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Mrs. Keates’s chest, leaving her unable to breathe. He was dead. Dead all these years. All these seven long years.
    “—as a prisoner of the French. Two months ago, our hero effected a daring escape from a garrison in Spain—”
    Spain. The very name left her heart hammering. Memories of that word, of that night filled her mind.
    “Keates! Keates! Are you listening to me?” Lady Finch’s agitation cut through the shock clouding her ears. “Why, you look terrible! Call for Mercy to get you a tincture of my megrims cure.”
    Shaking her head and hoping that her trembling didn’t show, Mrs. Keates braved a smile. “No, that won’t be necessary. Pray, go on, my lady.”
    “Yes, well, if you say so.” Lady Finch straightened her paper, glanced one more time over the top of it, studying her companion with a keen and penetrating stare.
    For her part, Mrs. Keates sat up straight and nodded for her ladyship to continue.
    “Where was I?”
    “Spain,” Mrs. Keates prompted, the word like a brand on her tongue.
    “Yes, Spain.” Lady Finch scanned down the column. “Oh, yes, here it is. Escaped from a garrison in Spain and made it to the English lines in Portugal with the help of Spanish guerrillas.” Her ladyship shuddered. “The poor boy. How glad he must have been to see our noble colors flying from a standard.”
    Mrs. Keates nodded, only too afraid to speak. For fear she’d show too much interest. For fear the sick feeling in her chest would spill out and she’d disgrace herself by tossing up her tea on the carpet.
    It couldn’t be him. It just couldn’t be.
    “From Lisbon, where he was much honored by Wellington, he set forth on the Archimedes and arrived in London this Tuesday past, sending his mother into a fit of delight. The brave lady, her fight to save his title and inheritance well known to these readers, is hosting a fête in honor of his return.” Lady Finch shook her head. “And here I have been writing to Sarah all these years to forget about that scandalous scalawag she called a son and find another distraction other than pestering the House of Lords about his estate. I do say, those Parnells are a determined lot.”
    Parnell. The only too familiar name hammered at her unwillingness to believe.
    Her ladyship set the paper aside. “Well, well, the Marquis of Bradstone returned from the dead. And a hero to boot. I wonder if anyone remembers why he left. Now, there’s a story that bears repeating, more than this taradiddle about him escaping the French. That was just before you came here, Keates. I don’t suppose you’ve heard it, though if you had, you surely wouldn’t forget it.” Lady Finch waved to her maid, who had arrived to help take the lady to bed.
    Mrs. Keates managed to draw a slow, even breath. “Yes, my lady, I recall the tale,” she whispered as the maid rolled Lady Finch’s chair out of the room.
    Mrs. Keates, née Olivia Sutton, hadn’t just heard it. She had managed to live through it.
    As she made her way to her modest bedchamber, the events of that night played through her thoughts.
    After Robert had pointed her out as the young Spaniard’s murderer, her life had turned upside down. One minute he was there, accusing her of murder, and the next moment he was gone, having slipped into the crowd.
    Hours later, locked in her own room and under house arrest, she still couldn’t fathom how everything had gone so wrong. Even the blood-soaked note and band of gold she still held clenched in her hand seemed unreal.
    She’d looked around the darkened room and tried to find the words to voice her anguish. Yet all she could think of was what the Spaniard had told her.
    Run, he had warned. Go as far as you can.
    But to where and how ? she had wanted to cry out.
    No, running wasn’t the answer. But Lord Bradstone was.
    Yes, that was it, she would go to him. He would see her name cleared.
    Luckily for Olivia, the locks in her mother’s house had been in ill-repair, like the