"Why, hello, my lord. Have you finished your business?"

"Not exactly," Julian said. Walking across the room, he pulled up a chair beside hers. Taking her hand in his, he said bluntly, "I have just learned that Tynedale is in the area, staying at my cousin's house."

Nell's face paled and she stiffened. "But how does this come about? I cannot imagine Marcus associating with such a vile creature."

Julian made a face. "You have not yet met the whole family-I have many cousins, but what concerns us now is the set of cousins I have who live not ten miles away, Charles and Raoul Weston. Their father was my father's twin and next in line for the title behind mine." Julian sighed. "For various reasons, not the least of it that I hold the title, there is little love lost between us-although it was not always so-but at present one or both of them might like it if the scandal caused me harm."

"I see," she replied, her expression troubled. The full import of what he was saying suddenly hit her and her eyes widened. "Do you think Tynedale would dare tell them that he abducted me that night?" Something else occurred to her. "Oh, goodness, surely we wouldn't have to meet him socially."

"That's what I don't know. He might tell Charles and Raoul. As for meeting him socially you have little to fear." He gave a hard laugh. "Charles is not a fool, he would know better than to allow Tynedale to attend any function where I would be. My main worry is that Tynedale might try to play a game of cat and mouse with us." Quietly, Julian added, "I have the means to destroy him-for motives of my own, I have managed to obtain enough of his vowels to ruin him financially. I'm sure he has learned of it and he might think that he could blackmail me into giving them up for his silence-he goes away and keeps his mouth shut if I give him the vowels."

Nell's hand tightened on his and she leaned forward, saying passionately, "My lord, you must not! He is a devil and cannot be trusted to keep his word. You would waste those vowels."

"I agree. I learned of his presence at Stonegate, Charles's home, only moments ago and have not yet decided on a way to handle the situation. But he is a danger to us and short of outright murder I want him gone-and his mouth shut. And if he tells Charles or Raoul of the abduction, I do not know what the consequences might be."

"Do your cousins hold their own name in such little esteem, that they would take part in any scheme to bring dishonor upon it? Wouldn't they dislike having their name besmirched?"

Julian smiled bitterly. "I sometimes believe from Charles's reckless escapades that except to inherit my title and fortune, he has no regard at all for the name of Weston, and I have no way of knowing if he will take our side or drag our name through the devil's cesspit."

"I've brought you nothing but trouble and you have been so very kind to me," Nell said mournfully. "And now through me, you stand to have your name and family held up to public disdain and contempt." She dragged her hand from his and rose to her feet. "Oh, if only I had not taken refuge in that toll keeper's cottage, then none of this would have happened."

"I have not been 'kind' to you," Julian said with an edge to his voice, also rising to his feet. "I have pleased myself."

She gave a little nod of her head that plainly indicated that she didn't believe him. Suppressing an urge to shake her, Julian said coolly, "Whatever the reasons, we are married, and Tynedale is on our doorstep. We are going to have to keep our heads about us, and gather our forces to us if we hope to get through this with our reputations intact."

"You make it sound like a battle."

"In many ways it is a battle, one I intend to win. But I need your help to do it."

She crossed to stand in front of him. Her voice passionate, she declared, "You have it! Whatever you want, I will give it to you. We will beat Tynedale at his own game."

He smiled at her fierceness. "For now all I ask is permission to explain to Marcus Tynedale's part in our marriage."

Ready to take up the sword and confront Tynedale, she was startled by his request. Nell blinked, thought about it a moment, then flashed him a lovely smile. "If it will help us defeat Tynedale, then by all means tell your cousin."

That smile made his heart leap and pulling her into his arms, he kissed her. Putting her from him a long moment later, he said roughly, "And I am not kind to you."

Chapter 9.

Leaving Nell to stare mystified after him, Julian departed her rooms and returned to the study. After shutting the door behind him, he walked to his chair near the fire and seated himself across from Marcus.

Marcus lifted one beautifully sculpted brow. "A task of some urgency?"

Julian grinned at him. "Not exactly, but the tale I have to tell you does not just involve myself and I needed my wife's permission before I told it to you."

"By all that I hold holy," Marcus marveled, his eyes dancing with glee, "can it be? Do my senses deceive me? Is the fellow standing before me not the much-sought-after Julian Weston, breaker of hearts from one end of England to the other? And is he not living tamely under the cat's paw? That I should live to see the day that he is brought to his knees by a mere female-shameful!"

"Enjoy yourself, but not too much. Someday our positions may be reversed-you may be the newly married man."

Marcus shuddered. "Please, no, I beg you! Never even mention my name in connection with the word 'matrimony.' I like my life just as it is and, unlike you, I have no title to worry about passing onto the fruit of my loins."

"There is that," Julian said, "but you do have a fortune and lands, and someday someone must inherit them."

"My eventual demise and the dispersal of my estate was not the subject of this conversation-your, er, consultation with your wife was."

Julian's humorous manner evaporated and leaning forward, he told Marcus of the events that had led to his marriage to Nell. When he finished speaking, he leaned back and waited for Marcus's reaction.

Marcus took a sip of his whiskey punch. "Do you know, I have always enjoyed being somewhat perspicacious, but this is one time I would have preferred being a corked-brained dunderhead. I knew that you were spinning me a Banbury story when you first told me about your coming marriage, but I never suspected something like this." He frowned. "Will Tynedale keep his mouth shut? Or do you think his whole purpose in coming here and staying with Charles is to make mischief?"

Julian shrugged. "It could be chance, but I doubt it."

"I wonder," Marcus speculated aloud, "if Tynedale realizes that Charles, if the mood took him, might be a powerful ally in the ruination of your lady's reputation." He shot Julian a keen look. "You do realize that she is the one most likely to suffer from this? You are, after all, the Earl of Wyndham, while she, until her marriage to you, was a little country nobody-albeit a lovely and rich nobody. She will be the most vulnerable to gossip and innuendo. People may pity you for falling into her clutches and some may think you a cuckold for marrying Tynedale's castoff, but your wife is the one who will be smeared the most."

A deadly note in his voice, Julian said, "I would be careful what I said, my friend. It is my wife you are talking about-and I do not appreciate you referring to her as 'Tynedale's castoff.' She was an innocent pawn caught up in his schemes and I'll not have you or anyone else refer to her in less than respectful terms. I'd run another man through for saying what you just did."

"Oh, don't fly up in the boughs with me! I ain't the enemy! I hold Lady Wyndham in the highest esteem and will stand shoulder to shoulder with you on this-I'm merely telling you how others may view the situation." He grinned at his cousin. "Personally, I think your wife will be the making of you and if it didn't go against the grain, I'd shake Tynedale's hand for bringing about your marriage to her."

Julian flashed a twisted smile. "We are more alike than we know-that same thought, or something similar, has crossed my mind more than once."

"So what are we to do? I dislike standing about waiting to be attacked. I would far rather take the fight to the enemy."

"I agree, but I cannot, at the moment, short of murder, see a way out of this quagmire. If I confront Tynedale, it may make him believe that he holds a stronger hand than he does. Certainly I cannot tell him not to tell my cousins-he'd run to them with the tale the very next second. The vowels are, at present, useless to me. If I offer them to him for his silence, as Nell observed, once they are in his hands, there is nothing then to stop him from spreading the story of the abduction."

He scowled. "It occurs to me that he holds the best cards." At Marcus's skeptical look, he added, "By altering the story only slightly, he can make himself look to be the injured party. He could avow that because of her father's objections, he and Nell were making a runaway match of it-that there was no abduction, she was a willing participant and they were separated in the storm. My arrival on the scene ruined their plans and I am the villain of the piece. I compromised Nell and wrested her away from the arms of her true love." His scowl deepened. "That may even be what he plans to do-that way he blackens me, creates a scandal around Nell and emerges from the fray a figure of sympathy."

Marcus straightened. "Good God! You are right." Staring down at his boots, he muttered, "Well, then there is nothing for it. I shall just have to kill Tynedale." Glumly he added, "Probably Charles, too, but I tell you, Julian, it goes against the grain killing a relative."

Julian burst out laughing. "And I know you would, too, but I will not have you fighting my battles for me. I don't know yet how to resolve this, but we will manage, somehow."

The weather worsened, the drizzle turning into full-fledged rain and Marcus, at Julian's urging, remained for dinner. Nell had eyed Marcus uneasily when she joined the gentlemen in the dining room, but Marcus soon put her at her ease and her fears that Julian's cousin would think less of her once he knew the facts surrounding her marriage were soon banished. By the time the meal ended, Nell knew that Marcus was a dear and loyal friend, not only to Julian but to herself as well.

On the point of leaving the two men to their liquor, listening to the howling wind and driving rain, Nell suggested that Marcus remain for the night. He accepted her invitation gladly.

Nell retreated to the green saloon at the rear of the house. Unlike many of the rooms of the house, the green saloon was not large and it had a cozy informality that appealed to her. Not long after her arrival at Wyndham Manor, it had become her favorite room in which to spend the long winter evenings. When Dibble arrived with the tea tray, Nell informed him of their overnight guest. Dibble left, saying that he would immediately have rooms prepared for Mr. Sherbrook and would press one of the male servants into service to wait upon him.

When the gentlemen joined her in the green saloon, she mentioned to Marcus the arrangements for his comfort.

"I hope you will not mind having a footman acting as your valet?"

"My dear lady, I am grateful for your hospitality and since I am at your mercy for my wants, I appreciate your efforts."

"And I suppose," said Julian with a smile, "that I will have to give up some of my clean linen for you to wear home tomorrow."

"Well, I certainly wouldn't want to wear your dirty linen!"

The evening passed enjoyably and a few hours later, leaving the gentlemen as they started a game of piquet, Nell sought out her rooms.

Dismissing Becky after she'd changed into her nightclothes, Nell climbed into bed feeling more tired than usual. She always enjoyed Marcus's company, but until she'd seen him this evening and his manner had banished her fears of appearing less worthy in his eyes, she'd spent some anxious hours alone and they had taken their toll.

Yet, once abed, she lay sleepless, tossing and turning for hours. The faint feeling of nausea that she'd tried to ignore since dinner became more insistent and she sat up, thinking to ring for some hot milk. The upright motion was a mistake, the room swam and she bolted from the bed, barely reaching the chamber pot in time. Heaving and gagging she lost her dinner.

The door to Julian's chamber's opened and he stepped into the room. It was a woebegone face that turned in his direction. "Nell!" he cried and hurried to her side. "What is wrong, sweetheart?"

Mortified at being found heaving over the chamber pot, Nell motioned him to wait and tottered into her dressing room. From the rose and cream china pitcher that sat on the washstand, she threw water on her face and swilled some around in her mouth. Pushing back a strand of lank hair, she stared at herself in the mirror that hung above the marble washstand and made a face. She looked terrible, her eyes too big for her face and her skin pale and lifeless. Exactly what an amorous husband of only a few months wished to see, she thought wretchedly.

Walking back into her bedroom she sent Julian a wry smile. "I should have remembered that buttered lobster never agrees with me."

"Shall I have some hot tea or milk brought up for you?" he asked, concerned, as his eyes roamed over her pale features.

Nell nodded. "Milk, please."

After helping her into bed, he rang for a servant. Shortly, a tray with a steaming glass of hot milk and some dry toast was placed on a table near the bed. Her stomach still rolling, Nell cautiously sipped the milk. Julian sat on the side of the bed only a few inches away, watching her. She still felt queasy and she prayed that the milk would stay down and that she wouldn't further humiliate herself by vomiting all over him.

It was a near thing, the milk hardly reaching her stomach before it was on a return journey. Nell scrambled frantically from the bed and Julian, having a good idea where this was going, leaped away and grabbed the chamber pot, presenting it to her in the nick of time.

If she'd been embarrassed previously that was nothing compared to her feelings now as Julian held her head and she gave up the milk into the chamber pot, her body racked by powerful spasms. When the ordeal was over, he took the chamber pot from her trembling hands, and setting it aside, disappeared into her dressing room, returning with a soft, damp cloth that he used to wipe her face and mouth. Her humiliation was complete. She'd never be able to look him in the eye again.

"I'm sorry," she said, her cheeks on fire.

"Don't be. Anyone can be ill. Are you feeling better now?"

She nodded, not looking at him, wishing him gone, so she could die in peace.

He smoothed back her hair and punched up her pillows. "Lie back and get some sleep. I shall see that the physician is here first thing in the morning."

"Oh, that's not necessary. I will be fine by then," she protested. "It was only the buttered lobster."

He smiled at her. "I'm sure it was, but I still think it will be a good idea if you see Dr. Coleman, our local physician. He is very good, you will like him."

Nell argued with him, but Julian only smiled. Pressing a kiss on her forehead, he said, "Go to sleep. If you need anything, call out. I will leave my door ajar and will hear you."

Nell eventually fell asleep.

She woke the next morning to a weak winter sun, but yesterday's storm was gone and with it, she thought happily, her upset stomach.

Bounding from bed, she luxuriated in a long warm bath. Sometime later, smelling deliciously of pink carnations, her tawny locks caught up in a green silk bow at the back of her head and wearing a charming gown of light green muslin, she hurried into the breakfast room. Marcus and Julian were there before her and both men rose when she entered the room. Waving them aside, she walked to the long sideboard and filled her plate full of several rashers of bacon, a slice of ham, scrambled eggs, some kippers and two pieces of buttered toast.

Seeing Marcus's expression at the amount of food on her plate, she grinned at him. "It is alarming, isn't it? But I've always had a good appetite and my father always insisted that the first meal of the day be a large one."

"I see that you have suffered no lasting ill effects from your, uh, disagreement last night with the buttered lobster," Julian commented after a thorough appraisal of her face.

"Indeed not. I told you that I did not need to see a physician."

"So you did," he agreed, "but I'm afraid that you shall still see him. I've already sent a servant requesting him to call upon us this morning."

Nell wrinkled her nose at him. "Has anyone ever told you that you can be very overbearing and dictatorial at times?"

"How very perspicacious of you, my lady!" Marcus said, leaning intimately in her direction. "I have told him that very thing time and time again." He sighed. "Alas, fair lady, he is the great Earl of Wyndham and cannot conceive of what we lesser beings speak."

"Tell me again," Julian said to Marcus, "why you are one of my favorite cousins?"

It was a merry meal and when it ended, Nell was sorry to see Marcus prepare to ride away. She and Julian waved him off from the broad steps of the house and as they walked back inside, she said, "I like him."

"I'm glad. Marcus is more like a brother to me than a mere cousin. I am very fond of him."

"But not Charles and Raoul?"

Showing her into his study, Julian remarked, "It is difficult to explain to someone who doesn't understand the family background my relationship with Charles. There was a time that we were very close but..."

"But...?"

Inviting her to sit by the fire, he took the chair opposite her and said, "It is complicated and requires a bit of family genealogy to make it understandable." He made a face. "It is a long tale."

Leaning back into the supple leather of the chair, Nell said, "I'm not going anywhere."

He shot her a look. "You are a persistent little thing, aren't you?"

She grinned. "And you are dictatorial and overbearing."

Julian laughed. "Oh, very well, if you must know..." He hesitated, his light mood fading. Just when she thought he wouldn't continue, he said, "Like your brothers, my father was also a twin."

Nell looked surprised. "Identical like Drew and Henry?"

He nodded. "Yes, my father, Fane, and his brother, Harlan, were born only minutes apart and were alike as two peas in a pod-at least in looks. In personality..." He stared off. "In personality they were very different." He flashed her a wry grin. "My grandfather, the Old Earl, as we all called him, was a rake's rake, his reputation for seduction, inebriation and gambling was legendary, and I'm afraid that Harlan took after him, while my father was more like my mother's family."

"So except for your father arriving a few moments before him, Harlan would have been the heir?"

"Yes, and believe me, in his later years, Harlan dwelled far too long and often on that point. I remember one time, when he was in his cups shortly before he died, that he even dared to suggest that he was really the firstborn and heir, but for reasons that only made sense to a drunkard, he and my father were switched at birth."

"Not very logical."

"No, but then Uncle Harlan wasn't very logical at times. Other times he could be the best uncle in the world, but..."

"Not always," Nell said gently.

He cast her a grateful look. "No, not always. When I was young, my father and Harlan were very close, as twins often are. Oh, they sparred and fought, but there was a bond between them that seemed unbreakable. When Harlan's first wife died, and John and Charles were hardly out of leading strings, it was my father who steadied him during that wretched time. And when my mother died a few years later, it was Harlan who helped him the most during that sad time. Until around the time of John's death our two families were almost inseparable."

Nell frowned. "You mentioned John and Charles...Where does Raoul fit into the family?"

"Raoul is Harlan's son by his second wife, Sofia, a Frenchwoman."