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She tried to shoot him her best what-on-earth-do-you-think-I-would-have-been-trying-to-say-if-I-could-speak look, but she had a feeling that the sentiment was a bit too complex for a single facial expression.

He stood quite suddenly. "I'll return in a mo­ment."

Caroline could do nothing but stare at his back as he left the room.

Blake sighed with irritation as he pushed open the door to his study. Damn, he was getting too old for this. Eight-and-twenty might still be relatively youthful, but seven years with the War Office was enough to leave anyone prematurely tired and weary. He'd seen friends die, his family was always wondering why he continually disappeared for long stretches of time, and his fiancee...

Blake closed his eyes in pain and remorse. Marabelle wasn't his fiancee any longer. She wasn't anyone's fiancee and wasn't likely to become one, buried as she was in her family plot in the Cotswolds.She'd been so young, so beautiful, and so damned brilliant. It had been an amazing thing, really, to fall in love with a woman whose intellect surpassed one's own. Marabelle had been a prodigy of sorts, a genius at languages, and it was for that reason she'd been recruited at such an early age by the War Office.

And then she'd recruited Blake, her longtime neighbor, co-owner of England's best-furnished treehouse, and partner in dancing lessons. They'd grown up together, they'd fallen in love together,

but Marabelle had died alone.

No, Blake thought. That wasn't really true. Mar­abelle had only died. He was the one who'd been left alone.

He'd continued to work for the War Office for several years. He told himself it was to avenge her

death, but he often wondered if it wasn't just be­cause he didn't know what else to do with himself. And his superiors didn't want to let him go. After Marabelle's death, he'd grown reckless. He hadn't much cared whether he lived or died, so he'd taken stupid risks in the name of his country, and those risks had paid off. He'd never failed in any of his missions.

Of course, he'd also been shot at, poisoned, and thrown over the side of a ship, but that didn't bother the War Office as much as the prospect of losing their star agent.

But now Blake was trying to put the anger behind him. There was no way he could bury his pain, but it seemed that he might have a chance to end this consuming hatred for the world that had stolen his true love and best friend. And the only way he could do this was to leave the War Office and at least attempt to lead a normal life.

But first he had to finish this one last case. It had been a traitor like Oliver Prewitt who had been re­sponsible for Marabelle's demise. That traitor had been executed, and Blake was determined that Prewitt, too, would see the gallows.

To do that, however, he had to get some infor­mation out of Carlotta De Leon. Damn the wom­an. He didn't for one minute believe that she'd suddenly developed some strange, dreaded illness that had robbed her of speech. No, the chit had probably sat up half the night coughing her throat raw.

It had almost been worth it, though, just to see her expression of shock when she'd tried to yell,

"No!" at him. He had a feeling she'd expected some sort of sound to come out He chuckled. He hoped her throat burned like the fires of Hades. She de­served no less.

Still, he had a job to do. This assignment would be his last for the War Office, and though he wanted nothing more than to retire permanently to the peace and quiet of Seacrest Manor, he had no inten­tion of letting this mission meet with anything but success.

Carlotta De Leon would talk, and Oliver Prewitt would hang.

And then Blake Ravenscroft would become noth­ing but a boring landed gentleman, destined to live out his life in lonely tranquillity. Perhaps he would take up painting. Or breeding hounds. The possibilities were endless, and endlessly dull.

But for now, he had a job to do. With grim de­termination he gathered up three quills, a small bot­tle of ink, and several sheets of paper. If Carlotta De Leon couldn't tell him everything she knew, she could bloody well write it down.

Caroline was grinning from ear to ear. Thus far her morning had been a complete success. Her captor was now convinced that she couldn't speak, and Oliver-

Oh, that made her smile all the more, just think­ing about what Oliver must be doing at that very moment. Screaming his foolish head off, most prob­ably, and throwing the occasional vase at his son. Nothing precious, of course. Oliver was far too cal­culating in his rages to destroy anything of real monetary value.

Poor Percy. Caroline almost felt sorry for him- almost. It was hard to summon much sympathy for the thick-brained lout who had tried to force him­self on her the night before. She shuddered to think how she'd feel if he'd actually succeeded.

Still, she had a feeling that if Percy ever managed to get out from under his father's thumb he might grow into a halfway decent human being. No one she would want to see on a regular basis, of course, but he certainly wouldn't go around attacking in­nocent women if his father didn't order him to do so.

Just then she heard her captor's footsteps in the hall. She quickly wiped her face free of its smile and placed one hand on her neck. When he reentered the room, she was coughing.

"I have a treat for you," he said, -his voice sus­piciously cheerful.

She cocked her head in reply.

"Look at this. Paper. Quills. Ink. Isn't it exciting?"

She blinked, pretending not to understand. Oh, blast, she hadn't considered this. There was no way she was going to convince him she didn't know how to write -she was clearly an educated woman. And it went without saying that she wasn't going to be able to manage to sprain her wrist in the next three seconds.

"Oh, of course," he said with exaggerated solici­tude. "You require something upon which to lean. How inconsiderate of me not to consider your needs. Here, let me bring over this desk blotter. There you are, right on your lap. Are you comfort­able?"

She glared at him, preferring his anger to his sar­casm.

"No? Here, let me fluff your pillows."

He leaned forward, and Caroline, who really had had enough of his sugary-sweet attitude, coughed onto his mouth and nose. By the time he drew back far enough to glare at her, her face was a picture of complete contrition.

"I'm going to forget you did that," he bit off, "for which you ought to be eternally thankful."

Caroline just stared down at the writing accou-terments on her lap, desperately trying to devise a new plan.

"Now then, shall we begin?"

Her right temple itched, and she brought up her hand to scratch it. Her right hand. That was when it came to her. She had always favored her left hand. Her early teachers had scolded, screamed, and prodded, trying to get her to learn to write with her right hand. They'd called her bizarre, unnatural, and ungodly. One particularly religious tutor had even referred to her as the spawn of the devil. Caroline had tried to learn how to write with her right hand -oh Lord, how she had tried- but though she could grip the quill in a natural fashion, she'd never been able to master anything other than an unintelligible scrawl.

But everyone else wrote with their right hand, her teachers had insisted. Surely she didn't want to be different.

Caroline coughed to cover up her smile. Never before had she been more delighted to be "differ­ent." This fellow would expect her to write with her right hand, as he and the rest of his acquaintances