“Jesus Christ,” Bennet whispered. “He’s still warm. He breathed his last only minutes ago, and you’re already demeaning him.” He glared up at his father. “They were your horses. He probably ran in there to win your approval, and you can’t even give him that after death.” Bennet laid Thomas’s head down on the hard cobblestones and rose to his feet.

“You’re a fool, too, for going in after him,” Granville sputtered.

For a moment Harry thought Bennet would hit his father. “You’re not even human, are you?” Bennet said.

Granville frowned as if he hadn’t heard, and maybe he hadn’t. His son’s voice was nearly ruined.

Bennet turned away nevertheless. “Did you talk to Dick Crumb?” he asked Harry in a voice so low no one else could hear. “I don’t think Thomas set this fire and then ran into it.”

“No,” Harry replied. “I went to the Cock and Worm earlier, but he never showed.”

Bennet’s face was grim. “Then let’s go find him now.”

Harry nodded. There was no longer any way to put it off. If Dick Crumb had set this fire, he would hang for it.

GEORGE WATCHED THE DAWN BREAK with resignation. Harry had said he didn’t need her, and he had not returned last night.

The message was quite clear.

Oh, she knew he’d spoken in haste, that when Harry had said, I don’t need you, he’d feared Lord Granville might harm her. But she couldn’t help feeling that he had spoken a hidden truth in that moment of frantic hurry. Harry guarded his words so well, was always so careful not to offend her. Would he ever have told her that he just didn’t want to be with her had he not been driven to it?

She turned the little carved leopard in her hands. He looked back at her, his eyes blank inside his cage. Did Harry see himself in the animal? She hadn’t meant to cage Harry; she’d only wanted to love him. But no matter how she wished, she could not change the fact that she was an aristocrat and Harry a commoner. The very circumstance of their disparate ranks seemed to be the basis of Harry’s anguish. And that would never change.

She rose carefully from her bed, hesitating when her stomach gave an unpleasant roll.

“My lady!” Tiggle burst into the bedroom.

George looked up, startled. “What is it?”

“Mr. Thomas Granville is dead.”

“Good Lord.” George sat back down on the edge of the bed. She had almost forgotten the fire in her misery.

“The Granville stables burned last night,” Tiggle continued, oblivious to her mistress’s consternation. “They say it was set afire on purpose. And Mr. Thomas Granville ran in to save the horses, but he didn’t come out. Then Mr. Bennet Granville went in despite his father’s pleas not to.”