wanton sensuality of her nude body pressed against the crisp folds of his clothes. His mouth closed on hers in a flood of aching tenderness.

Sebastian hardly dared to believe the miracle of holding her pliant body against him. He had dreamed it too often to accept that it was real. A thread of guilt wound its way through his anticipation, but he hastily shoved it away. Prudence had come to him, on his terms, not her own. She suckled his tongue in an innocent attempt to draw him more deeply into her. Her nipples stiffened against his chest, and he felt a dizzying surge of response in his groin. He could feel himself straining against his breeches, hungering to be freed, hungering, too, to allow his hands and mouth to wander over this beautiful, generous creature. But he could not yet trust himself enough for that.

Her hand twined through his hair as he bent his knees and gently took her breast into his mouth. His tongue swirled around the dusky peak, and he felt her deep shiver.

"Sebastian, please. I can't even think!"

He slipped to his knees, filling the delicate cleft of her navel with his tongue. "For once in your life, Prudence, stop thinking."

Prudence had no choice but to obey as his reverent hands parted the silky pelt between her legs. He muttered an oath that sounded more like a prayer as his fingers slipped beneath to explore the honeyed folds and hollows of her body with tender expertise. She shoved aside his shirt and gripped his shoulders in a desperate attempt to find some substance in a reality melting to shuddering pleasure. The cool wood of the door pressed to her back and hips seemed to be part of another, saner world. Her instinct to shrink away from him was consumed in the flames of a more primitive instinct to arch against him, to open herself to the stroking persuasion of his eloquent touch.

She panted softly as his thumb discovered her heated nectar and teased it forward until he found the taut, aching bud hidden by her velvety folds. Her knees buckled at the pleasure, and he slipped an arm around her, cupping her hips as he buried his mouth against the dark fur at the V of her thighs in the tenderest of kisses.

Her shy gasp was lost in a new sensation as he sheathed his finger inside her, pressing forward with gentle determination until he felt her wince of pain. Her body quivered in disappointment as he withdrew.

"Oh, God, Prudence, you're so tight."

"I'm sorry, Sebastian." Her voice was very small. "I don't mean to be."

His groan was one of exultation as he curved his arm around the backs of her thighs and lifted her straight into the air. He pressed his cheek to the delicate skin of her belly. She clung to his shoulders as he spun around and dropped her neatly on the bed.

As he peeled off his shirt, she reached for a corner of the satin counterpane to cover her nakedness.

"My sweet Prudence," he said, trapping the counterpane under his knee as he joined her on the bed, "I was not rebuking you. The…um…" He searched for words, curbing with effort his characteristic frankness. "…deliciously untried condition of your body only serves to demonstrate what a fine and precious privilege you are bequeathing to me." He propped himself up on one elbow and ran a finger down the flat plane of her stomach.

Her brow crinkled in a frown. "How would the Dreadful Scot Bandit Kirkpatrick say that?"

Sebastian's slow, sensual grin sent the blood coursing through Prudence's body in a primal throb. He pressed his mouth to her ear. "Something scandalous like, ‘Och, lass, ye ne'er had a mon inside ye the way I'm goin' to be inside ye.'" His finger dipped into her, smearing the honeyed dew to ease his passage. His burr thickened with desire. "Ye want me, angel. Ye're hot and wet and needin' a mon like me to fill ye."

Prudence had always loved words, but she had never before known their full power. "Scoundrel," she breathed, melting into his tender touch.

Sebastian dared to slip another finger into her, knowing only preparation could ease the pain to come. She turned her face to his, groping blindly for a sustenance to soothe the aching hunger flowering within her. He smoothed a thread of hair from her moist lips and laid his mouth over hers. The world narrowed to the wet heat of their fused mouths and bodies. Her legs fell apart, giving his hand dominion over her. His fingers began to move of their own volition, matching each thrust of his tongue. When he felt her arch and rock against him, he forgot patience, forgot gentleness, forgot everything but the promise of ecstasy tightening around his fingers as he buried them roughly in her. An involuntary whimper escaped her throat.

He half lifted his weight as if he might pull away. "I can't bear to hurt you, lass."

"I know that." She ran her fingertip along the pale, rigid scar under his chin. "You won't hurt me. You're not your father, Sebastian."

He stared down at her, his eyes as unfathomable as smoky diamonds. "Is there anything Jamie didn't tell you?"

She averted her gaze as she ran her hands over his arms, delighting in their muscular resilience. "Tricia always said I was a nosy miss." She cupped his throat and pressed her lips to his scar.

Sebastian's skin tingled from her cool touch. Nothing in his life had prepared him for her. Not the perfunctory stabs at pleasure he had made before he met Tricia, and not their expert couplings which had left him breathless, spent, and completely hollow. For Sebastian Kerr, there had been little of love in the making of it. He had suspected long ago that he was as crippled as his father.

Now here was this innocent woman-child daring to tell him he was wrong. And offering herself to prove it.

He enfolded her in his arms, encompassing her as if he could somehow draw the warmth and rich texture of her skin into his own. She buried her mouth against his shoulder with a wordless murmur.

He kissed her hair. "Let me pleasure you, angel," he murmured, and slid down her body, through the pools of candlelight dappling her creamy skin. Her delicate scent was maddening, all honeysuckle and jasmine and musk.

Prudence's urge to clamp her knees together went unheeded as a deeper urge rocked her. Sebastian parted her thighs with gentle hands. His mouth touched her, seeking to give solace where before he had given pain.

If she had been standing, she would have fallen. Her hands entwined in his hair; the tawny strands slipped like silk between her fingers. She lay back, hypnotized by a languid desire to close her eyes and surrender to the delicious sensations. His beautiful mouth pleasured her, doing things she had never, not even in her most heated dreams of him, imagined. The novelty of it was dark and mysterious and unbearably sweet. A moan tore from her and she arched her slender back, holding nothing from him. Without disturbing the maddening rhythm of his mouth, Sebastian thrust his fingers deep within her. She cried out his name in a voice she did not recognize as a blinding wave of pleasure broke over her, cresting again and again until she lay breathless and shivering among his pillows.

When her eyes fluttered open, he was leaning over her, his grin softened by concern. "I thought you might have swooned."

Her own lips curved in a shy smile. "I'm not the sort of girl who swoons."

He touched his lips to hers. "I'll have to see what I can do about that."

His hand lowered to unfasten the hooks of his knee-breeches. Prudence nibbled her lower lip to keep it from trembling. Not wanting him to see her fear, she reached across the bed and smothered the candle as he slipped out of his breeches.

The darkness enfolded them like a black velvet curtain. Her hand fluttered out to find him. She nuzzled her cheek against his chest, content to be held while her eyes adjusted to the light of moonbeams scattering through the chintz drapes. The cost of Sebastian's patience was betrayed by the thundering of his heart.

She tilted her face up for his kiss and their naked bodies entwined in languorous communion, his muscled thigh entrapping both of her legs, his belly pressed to hers. Her skin contracted violently at the sleek heat of his engorged manhood. He eased himself over her, bracing his weight on his elbows, and she slipped her arms around his neck.

Sebastian stared down into her eyes, seeing in their violet depths what he least wanted to be reminded of at this moment. It would be so easy to bury his guilt and doubt in her trusting body, but somehow he could not take her in dishonesty. She had come to him, but he had to ensure that she understood the cost of it.

He met her gaze unflinchingly. "You know this changes nothing. I still must marry Tricia."

Some selfish demon within him howled its anguish as Prudence disappeared. It was that simple. One second she was there. The next, she was gone. She stared at him without blinking. All that had been melting warmth between them cooled to unnatural stillness.

The blood drained from her face as if his words had somehow pierced her heart. "Let me up."

His demanding hardness brushed the silky curls between her legs. His muscles contracted with the temptation to drive himself into her honeyed sheath, to shatter her icy composure with a vivid reminder of his heat. To make her cry out his name once again with passionate abandon.

A trickle of sweat eased down his brow. "You can't ask me to stop now. It's not fair."

Prudence was too wise to struggle. "What do you know of fairness?"

Desperation gave his voice a hard edge. "You came to me. I thought you understood the way of it."

"Let me up." She enunciated each word with crystal clarity.

He flung himself off her as if she had shot him. Prudence had never known such an aching emptiness. Without the warmth of Sebastian's skin covering her, she felt vulnerable and ashamed of her nakedness.

She sat up on her knees, clutching the counterpane to her breasts. "You said you cared for me. How can you marry her?"

He glared up at the mahogany tester, his head resting on one folded arm. "I have no choice. She can give me what I need."

"What do you need, Sebastian? Money? Access to a title? A town house in London?"

His voice was low and flat. "Respectability."

She threw back her head as laughter burst wildly from her. "Respectability? I've had respectability all my life, and I can promise you it's nothing extraordinary." She pressed the heels of her palms to her stinging eyes. "Tell me one thing. If I were an heiress, would you marry me?"

His narrowed gaze shifted to her. "In a heartbeat."

She dove for the edge of the bed, dragging the counterpane with her. With the reflexes of a bom thief, he lunged for her. His arms encircled her waist, pulling her back against him. Her hair spilled over his face. He caught her flailing wrists in his hands, subduing her with all the gentleness he could muster.

"Listen to me, Prudence. We have a chance at happiness that few people in this world ever have. I can be with you and cherish you for our whole lives. Let me take care of you."

She crumpled against him. "What are you offering me? A few hours before dawn after Tricia has drugged herself insensible? A stolen kiss in the pantry? A new gown on my birthday?"

He touched his lips to her hair. "I am offering you a lifetime of tenderness. Tricia will never suspect us."

Prudence twisted in his arms until she faced him. "And if you get me with child? What then? Will you pass it off as the stable boy's? The butler's?"

An unexpected heat brushed his cheekbones. "I can protect you from that. There are ways." He hoped he was sincere. The vision of her slender body swelling with his babe inspired a poignant longing that shook him.

He made no attempt to stop her as she pulled out of his arms, sliding off the bed. The unmistakable bitterness in her eyes quenched his last spark of hope—yet he could not stop trying.

"You know your aunt better than anyone does. Do you think Tricia will take no lovers after we're wed? It's the way of things in her world."

Prudence crossed to the door and knelt to gather her night rail, her shoulders bent beneath the weight of the counterpane. "But not in mine."

Sebastian Kerr, who had bit back his pleas his entire life, said softly, "Please, Prudence. Don't leave me."

Her hands paused in their motion. She looked back to find him naked in more than his unabated need for her. His haunted gaze caught and held hers.

She dropped the night rail over her head, letting the counterpane fall in the same motion. Sebastian caught a glimpse of her skin.

Her hand touched the doorknob.

He leaped from the bed and crossed the room in two strides. His own hand covered hers. "You mustn't tell Tricia who I am. Both of our lives may depend on it."

She stared at the door.

His fingers tightened around hers. "Swear you won't."

She lifted her gaze to him, and he stepped back, recoiling from the contempt in her eyes.

"I swear it." She opened the door. "It would have never worked between us anyway. Because I don't have the money. And you, Sebastian Kerr, don't have the guts."

The soft click of the door shutting in his face echoed louder than a pistol shot.

Sebastian wandered over to the chair like a blind man. His toe touched something hard, and he stopped his foot just short of crushing the cool steel and delicate glass of Prudence's spectacles. He set them carefully beside his hairbrush. Among the bristles, a long dark hair entwined around his shorter blond ones.

Sighing wearily, he stared at his plaid, which lay folded in a neat square on the bureau. He picked it up and buried his face in the soft, scratchy wool, breathing deeply of Prudence's fragrance before it became no more than a memory.

Prudence's hands trembled as she twisted the key in the lock. She pressed her forehead to the bedchamber door, gathering her courage to turn and face the painful sterility of her tent-bed. There it was, bolster tidily fluffed, edges of the counterpane tucked neatly around the mattress. It would never know the weight of a man, the shameless sprawling of blankets, the fragrant aroma of cheroot smoke and brandy. The bed was as neat and prim as a coffin.

Her knees, still weak from Sebastian's loving, faltered. She swung around and gripped the edge of her dressing table, coming face to face with her own reflection. Loose tendrils of hair spilled over her face, eerily dark against the white of her skin.

Tonight was the end. The end of everything.

The hollow tick of the clock on the mantel mocked her as a liar. Tonight was only the beginning. The interminable moments of Tricia's marriage stretched before her in a prison of minutes and years.

She might be able to bear it if Sebastian grew bored with her cool reticence. It would just confirm her worst suspicions—that she was only a diversion to him, a mild flirtation easily forgotten in another woman's willing arms. Would he seek out Devony or some other Northumberland County belle? He was a well-traveled man. Even now he might have a mistress lodged in London or Edinburgh.

But deep in her heart, she knew Sebastian would not relent. He would continue to batter her feeble defenses with his love. How many tender glances across the supper table would it take? How many teasing games of whist? How many harmless strolls around the garden? How many of his lazy, beautiful smiles before she surrendered and became his mistress, condemning their love to tawdry dust? He had already broken her heart. If they became what society deemed they must be, he would break her very soul.

She looked down to discover her fingernails had gouged an ugly scratch in the walnut dressing table. She gazed at her wild-eyed reflection, believing either herself or the mirror would shatter beneath the weight of her intolerable future. She could still scent Sebastian on her skin. She had been brought to the brink of something wondrous, only to be cheated of it by his ambition and her pride. She hugged herself, rocking back and forth. The pain was all jagged edges twisting in her gut. There wasn't enough laudanum in all the world to dull it.

Sebastian's pistol gleamed against the wood of her dressing table. She had forgotten to return it. The sleek barrel had been polished to a high sheen with utmost tenderness. No instrument of death should be so compelling, she thought, so flawlessly beautiful.

With a strange calm, she lifted the lid of her cherrywood box. The satin lining still held the recent indentation of her spectacles. She ran her fingers along the seam and the false bottom lifted easily. The leather pouch and slim rod lay nestled in the folds of velvet as they had on the day her papa had given them to her. Insurance for the future, he had called them.

As her fingers followed the familiar routine with methodical precision, she felt as if she were watching herself from a great distance. She tipped the pouch, filling the barrel of the pistol without spilling a speck of gunpowder. She tamped down the ball with the slender gold ramrod. It wasn't until the gun lay heavy across her palm, fully primed, that she began to shake. Unable to bear another tick of the clock in the stifling silence, she dragged on her wrapper, then unlocked and flung open the door.

Her fevered strides carried her down the stairs and through the ballroom. The chandelier was dark, and the long room was drenched in moonlight and shadow. A broken champagne glass lay overturned in a puddle of amber. With every step, a dark anger grew in her. She wished she could be there in the morning when Tricia's glib fiancé tried to explain why her dead niece was floating like Ophelia in the goldfish pool.

She stopped, dashing away a furious tear. Why should she shoot herself? She ought to shoot Sebastian. She wheeled around to pace the length of the ballroom. The tall pier-glass between two windows threw back the image of a harried Medea, startling among the pale, impassive marble gods.

God gave you a brain, child. Use it .

Papa. It had been Papa who had first sensed the reckless passions that lurked beneath her calm, Papa who had urged control, assuring her she could think her way out of any dilemma. But her brain was no match for this bitter agony, this unbearable longing for something she would never have. She stared down at the gun in her hand, knowing she could not use it.

She could not remain at Lindentree either, though. She refused to stand beneath that floral bower and watch while Sebastian burned their lives to ashes. She would go upstairs, pack her trunk, and quietly take her leave on the next coach to London.

Her resolve was no comfort. She still wanted to smash something. She tore open the terrace doors. A gaudy scarlet mask skittered across the tiles, caught by the fingers of the wind.

The voice came out of the shadows, its clipped tones softened by empathy. "Where's your charming costume, Prudence? Did you feel compelled to return it to its rightful owner?"

She turned slowly, staring at nothing as the man reached over and gently pried Sebastian's pistol from her limp fingers.

The masquerade was done.