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“Elizabeth, haven’t you heard me? Did you not understand what I said? Damn you, look at my face! You can see his handprints! My skin is still hot from the force of his slaps. None of it is nonsense. I’m sorry for this, but you must believe me. Trevor is vicious. He tried to rape me. I’m not lying. He isn’t worthy of you. He told me if I tried to lock my bedchamber door against him, he would hurt me even more. Please, what are we to do?”

3
    Elizabeth sat back down on the delicate French chair and tapped her fingertips softly and rhythmically together. She smoothed her pale blue wool skirts. She looked at the glittering diamonds on her heirloom wedding ring, the huge faceted emerald that sat high in the middle. Finally, she looked up and smiled at her sister. The sight of her ravaged face was balm to her soul. “I gather you are still a virgin, Sabrina?”
    Sabrina stared at her sister’s calm, impassive face as her question rang in her ears. She sounded bored, indifferent.
    â€œWell, are you? Are you stupid? Can’t you speak?”
    Sabrina didn’t want to, but she turned red, remembering Trevor’s howling yell, seeing again the stain spread on his breeches. God, she hated him, she hated what he’d made her learn, all in an instant of time. “Yes, I’m still a virgin, no thanks to that bastard.”
    Elizabeth’s lashes nearly closed over her narrowed eyes. “So, my dear little sister, what happened is that you teased Trevor, and being a man and weak of flesh, as all men are, he gladly accompanied you to the gallery. You then ran away from him when you realized he had every intention of taking your teasing seriously. Were you afraid he’d make you pregnant, Sabrina?”
    Sabrina grabbed her sister’s arm, saw the disdain in her sister’s pale eyes, and dropped her hand. “Listento me, Elizabeth. You cannot believe what you just said. You make it sound as though I purposefully tried to seduce your husband. I tell you, he is vain and cruel, a strutting evil man who scorns us all.” She wasn’t about to tell her sister what her bridegroom had said about her. “Please, Elizabeth, you cannot ignore this, you cannot pretend it didn’t happen. You must help me, help yourself.”
    Elizabeth stood abruptly again, standing on her tiptoes so she could tower over her sister, and flattened the palms of her hands on the desktop. “Now you will listen to me, you pampered little wretch. For years, even before our parents died, I have watched you twist Grandfather around your little finger, wheedle your way so firmly into his affections so that he had no love left for me. Oh yes, Grandfather allowed me a season in London with Aunt Barresford, hoping that I would find a husband so he would be rid of me. But I always knew that my place was here, even though at every turn you have tried to usurp my position and my authority as the eldest.
    â€œNo more, Sabrina. I am Trevor’s wife.” She squared her shoulders, standing even taller, the sunlight lacing through her blond hair, forming a pale golden halo round her head. She looked like a princess, tall and proud. Then she said, her voice colder than the wind that was tangling through the oak branches outside the window, “When that miserable old man dies, I shall be the Countess of Monmouth. On that day, my dear sister, I shall be the undisputed mistress here and you will be nothing more than I wish you to be. I wonder if I will even allow you to live here. Perhaps the dower house is the place for you. I doubt I’ll waste my money on a London season for you.”
    Sabrina drew back at the naked hatred she saw onher sister’s face. Dimly she realized that the cold aloofness Elizabeth had always shown the world, had always shown to her sister, masked a bitterness that went very deep. Had she somehow been responsible for that? She was appalled. No, she hadn’t