A prior claim. Claim to what? To her? To her hand, or her body? Louisa stared openmouthed at Jonathon as the words echoed around her brain. His hooded eyes held a sensuous promise and his lips were a mere turn of her head away.

      She stumbled backwards, away from him, away from his body, narrowly missing a gilt-edged chair.

      Louisa put out a steadying hand and grasped its back, shifting the chair so it was between her and Jonathon. She attempted to get her emotions under control. Emotions and dreams were the enemy. They had destroyed her before. They could again. Once she had longed to be married to him and to belong body and soul to him. She had considered them already married, soul mates, and had disregarded all the warnings and well-meant advice to wait until the wedding night. She had mistaken a young man’s lust for all-conquering love and had paid a heavy price. But she had finished paying, years ago.

      ‘Do you agree I have a prior claim, Louisa?’ His hands closed over hers, pressing them against the giltedged wood.

      ‘Words said in jest can destroy a person’s reputation, Lord Chesterholm.’ Louisa gave a light laugh to show that his betrayal no longer had the power to hurt. It was in the past and she no longer pined for him or her girlish fantasies. She had rebuilt her life on rock-solid foundations. She had learnt from her mistakes. Her heart might bear scars, but it was whole and safe.

      ‘I am deadly serious.’ He released her hands and moved the chair so it sat squarely between them. ‘Perhaps you chose to disregard such things. But will your intended? Does he know that you bolt? Does he know you are promised to another?’

      ‘Hardly promised. What was between us ended years ago.’

      ‘We were engaged, Louisa,’ his voice purred. ‘We were as close as a man and woman could be, but forgive me—when did you sever our relationship?’

      Just after your stepmother informed me you were engaged to another woman, and had been promised to her for months before. You seduced me when you were not free. Louisa kept her breathing steady and wished she had not done her laces up so tightly. ‘Your memory is indeed failing. You never returned.’

      ‘I was in an accident. It was nine months before I could walk any distance, before I was released from my sickroom.’ An ironic smile played on his full lips. ‘Forgive me for being remiss, but then I was otherwise occupied—attempting to survive.’

      ‘Nobody told me,’ Louisa whispered.

      ‘Did you ever ask?’ His words were intended to cut, but instead they gave her strength.

      She pushed away from the chair and drew herself up to her full height, regretting that she only reached his chin. ‘I am a respectable person. I always have been, despite what passed between us. Despite your stepmother’s dismissal for loose morals.’

      The covered tables and gilt-edged chairs with their air of north-east respectability seemed to leer at her and mock her—as if they too knew about her lapse and how, in her headlong rush towards matrimony, she had ruined her prospects for ever. And no matter what happened in this room, society would deem it all her fault and turn its collective back, just as it had done the last time.

      ‘You had a choice, Louisa. You knew my habits, my friends, yet you contacted not a single one.’

      ‘And risk further humiliation?’ Louisa gave a strangled laugh. Even the innocent girl she had been knew the sort of company he kept and how women were passed around like gaily wrapped parcels. She had had their child to think of. No child of hers was going to be abandoned in a foundling home while she warmed another man’s bed. ‘I think not, sir.’

      ‘And do your swains know about your past? Did Miss Elliot?’

      ‘Do not threaten me, Lord Chesterholm. I have paid for my sins.’

      ‘Surely you know me better than that.’ He brushed an imaginary piece of dust from his cuff. ‘I never threaten. I make promises and I always keep my promises.’

      ‘And that is supposed to make me quake in my evening slippers?’ she asked scornfully.

      ‘You may do as you like—go dance around St Nicholas’s church in your petticoat if it pleases you, but answer my question. Why did you conspire to fake your death?’

      ‘You should be careful of your accusations. I have never abandoned anyone, nor have I ever pretended to be anything but alive.’ Louisa gripped her reticule tighter. Dance about St Nicholas’s church dressed only in her petticoats? The man was insupportable. ‘Simply repeating lies over and over does not make them suddenly become the truth.’

      ‘I never lie. Can I be held to blame if people choose to misinterpret my words?’ A muscle tightened in his jaw and Louisa knew she had scored a hit.

      Once she had readily believed the words that had tripped off his tongue. I will love you for ever, Louisa. You are the only woman in the world for me. You are my wife in truth. What is a licence but a piece of paper? I will return. I know how to handle the ribbons of a curricle. I will always find you. Your life will be one of luxury. Instead she had discovered the humiliation and degradation of trying to find work without a reference and what it was like to be pregnant without a friend to turn to. It was then she had stopped believing in happily-ever-afters.

      ‘Piecrust promises, then—easily made and easily broken. Your servant, Lord Chesterholm, but there is no claim on either’s part.’ Her self-control amazed her, but he did not deserve to know of her heartbreak or the baby. She had decided that long ago. She had her pride. She gave a perfunctory curtsy. ‘You will forgive me, but I have other business to attend to.’

      He took a step towards her, brushing aside the chair. It fell to the ground with a thump. ‘In the village churchyard where you grew up, there is a stone