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room, so hot that even her flimsy nightgown seemed too heavy against her skin. She undid the tiny pearl buttons from throat to waist and pulled back the edges of the bodice to expose her breasts. She was still too hot, and she picked up the carafe of water on the table by her chair. It was empty. Sighing, she set it down again.
    The candle on the mantel was well down and beginning to sputter. She rose, reached for it, then hesitated. There wasn’t much chance that she would get back to sleep now. Maybe she should light another candle and-and do what? Torture her mind with visions of her loathsome brother-in-law as she’d last seen him? Debate endlessly whether William was alive or dead? Speculate on what he would do to her if he ever caught up to her?
    She knew what he would do. He would kill her, of course. Then Anne would come into their father’s money, and William would finally get his greedy paws on it. That’s all he had ever wanted-money.
    She would never let him hurt any member of her family again.
    A harebrained scheme, Bea called this trip to Bath. In her saner moments, she agreed. But desperate straits called for desperate measures, and she was desperate. She’d wracked her brains endlessly for a better way, and there wasn’t one. Once she was married and the marriage settlement was signed, William would no longer be a threat.
    This was nonsense. She knew William was dead. She knew. Didn’t she?
    If only there was someone she could confide in … but there was no one. And some secrets simply could not be shared.
    She smoothed her fingers over her brow. Her brain was befuddled by so much thinking. And really, there was nothing to think about. She’d made her decision. Let it go, she told herself sternly. Put all your troubles out Of mind and go to bed.
    She went on tiptoe, positioned her hand behind the sputtering candle and blew it out, and in the very act of blowing it out, from the corner of her eye, she caught the reflection in the mirror above the mantel of a man climbing over the windowsill.
    In that blinding moment of darkness, her throat closed in panic. He’d found her! William had found her!
    “William?” she whispered hoarsely.
    There was no response.
    Trembling violently, heart thudding against her ribs, she edged herself round to face the intruder. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. It wasn’t pitch black. The light from the lanterns in the courtyard cast flickering shadows, but there was nothing to be seen, no man at the window now. But her hearing had never been more acute, and she could hear someone breathing. She sucked in a breath when his voice broke the silence.
    “I had no idea,” he said, “that there were red highlights in your hair. But I suppose ladies can change their appearance to suit themselves. Give me a moment. I feel as though I’ve just climbed the Matterhorn.”
    It wasn’t William’s voice! The thought brought a measure of calm. Not William, then, but one of his friends, someone who obviously knew her by sight. She supposed William had sent him as a forerunner of what was to come, when the real terror would begin. Or maybe he wanted to demonstrate that, in spite of all her stratagems, he could still get to her.
    She was deathly afraid, but her fear was tempered by anger. She could imagine the lies William had told his friend about her: that she was a slut; that she was any man’sfor the taking. Well, this was one man who was going to find out that William had lied.
    She had to be calm; she had to think what to do. If she screamed, he would be on her in a flash. Bea was in the room across the hall, but it would take an earthquake to waken Bea. Some of the other guests might hear her, but if they came to her rescue, she had no doubt that her assailant would plead they’d interrupted a lovers’ tiff, and turn them away. And who would believe Sara Carstairs when her true identity became known? With the realization that there was no one to help