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into sweat-dampened sheets. The pounding of a gavel continued to pummel her eardrums.
    I would be very afraid, were I you, squealed a coiled spring.
    Rose’s eyelids snapped open. Darkness dilated her pupils.
    It was not a convicting judge’s gavel that pounded the bench, she realized, but a metal knocker that pounded a door.
    Rose’s husband could put her away, the knocker hammered home. A possibility that had seemed dim in the light of day, but now she was surrounded by the dark of night.
    For the first time in her life she was truly alone: No one would come to her aid if she called for help.
    Reason galloped to Rose’s rescue.
    She had left a note informing Jonathon of her new address late in the afternoon, too late for him to file a lunacy order. Nor would a criminal so loudly announce his intentions.
    Wrestling back the covers, Rose slid out of bed. Cold, hard wood curled her naked toes. Blindly she located a nightstand. Inside the top drawer, her scrabbling fingers stubbed a tin of safety matches.
    Blue light sparked, shot up a plume of yellow fire.
    Lifting an icy glass globe, she touched the burning match tip to a blackened wick. Light radiated outward, replacing darkness with bare, shadowed walls.
    Blowing out the dying match—breath a silvery plume—Rose dropped the blackened stick into a small milk glass bowl and grabbed the candle she had earlier used to light her way up the stairs. Dancing yellow flame leapt from the wick of the oil lamp to the candle stub.
    The urgent pounding spurred Rose forward.
    Fluttering candlelight illuminated the dark length of the corridor . . . the steep descent of wooden stairs . . . a white-enameled door wreathed in shadow.
    “Who is it?” Rose asked, heart tripping.
    More pounding vibrated the door.
    A warning. A promise.
    It could only be Jonathon.
    Now they would have the discussion they should have had twelve years earlier.
    Rose unlocked the door and swung it open. “Jonathon—”
    Eyes made black with shadow stared at her from underneath a rain-misted bowler. “I seem to always be the other man, Mrs. Clarring.”
    A wave of brandy fumes snapped back Rose’s head. “You’re inebriated.”
    “But not unconscious.”
    Unlike her husband, Jack Lodoun implied.
    Raw betrayal slashed through Rose: It should be Jonathon who knocked on her door, not this man.
    She gripped cold, damp wood. “It’s late, Mr. Lodoun.”
    “A barrister and the law are much alike,” Jack Lodoun returned, dark gaze holding hers. “You get one shot at justice. If you close this door, you forfeit your chance.”
    “I thank you for your consideration—”
    “I assure you, I am not a considerate man.”
    “—but my actions outside the courthouse were impulsive,” Rose determinedly finished. And desperate, the flickering candle flame underscored. “I don’t need your services.”
    Light glinted off reddish-gold whiskers while shadow scarred the murky face underneath the mist-kissed bowler. “You no longer want a divorce?”
    “It’s no longer a matter of what I want.” Unaccustomed bitterness tinged her voice. “I’ve seen The Globe. Because of you, sir, I have been labeled an adulteress.”
    “So like a child”—the harsh line of his mouth twisted—“you now want to hide behind your husband’s coattail?”
    The unexpected criticism stung.
    “I have instructed my husband I will not contest a divorce,” Rose said stiffly.
    “But in order for him to win a divorce, he must first prove criminal conversation.” The shadow-blackened eyes bored into hers. “Did you sexually converse with a man inside the Men and Women’s Club?”
    The injustice of his question tore through Rose. “You know I didn’t.”
    “You forget, Mrs. Clarring, I am a man who made a woman an adulteress,” lashed the flickering darkness. “What makes you think you are any more impervious to a man’s need than she?”
    Rose stared up at the shadowed eyes that showed no emotion, even as the