Thirty minutes later a very suspicious Blake Rav-enscroft dismounted in front of Seacrest Manor, near Bournemouth, Dorset. Carlotta De Leon, who had done everything short of hurl fire at his toenails when he'd cornered her in the meadow, hadn't put up even the tiniest resistance the entire ride to the coast. She hadn't struggled and she hadn't tried to escape. She'd been so^juiet, in fact, that the gentle­manly side of him-which reared its polite head all too often for Blake's liking-was tempted to remove her gag.

But he resisted the impulse to be nice. The Mar­quis of Riverdale, his closest friend and frequent

partner in crime prevention, had had previous deal­ings with Miss De Leon, and he had told Blake that she was deceptive and deadly. Her gag and bind­ings would not be removed until she was safely locked away.

He pulled her down off of the horse, holding her elbow firmly as he led her into his home. Blake em­ployed only three houseservants-all of them dis­creet beyond compare-and they were used to strange visitors in the middle of the night. "Up the stairs," he grunted, pulling her through the hall.

She nodded cheerfully-cheerfully?!?-and picked up the pace. Blake led her up to the top floor and pushed her into a small but comfortably fur­nished bedchamber. "Just so you don't get any ideas about escaping," he said roughly, holding up two keys, "the door has two locks."

She looked over at the doorknob but other than mat had no obvious reaction to his words.

"And," he added, "it's fifty feet down to the ground. So I wouldn't recommend trying the win­dow."