Y THE NIGHT of Lord and Lady Donleigh's ball, during the third week after her debut, Alexandra was so miserable, and so tense, that she was numb inside. She felt as if she would never again laugh with joy or find solace in tears. On that fateful night, she did both.

At the dowager duchess' whispered urging, Alexandra had politely, but reluctantly, agreed to dance with Lord Ponsonby, a ponderous, mincing middle-aged fop who affected a lisp, dressed like a peacock, and pompously informed her while they danced that he was regarded as a man of superior intelligence. Tonight he was attired in orange satin knee breeches that swelled over his protruding midsection, a plum satin waistcoat, and a long yellow brocade coat—a combination that made Alexandra think of a large pile of overripe fruit when she looked at him.

Instead of returning Alexandra to the dowager duchess when the dance ended, Lord Ponsonby (who Alexandra had heard was in need of a wealthy wife to offset his substantial gaming debts) drew her firmly in the opposite direction. "You must accompany me to that delightful alcove over there, your grace. The dowager duchess mentioned to me last evening that you have an interest in things philosophical, therefore I shall endeavor to enlighten you a little upon one of the greatest philosophers of ancient times—Horace." Alexandra instantly realized that the duchess must be desperately concerned about her lack of partners to resort to actually boasting to Ponsonby about Alexandra's intellect.

"Pray do not alarm yourself," Sir Ponsonby urged, mistaking the cause of Alexandra's dismay. "I shall not forget for a moment that you are a female and, as such, unable to understand the complexities and subtleties of logic. You may depend upon me to keep the discussion very, very simple."

Alexandra was too despondent to be annoyed by his insulting estimation of female intelligence and too defeated to feel anything more than mild dejection at being treated this way by a man with no more sense than to attire himself like a tray of fruit.

Wearing an expression of polite interest, she allowed him to guide her into the alcove, which was separated from the main ballroom by a pair of crimson velvet curtains drawn back and held in place with matching velvet cords. Once inside the alcove, Alexandra realized there was another occupant, a gorgeously gowned young woman with a patrician profile and lustrous hair the color of spun gold. She was standing at the open French door with her back partially to them—obviously trying to enjoy a moment of solitude and fresh air.

The young woman turned slightly as Alexandra entered with Lord Ponsonby, and Alexandra recognized her immediately. Lady Melanie Camden, the beautiful young wife of the Earl of Camden had just returned to London earlier in the week from the country, where she'd been visiting her sister. Alexandra had been present at the ball where Lady Camden put in her first appearance of the Season, and she had watched from afar as the crowd of illustrious guests rushed to Lady Camden, welcoming her back with delighted smiles and eager hugs. She was "one of their own," Alexandra thought rather wistfully.

Realizing they were invading Lady Camden's privacy, Alexandra smiled tentatively, silently apologizing for their intrusion. The countess acknowledged the smile with a polite nod of her head and serenely turned back to the French doors.

Lord Ponsonby either failed to notice the countess, or refused to be distracted by her presence. After helping himself to a glass of punch from the tray on the table beside him, he positioned himself beside one of the marble pillars that were situated in front of the curtains, and then launched into a pompous, grossly inaccurate dissertation on Horace's philosophical remarks about ambition, but all the while his gaze seemed to be on Alexandra's bosom.

Alexandra was so disconcerted at being subjected for the first time in her life to visual fondling by a male—even such a comically poor specimen of a male as this—that when he casually attributed a remark of Socrates' to Horace, she scarcely noticed either the error or the fact that the Countess of Camden had glanced swiftly over her shoulder at him, as if startled.

A minute later, Lord Ponsonby declared importantly, "I agree with Horace, who said, 'Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast that however high we reach we are never satisfied—' "

Utterly unnerved by his unswerving gaze and unaware that Lady Camden had turned fully around and was listening to Lord Ponsonby with a mixture of disbelief, fascination, and ill-concealed mirth, Alexandra shakily stammered "M-Machiavelli."

"Horace," Lord Ponsonby decreed, and to Alexandra's horror, the absurdly dressed creature lifted his quizzing glass to his eye, trained it upon the ripe flesh swelling above her bodice and boldly inspected her while he simultaneously sought to improve his appearance of languid nonchalance by propping his shoulder against the pillar behind him. Unfortunately, his obsession with Alexandra's breasts prevented him from glancing over his shoulder to ascertain the exact location of the pillar. "Now perhaps you can begin to understand," he proclaimed, leaning back and opening his arms wide in an all-encompassing gesture, "why Horace's remarks caused him to—aagh!" Arms outspread, he fell backward, overturning the table with the punch and dragging down the curtain, landing spreadeagled on his back at the feet of three male guests, like a colorful bowl of fruit beneath a waterfall of punch.

Unable to prevent her mad desire to laugh, Alexandra clapped her hand over her mouth, whirled around, and found herself staring at the Countess of Camden, who had covered her own mouth and was staring at Alexandra, her shoulders shaking with mirth, her wide green eyes swimming with it. In unison, both young women sped for the French doors, colliding in their haste to get through the doorway, and fled onto the balcony. Once there, they collapsed against the side of the house and exploded into gales of laughter.

Side by side, they stood, oblivious to the hard stone behind their shoulder blades, shrieking with mirth, gasping for breath, and wiping at the tears running down their cheeks.

When the storm of laughter had dwindled into fits of helpless giggles, the Countess of Camden turned her face toward Alexandra and said brokenly, "Ly-lying on his back, h-he looked exactly like a giant macaw that fell from a tree."

Alexandra was scarcely able to drag her voice through the mirth in her chest. "I—I thought a bowl of fruit—no, fruit punch," she declared, and they dissolved with laughter again.

"P-poor Ponsonby," Lady Camden giggled, "s-struck down in his pompous prime by Machiavelli's ghost for attributing his own words to Horace."

"It was Machiavellian revenge!" Alexandra gasped.

And beneath a black velvet sky carpeted with stars, two elegantly garbed young women leaned against a cold stone wall and laughed with all the giddy, helpless delight of barefoot children racing across a meadow.

When their laughter was finally spent, Melanie Camden weakly slumped against the wall and turned her head to Alexandra, regarding her with smiling curiosity. "How did you know the odious Lord Ponsonby was confusing Machiavelli with Horace?"

"I've read them both," Alexandra admitted after a guilty pause.

"Shocking!" said the countess, feigning a look of horror. "So have I."

Alexandra's eyes widened. "I was under the impression that reading the classics branded a female as a bluestocking."

"It usually does," Melanie admitted airily, "but in my case, Society has chosen to overlook my—er—unfeminine interest in things beyond petitpoint and fashions."

Alexandra tipped her head to the side, regarding her in rapt fascination. "Why have they done so?"

Lady Camden's voice softened with affection. "Because my husband would flay anyone alive who dared intimate that I am anything less than a perfect lady." Suddenly, she peered suspiciously at Alex and demanded, "Do you play a musical instrument? Because if you do, I warn you—friend or not—I shall not come and listen to you play. The mere mention of Bach or Beethoven sends me galloping after my hartshorn, and the sight of a harp puts me into a violent decline."

Alexandra had spent one year learning to play the pianoforte because the duchess had told her the ability to play at least one musical instrument was absolutely mandatory for young ladies of quality; she could hardly believe she was now hearing these derogatory comments from a lady who was reputed to be a veritable trend setter amongst the haughty elite. "I've had lessons at the pianoforte, but I don't play well enough to perform," she admitted uncertainly.

"Excellent," said Melanie with great satisfaction. "How interested are you in shopping for fashions?"

"Actually, I think it's tedious."

"Perfect," she declared, and then suspiciously, "You don't sing, do you?"

Alexandra, who had been somewhat reluctant to admit her inability to play a musical instrument, was now conversely reluctant to admit that she could sing well. "Yes, I'm afraid so."

"No one's perfect," the Countess of Camden cheerfully and magnanimously declared, pardoning Alexandra. "Besides, I've been waiting forever to meet a female who's read Horace and Machiavelli, and I shan't be deterred from befriending you merely because you can sing. Unless, of course, you do it very well?"

Alexandra's shoulders began to shake with mirth, for she sang very well indeed.

Melanie saw the answer in Alexandra's laughing eyes and grimaced with comical horror. "You don't sing often, do you?"

"No." Choking back a giggle, Alexandra added irreverently, "and if it will help raise me in your estimation, I can promise you that I generally run out of polite conversation in less than five minutes." Having thus cheerfully disposed of some of the most sacred of conventions, both girls burst out laughing again.

Within the mansion at No. 45 Regent Street, dancers continued to dance and laughing guests continued to laugh, oblivious to the momentous event that was taking place outside the French doors. Only the twinkling stars noticed that on a deserted London balcony, two kindred spirits had found each other at last.

"In that case," Melanie grandly decreed when they had stopped chuckling, "I shall consider you a most suitable and enjoyable companion." Blithely setting aside any remaining pretense of formality, Lady Camden said quietly, "My close friends call me Melanie."

For an instant, happiness radiated through Alexandra's entire being, then harsh reality shattered it as she realized that Melanie Camden's friends wouldn't want her included in their circle. The entire ton, including Melanie's sophisticated friends, already regarded Alexandra as a complete antidote. She had been judged by all of them and found sadly lacking. Evidently Melanie Camden hadn't been back in London long enough to know that yet. Alexandra's stomach clenched at the thought of the derisive looks Lady Camden would receive were she to walk back into that ballroom with Alexandra.

"What do your friends call you?" Melanie prompted, watching her.

I don't have friends anymore, Alexandra thought and hastily bent to brush off her skirts, carefully hiding the tears that burned her eyes. "They called—call me Alex." Deciding it was best to end this association now, herself, rather than bear the humiliation of having Melanie Camden cut her dead when they next met, Alexandra drew a deep breath and said in a painfully awkward rush, "I appreciate your offer of friendship, Lady Camden, but you see, I'm very busy these days with balls and luncheons and… and all sorts of amusements… And so I very much doubt that you… we… would be able to find time… and I'm certain you already have dozens and dozens of friends who—"

"—who think you are the veriest greenhead ever to appear at a London ball?" Melanie prompted gently.

Before Alexandra could react to that, Anthony walked out of the shadows onto the balcony, and she rushed to him in relief, talking swiftly so that he couldn't gainsay her. "Have you been looking for me, your grace? It must be time to leave. Good evening, Lady Camden."

"Why did you decline Melanie Camden's offer of friendship?" Tony demanded angrily, as soon as they were ensconced in his coach on the way home.

"I… It would not have worked out," Alex prevaricated slightly, her mind on Melanie Camden's softly spoken parting remark. "We do not 'move in the same circles,' as you say here."

"I know that, and I also know why," Tony said tightly. "Roddy Carstairs is part of the reason."

Alexandra started at the realization that Tony was aware of her lack of popularity; she had thought—hoped—he was oblivious to her mortifying predicament.

"I've asked Carstairs to call upon me tomorrow morning," Tony continued bluntly. "We'll have to do something to change his opinion of you and pacify him for the slight you gave him when you left him on the dance floor that first night—"

"Pacify him!" Alexandra exclaimed. "Anthony, he said dreadful—wicked—things to me about your grandmother!"

"Carstairs says objectionable things to people all the time." Tony's reassuring smile was preoccupied. "He particularly enjoys trying to shock or fluster or intimidate females, and if he succeeds he despises his victim for her cowardice and stupidity. Carstairs is like a bird who flits from tree to tree, dropping seeds of dissension wherever he goes. Much of what he says is very amusing—so long as it isn't about oneself. In any case, you should have stared him right out of countenance or said something equally shocking to him."

"I'm terribly sorry. I didn't know that."

"There is a great deal you don't know," Tony said between his teeth, as they drew up before his house on Upper Brook Street. "But once we're in the house, I'm going to remedy that."

Alexandra felt a terrible, unexplainable premonition of dread that mounted as they walked into the salon. Tony motioned for her to sit down on the light-green brocade settee and then poured whisky into a glass for himself. When he turned toward her, he looked angry and unhappy. "Alex," he said abruptly, "you should have been a tremendous success this Season. God knows, you have all the requisite attributes for it—and in sinful abundance. Instead, you've become the decade's most notorious failure."

Shame almost doubled Alexandra over, but Anthony hastily held up his hand, awkwardly explaining, "It's my fault, not yours. I've kept things from you, things I would have told you before, but my grandmother forbade it—she couldn't bear to disillusion you. Now, however, we both agree that you must be told, before you destroy what's left of your chances to find happiness here—if it isn't already too late."

Lifting his glass to his lips, Anthony swallowed the whisky straight down, as if he needed it to give him courage, then he said, "Since you've come to London, you've heard many of Jordan's friends and acquaintances refer to him as 'Hawk,' have you not?" When she nodded, he said, "Why do you think they call him that?"

"I assume it's some sort of shortened name—a nickname—derived from 'Hawthorne.' "

"Some people mean it in that way, but especially among the men it means something different. A hawk is a hunting bird with a faultless eye and the ability to snare its prey before its prey even knows it's in danger."

Alexandra gazed at him with polite interest and complete lack of understanding, and Anthony raked his hand through his hair in frustration. "Jordan got that name years ago, when he made a conquest of a particularly proud young beauty for whom half the bachelors in London had been hanging out for months. Hawk did it in one evening by asking her to dance."

Leaning down, Anthony braced his hands on the arms of her chair. "Alex," he said sharply, "you've convinced yourself you loved, and were loved by, a man who was practically a… a saint. The truth is, Hawk was much closer to a devil than a saint where women were concerned, and everyone knows it. Do you understand me?" he asked bitterly, his face inches from hers. "Every single person in London who's heard that you speak of him as if he were some damned knight in shining armor, knows you are just another one of his victims… just another one of the countless women to fall prey to Hawk's fatal attraction. He didn't try to seduce them—half the time, he was more irritated than pleased when women fell in love with him, but they did it anyway, just as you did. But unlike his other victims, you are too guileless to hide it from anyone."

Alexandra pinkened with embarrassment, but she didn't think Jordan should be blamed if women fell in love with him.

"I loved him like a brother, but that doesn't change the fact that he was a notorious rake with a well-deserved reputation for profligacy." Swearing under his breath at her loyalty and innocence, Tony straightened. "You don't believe me, do you? All right, here's the rest of it: On the night of your first ball, you publicly commented on the beauty of two women—Lady Allison Whitmore and Lady Elizabeth Grangerfield. Both of them were his paramours. Do you understand what that means? Do you?"

The color slowly drained from Alexandra's face. A paramour shared a man's bed while he did the intimate things to her that Jordan had done to Alexandra.

Anthony saw her color fade and forged ahead, determined to get it out in the open. "During that same ball, you asked if Jordan enjoyed the ballet, and everyone nearly laughed their sides off because everyone knew that Elise Grandeaux was his mistress until the day he died. Alex, he stopped in London and was with her here on the way to your ship— after you were married. People saw him leaving her house. And she's told everyone your marriage was one of inconvenience to him."

Alexandra leapt to her feet and wildly shook her head, trying to deny it. "You're wrong. I don't believe you. He said he had 'business' with someone. He would never have—"

"He would and he did, dammit! Furthermore, he intended to take you to Devon and leave you there, then he meant to return to London and continue where he left off with his mistress. He told me so himself! Jordan married you because he felt obliged to, but he had neither the desire nor the intent to live with you as his wife. All he felt for you was pity."

Alexandra's head jerked sideways as if she had been slapped. "He pitied me?" she cried brokenly, drowning in humiliation. Clutching the folds of her skirt, she twisted the fabric until her knuckles turned white. "He thought I was pitiful?" Another realization hit her, and she covered her mouth, thinking she was going to be sick: Jordan had meant to do the same thing to her that her father had done to her mother—marry, leave his wife in some obscure place far away, and then return to his wicked woman.

Reaching for her, Anthony tried to put his arms around her, but she flung them off and stepped back, staring at him as if she thought he was as evil as Hawk. "How could you!" she burst out, her voice shaking with bitterness and pain. "How could you let me go on grieving for him and making a fool of myself over him? How could you have been so unutterably cruel as to let me go on believing he had actually c-cared for me!"

"We believed it was a kindness at the time," the dowager duchess said gruffly from behind her, walking into the room with the slight limp that appeared whenever she was deeply troubled.

Alexandra was too battered to worry about the elderly woman. "I'm going home," she said, fighting to control the wrenching anguish that was strangling her breath in her chest.

"No, you're not!" Anthony snapped. "Your mother's spending a year sailing about the islands. You can't live alone."

"I do not require your permission to go home. Nor do I require your financial support. According to your grandmother, I have money of my own from Hawk," she enunciated bitterly.

"Which I control as your guardian," Anthony reminded her.

"I don't want or need a guardian. I've been managing on my own since I was fourteen years old!"

"Alexandra, listen to me," he said tautly, grasping her by the shoulders and giving her a slight, angry shake. "I know you're angry and disillusioned, but you can't run away from us or slink away from London. If you do, what happened to you here will haunt you forever. You didn't love Jordan—"

"Oh, didn't I?" Alexandra interrupted furiously. "Then tell me why I spent an entire year trying to make myself worthy of him."

"You loved an illusion, not Jordan—an illusion you created out of whole cloth because you were innocent and idealistic—"

"And gullible and blind and stupid!" Alexandra hissed. Humiliation and anguish made her turn away from the sympathy Anthony was trying to offer and, in a desperate voice, she excused herself and ran to her room.

Only when she had gained the privacy of her bedchamber did she succumb to tears. She cried for her stupidity, for her gullibility, and for the year she had worked, driving herself to become worthy of a man who did not deserve to be called a gentleman. She cried until the sound of her own weeping made her despise herself for wasting her tears on him.

Finally, forcing herself to sit up, she dried her eyes while her mind continued to torment her with images of her own folly: She saw herself in the garden the day before they were wed: "Are you going to kiss me?" she had asked, and when he did, she nearly swooned in his arms, then promptly told him she loved him.

Mary Ellen had told her that gentlemen liked to know they are admired and she had certainly taken her friend's advice to heart! I think you are as beautiful as Michelangelo's David, she had told Jordan after his kiss.

Shame surged through Alexandra and she moaned aloud, wrapping her arms around her stomach, but the mortifying recollections wouldn't cease. God! She had given him her grandfather's watch. She had given it to him and told him that her grandfather would have liked him because he was a noble man. Liked him! Why, her grandfather would have barred that treacherous, overbred blueblood from their door!

In the coach she had let Jordan kiss her again and again—she had lain atop him like a stupid, besotted wanton! In bed she had let him do every intimate thing he wanted to do to her, and when he was finished, he had done the same things with his mistress the very next night.

Instead of shooting Jordan's assailant the night she met him, she should have shot Jordan Townsende! How boring her inexperience must have seemed to him, and no wonder he hadn't wanted to hear her naive declarations of love!

"How much longer?" George Morgan whispered to Jordan in the darkness.

"An hour, and then we can make a run for it," he answered tightly as he flexed his cramped muscles, forcing blood into them to strengthen them for their impending flight.

"Are you sure you heard them say your troops are fighting fifty miles south of here? I'd hate for us to walk fifty miles in the wrong direction, me with a game leg and you with a hole in yours."

"It's only a nick," Jordan answered, referring to the wound he'd received from the guard they overpowered yesterday.

The cave they'd been hiding in since yesterday while the French searched the woods for them was so small that they were both nearly doubled in half. Pain shot through Jordan's cramped leg and he stopped moving, his breathing shallow and fast as he automatically called up Alexandra's image and focused on it with every fiber of his being. He tried to imagine how she looked now, but today all he saw was a girl in a wooded glade, looking up at him with a puppy in her arms and all the love in the world shining in her eyes. With his eyes clenched shut, Jordan slowly traced every curve of her face in his mind. The pain in his legs retreated until it was an ache on the perimeters of his mind, still present but bearable now. It was a technique he'd used hundreds of times in the past, and it was as successful now as it had been before.

In the beginning of his imprisonment, when weeks of torture and deprivation drove him to the brink of madness, it was Alexandra he focused on to escape the pain that racked his body and tried to devour his mind. In his imagination, he relived, slowly, every second he had spent with her, concentrating fiercely on each minute detail of their surroundings, recalling every word, every inflection. He made love to her in the inn, time after time, undressing her and holding her, clinging to the memory of her incredible sweetness and the way she felt in his arms.

But as weeks faded into months, his memories of their brief time together were no longer enough to counteract the torment; he needed another weapon to silence the sweetly insidious voice that urged him gently to give up the fight to live, to let himself succumb to the pleasant anesthesia of death. And so Jordan began to invent scenes and build them around her, using them to reinforce his flagging will to survive because he knew from his experience with wounded men in Spain that when despair set in, death soon followed.

In his mind, he invented all sorts of scenes—pleasant ones in which Alexandra ran ahead of him, laughing her musical laugh, then she turned, holding out her arms to him—waiting for him to come to her, frightening scenes where he saw her cast out on the streets by Tony and living in a London slum—waiting for Jordan to come home and rescue her; tender scenes where she lay in naked splendor on satin sheets—waiting for him to make love to her.

He invented dozens of scenes, and the only feature each one had in common was that Alexandra was always waiting for him. Needing him. He knew the scenes were fantasy, but he concentrated on them anyway. Because they were his only weapon against the demons in his brain that shrieked for him to give up the struggle, to loosen his grip on sanity—and then on life.

And so, in the squalor of his vermin-infested cell, he had closed his eyes and planned his escape so that he could go home to her. Now, after a year of looking back on the bleakness of his former world, he was ready to let Alexandra show him her world, where everything was fresh and alive and unspoiled—where "something wonderful" was waiting just around the comer. He wanted to lose himself in her sweetness and surround himself with her laughter and joie de vivre. He wanted to cleanse himself of the filth of that prison and then rid himself of the tarnish of his misspent life.

Beyond that, he had only one other goal, and it was less noble, but equally important to him: He wanted to discover the identity of whoever had twice tried to end his life. And then he wanted vengeance. Tony had the most to gain from his death, Jordan knew, but he couldn't bear to think about that yet. Not here. Not without proof. Tony had been like a brother to him.