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her not to say anything. She would have to agree, for her reputation was at stake. She would go to the ball and simply say she had stayed longer with Uncle Anthony than she’d planned to. No one would ever know she had been abducted.
    Having removed her gag and wrist bands, she stretched out on the bed, perfectly at ease, enjoying the adventure. It wasn’t her first, not by any means. She’d had adventures all her life, beginning at age seven, when she’d fallen through the ice on Haverston Pond, and would have drowned if one of the stableboys hadn’t heard her calling and pulled her out. The following year the same boy distracted a wild boar that had chased her up a tree. He’d been gored, and while he recovered quickly, happy to tell his friends all about the dramatic rescue, she was restricted from the woods for a year.
    No, even her uncles’ almost religious devotion to her upbringing hadn’t been able to stand in the way of fate, and Reggie had seen more adventure in nineteen years than most men did in all their lives. Looking around her elegant, temporary prison, she smiled. She knew young women dreamed of adventure, yearned to be swept away by handsome strangers on horseback, but she had known the real thing. Twice, as a matter of fact, this evening’s escapade being the second.
    Two years before, when she was seventeen,she’d been attacked on the road to Bath by three masked highwaymen, and whisked away by the boldest of the three. Thank heaven her daring oldest cousin Derek had been in the coach that day and, taking one of the coach horses, had pursued her abductor furiously, rescuing Reggie from…whatever the stranger had had in mind.
    And before that, when she was twelve, there had been her high-seas adventure. She was kidnapped for a whole summer, and endured terrifying storms at sea and even an incredible battle.
    Well, she was having another adventure, an amusing and fairly safe one this time. And then she sat bolt upright. Uncle Tony! He knew about this! Suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore. If he found out who her abductor was, he would come and break the door down. There would be no end of gossip, and then she would be ruined. Anthony Malory wouldn’t let it end easily, either. He would challenge the poor fellow and kill him, mistake or not.
    Reggie got up and began to walk, barefoot, around the room. Oh, dear, this was becoming a dreadful predicament. She continued pacing, distracting herself by studying the room. It was done in muted greens and browns, and there were a few modern Chippendale pieces. Her cape was draped over an armchair, her slippers on the floor in front of it, her mask tossed on the padded seat. A single window looked out over a garden, dark and full of shadows. She repairedher hair using a mirror framed in the leaves and flowers of the Rocaille style.
    She wondered if Tyndale really would tie her up and gag her if she started shouting for help. Better not to find out. She wondered, too, what was taking Nick so long to discover his mistake. The minutes continued to tick by on the Meissen clock on the mantel.
     
    Nicholas watched her waltz by in the arms of some dandy wearing bright green satin that clashed horribly with Selena’s plum-colored evening gown. With those colors, they were hardly a pair one could miss, even on that crowded dance floor.
    “Bloody hell,” Nicholas growled.
    Percy, standing beside him, was more articulate. “Oh, good God! You’ve really gone and done it, haven’t you? I knew you shouldn’t have started this, and now you’ve really gone and done it.”
    “Shut up, Percy.”
    “Well, that is her, isn’t it? Then for God’s sake who’s the bird you’ve got caged at home? You’ve stolen Malory’s mistress, isn’t that it? He’ll kill you, Nick,” Percy informed him. “He’ll bloody well kill you is what he’ll do.”
    Nicholas was ready to kill his excitable friend. “You do go on and on, don’t you? The only thing that will come of