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Diana’s tyranny, they’d been able to pursue their own interests without hindrance, and until two days ago . . . or rather until just before Christmas, Phoebe amended . . . nothing had occurred to disturb their peace.
    Now she was condemned to marry a man who would as soon marry a healthy sow if she came with the right dowry and the right breeding potential. Not even Dante’s inferno had created such a fiendish torment. She was to be compelled to spend the rest of her life with a man whom she loved and lusted after to the point of obsession, and who barely acknowledged her existence.
    And the unkindest cut of all—there was no one in whom she could confide. It was impossible to explain any of it to Olivia. There were no words . . . or at least none that Phoebe could think of.
    Portia would understand, but Portia was in Yorkshire. Ecstatically happy with Rufus Decatur. And if Cato Granvillehadn’t been up and about at three in the morning, Phoebe would be on her way to Yorkshire.
    With something resembling a groan, Phoebe flung herself onto her side and closed her eyes.
    D ownstairs, Cato snuffed the candles in his study, all
but a carrying candle, and bent to poke a slipping log to the rear of the grate. He straightened and stood absently staring down at the fire. The full impact of Phoebe’s crazy intention was only just hitting him. What kind of woman would hurl herself out into the freezing night, without the slightest regard for the obvious dangers? Where had she been going, for God’s sake?
    And for what a reason! A young woman of Phoebe’s wealth and lineage not wishing to marry . . . actually prepared to reject the suit of a marquis! The girl had windmills in her head.
    He could perhaps understand it if her father was compelling her into marriage with some monster. If he was proposing to wed her to some repulsive ancient . . .
    Surely Phoebe couldn’t see
him
in such a light?
    The thought brought his head up. Of course that was an absurdity. He was in his prime, a man of five and thirty. True, he’d had ill luck with his wives—or they had had ill luck with their husband, he amended wryly. While it was hardly unusual for a man to have lost three wives before his thirty-fourth summer, it could perhaps strike an ominous note for an impressionable young woman preparing to become the fourth.
    But Phoebe had claimed to have no personal objections to him, only to the state of matrimony. And that, of course, was ridiculous.
    So was she perhaps unstable? Maybe he should think again. An hysterical wife given to irrational impulses was hardly a comfortable prospect. What kind of mother would she make?
    And that, after all, was the crux of the matter. He needed an heir of his own blood. Daughters were all very well, but they could not inherit the title or the estates.
    If he did not produce a male heir, then the Granville estates would pass to his stepson, his first wife’s child, whom he’d adopted as an infant because it had seemed the generous thing to do. It had never occurred to Cato in his own exuberant youth that he would fail to produce a son of his own loins to inherit his family name. By adopting the child, he had thought he was merely ensuring the boy’s future.
    A foolhardy gesture it had turned out to be.
    Cato’s mouth thinned as he thought of his first wife’s child. He would not trust Brian Morse further than he could throw him. He was plausible, charming, but his small eyes were shifty, his tongue too smooth for truth. There was something about him that set Cato’s teeth on edge, and had done since the boy was little more than a child. And for the crowning touch, Brian Morse was on the wrong side in the civil war raging through the land. He supported the king.
    Cato had long decided that the king must bow to the dictates of his subjects. He could no longer be permitted to lay waste the country’s resources for his own ends. He could no longer be permitted to ignore the will of the