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done a thing. She was eighteen years old. She’d laughed and played, wept bitterly when her father had been killed on the Peninsula and her mother had died but a year later so needlessly, in the boating accident in the fall of 1811, but her grandfather had been there for her, and she’d accepted his love, his warmth, never realizing that Elizabeth saw herself standing on the outside. Grandfather loved both of them equally, surely he did.
    She struggled to understand her sister, understand her hatred, her defense of a man who didn’t deserve to be her husband. But she’d wanted him because she wanted to rule, to order. She said slowly, “Elizabeth, surely you cannot mean that you married Trevor only so that you would be the Countess of Monmouth. No, you would not have done that.”
    The bleak five years since her eighteenth birthday and her one season in London stretched out endlessly in Elizabeth’s mind. Five years watching this precocious child grow into womanhood. She said with deadly calm, “I have done exactly what I intended to do, and you, Sabrina, never had, and never will have, anything to say in the matter. My feelings for Trevor are none of your affair. He is my husband and he shall remain my husband, his reputation unsullied by you, you filthy little liar.”
    Sabrina felt a knot of fear clog her throat. “Elizabeth, I’m not lying! Trevor threatened to come to me again, even to my own room. He said he would hurt me if I locked my door against him. He hurt me this time, Elizabeth. He’s not natural. Surely most men aren’t like he is.”
    â€œShut up!”
    Sabrina stared at her sister’s set face. She’d never felt so helpless in her life. “I had never thought that you so disliked me, Elizabeth,” she said finally, striving to sort through all the ugly words her sister had hurled at her. “I have never done anything to harm you. I can’t believe that my loving grandfather made him care for you less. Don’t turn away from me, Elizabeth. You are my sister and I seek only to protect you and me from that terrible man.”
    â€œGet out, Sabrina. I will hear no more of your pathetic lies.”
    Sabrina drew herself up to her full height. “If you will not believe me, then I must go to Grandfather. I can’t simply ignore what Trevor has threatened to do to me. He said he would come to my bedchamber. I won’t wait like a whimpering helpless female for him to come and abuse me.” She turned on her heel and walked quickly to the door.
    Elizabeth yelled, “If you have the audacity to carry your filth to Grandfather, I shall tell him that in your jealousy, you threw yourself at Trevor and that he repulsed you. Think, you little wretch, just think of what would happen. Everyone would revile you. You would disgrace your family. You would disgrace Grandfather. Know that you will get no quarter from me. Just what do you think Grandfather would think then, Sabrina?”
    Sabrina felt suddenly like a hated stranger in her own home. She stood uncertainly at the door, staring bleakly back at her sister.
    Elizabeth pursed her thin lips and said more calmly, her words all the more deadly because of their emotionless calm, “No, Grandfather wouldn’t believe you. You know, of course, what Trevor would say. Go ahead, Sabrina, go to him. See how quickly he loseshis doting affection for you. Trevor is his heir, you fool. He would take the side of his heir because through Trevor he gains his own immortality and the immortality of his precious line. Mayhap such a filthy story would topple him into his grave. Would you like Grandfather’s death on your hands? Well, would you?”
    Sabrina remembered Trevor’s threat. No, surely he wouldn’t try to kill Grandfather. But what would happen? She shook her head back and forth, unable to find words. Her face ached where Trevor had struck her. She saw the stain on his