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bringing up the child was hers alone and would be for years and years to come.
    The father, as was the nature of things, had suffered nothing but physical pleasure from the affair.
    The least he could do, the Earl of Thornhill had decided some time ago—the very least—was inform the man that he knew. Catherine had kept his identity aclosely guarded secret for a long time and even then had told only her stepson.
    And now the father of Catherine’s child was riding in the park, bowing gallantly over the hand of a lady in a phaeton and flashing the whiteness of his handsome smile at her. He had not a care in the world. The earl amused himself for a moment with the mental image of his fist shattering those white teeth into a million fragments.
    “You are blocking the path, Gabe,” Lord Francis said.
    “What?” he said. “Oh, sorry.” Catherine’s former lover had tipped his hat to the lady in the phaeton and was riding away from the crowd into the more open spaces of the park. “Excuse me, will you? There is someone I must talk to.”
    Without waiting for their answer, he maneuvered his horse around vehicles and pedestrians and other horses until he was clear of them and could close the gap with the other rider.
    “Kersey,” he called when he was within earshot, “well met.”
    Viscount Kersey turned his head sharply, a slight frown between his handsome brows, and then smiled. “Ah, Thornhill,” he said, “you are back in England, are you? Facing the music and all that?” He laughed. “Sorry about your father. It must have been a shock to you under the circumstances.”
    “He had been ill for several years,” the earl said. “Your daughter is going to be blond like you, though she does not have much hair to speak of at the moment. Did youknow, by the way, that it was a daughter, not a son? So much better, I always think, when the child cannot be acknowledged as one’s heir anyway.”
    It was as if a curtain came down just behind the blue eyes, he noted with interest.
    “What are you talking about?” Viscount Kersey asked, his voice both chilly and haughty.
    “Lady Thornhill is now established comfortably in Switzerland with her daughter,” the earl said, “and is in a fair way to recovering her spirits. I do not suppose you are much interested in hearing about her, though, are you?”
    “Why should I be?” Lord Kersey frowned back at him. “Beyond the fact that I met the countess once or twice while I was attending my uncle during his sickness. I rather gather that you are the one who should be most concerned with her well-being, Thornhill.”
    The earl smiled. “I have no desire to prolong this exchange of civilities,” he said. “And I am not about to slap a glove in your face. Suffice it to say that I know and that for the rest of your life you will know that I know. If I can be of any disservice to you, Kersey, it will be my pleasure to oblige. Good day to you.” He touched his whip to the brim of his hat and turned to ride unhurriedly away in the opposite direction from that taken by Kersey.
    He was satisfied, he thought. He had accomplished what he had always planned to do. Perhaps Kersey would suffer some discomfort from the knowledge that his secret was not quite so secret after all.
    And yet, the earl thought, there should be more. Hisfather had been cuckolded and his stepmother dishonored and he himself had had his reputation ruined. A child was to grow up unsupported and unacknowledged by her real father.
    There should be more.
    For the first time in a long while the urge really to hurt Kersey burned in him. He should be made to suffer—just a little. He could not be publicly exposed without stirring up the old scandal for Catherine again. Lord Thornhill would not do that to her even though she was far away. No, he would have no satisfaction from hurling mud at Kersey and watching him as like as not ducking out of its aim.
    But there should be some way.
    He would watch for it, the