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"You are the Marquess of What ?"
    "Staunton," he said. He had an aquiline nose, rather thin lips. One lock of very dark hair had fallen across his brow above his right eye and curled there like an upside-down question mark. "Eldest son of the Duke of Withingsby. His heir, my lady. We travel to EnfieldPark, his seat in Wiltshire so that you may be properly presented to him."
    He really was a marquess. Lord Rowling had not been teasing her. He was not after all plain Mr. Earheart. But of course his servants had called him my lord and had called her my
    lady . And he was the son and heir of a duke. The Duke of Withingsby. He would be a duke himself one day. She would be… No, she would not. Not really.
    "Why would you marry without your father's knowledge?" she asked. "And why me? I am a gentleman's daughter, but one would expect a future duke to look for somewhat higher qualifications than that in a wife."
    His smile was rather unpleasant, she thought, despite the fact that it revealed very white teeth. But the smile in no way touched his eyes. "Perhaps, my lady," he said, "that is just the point."
    He had married her to spite someone? His father?
    "Do you and your father have a quarrel with each other?" she asked.
    He continued to smile—with his lips. "Shall we say," he said, "that the more displeased his grace proves to be, the more gratified I shall be?"
    She understood immediately. She would have had to be stupid not to. "So I am a mere pawn in a game," she said.
    His smile disappeared and his eyes narrowed. "A very well-paid pawn, my lady," he said. "And one who will be titled for the rest of her life."
    It was as well, she thought, that they were to remain together for only a few weeks—just until she had given the Duke of Withingsby a thorough disgust of herself, she supposed. She did not believe she could possibly like this man. What sort of man married a stranger merely to displease his father?
    Not that she had any cause for moral outrage, of course. She had accepted the offer he had made yesterday—gracious, was it really only yesterday !—without demanding to know anything about the man beyond the fact that he had the means to keep the promises he made her. She had married him for those promises. She was the sort of woman who would marry a stranger for money. It was an uncomfortable admission to make even—or perhaps especially—to oneself.
    It would be very difficult for this man to become anything but a stranger, she thought, even though she was apparently to spend a few weeks in his company. Those eyes! They had no depth whatsoever. They proclaimed him to be a man who chose not to be known, a man who cared nothing for the good opinion of others. They almost frightened her.
    "Was it not rather drastic," she asked him, "to marry beneath you merely to score a point in a game? Would not the quarrel have blown over in a short while as quarrels usually do?" She should know. She had grown up in a household with five brothers and sisters.
    "Perhaps my father and I should have kissed and made up instead?" he said. "You may spare such shallow observations on life for your pupils, my lady. Though of course there will be no more of them, will there?"
    Charity was hurt. Shallow? As the eldest she had learned early to understand others, to identify with them, to be a mediator, a peacemaker. What a thoroughly unpleasant man he was, she thought, to speak with such contempt to a lady—and again she was jolted by the realization that he was her husband. She had promised him obedience. For the rest of her life, even after these few weeks were over and she was back home with the children, she would not really be free. Any time he chose he could demand anything he wished of her. But no, that was a foolish worry. He would be as glad as she to sever all but the unseverable tie that bound them.
    "I would have thought," she said after a couple of minutes of silence, "that a man who expects to be a duke one day would have wished