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days here and there from my duties at the
royal court to join you in the search. Despite our best efforts, we
know no more now than we did the day Chantal vanished.”
    “ That’s
not entirely true.” Roarke glanced at the unmoving figure beside
the tree. “We have a few suspicions.”
    “ Mine are
chiefly of Lord Walderon,” Garit said. “We both know he will never
tell us anything about Chantal. He says he’s given up all hope that
she’s still alive, but his story reeks of half truths and evasions.
Not to mention, outright lies. And he will continue to feign
ignorance of Chantal’s fate unless we can find definite proof of
his culpability.”
    “ On the
surface of the matter, Walderon had no reason to wish Chantal ill,”
Roarke said. “Her coming marriage was to his benefit. Simple reason
indicates that he had nothing to do with her
disappearance.”
    “ Unless
he learned of our secret plans,” Garit said.
    Roarke
had wondered a few times if Chantal was with child by Garit. His
friend’s vigorous defense of Chantal’s chastity had put a firm end
to that possibility, as well as squelching Roarke’s other idea,
that Walderon had removed his pregnant niece from court and
confined her to a beguinage in order to forestall a
scandal.
    Not even
the parchment Roarke carried that bore King Henryk’s seal and
ordered anyone to whom Roarke showed it to answer all his questions
honestly, had produced any evidence that Chantal was residing in
such a retreat. Roarke had come to the conclusion that Garit’s
obsession with Walderon’s guilt was mistaken, and that some other
explanation existed. Whatever the truth of Chantal’s disappearance,
they had to uncover it soon. King Henryk was growing
impatient.
    “ Suppose,
one day in the near future, Lady Chantal were to appear at court in
the full finery appropriate to a noblewoman, as if she had never
been away,” Roarke suggested, his gaze still on the woman who
called herself Jenia.
    He’d like
to see her clad in silk and jewels. He’d like even better to see
her lying naked on a linen sheet with her red-brown hair spread
loosely around her. The intensity of that sudden, deeply sensual
image sent heat surging to his loins. At the same time, an almost
unbearable longing pervaded his innermost being, a yearning that
was something other, and far stronger, than mere physical desire.
Oddly, he felt no shame, though he was surprised by how difficult
he found it to continue describing his plan to Garit.
    “ At the
very least, Lady Chantal’s reappearance would startle a few
people,” he said.
    “ D’you
mean, startle them into confessing the truth of what they’ve done
to her?” Garit asked. “Aye, that just might work,” he agreed, his
gaze fixed on Jenia, too.
    “ Be
certain of your answer to my next question,” Roarke responded
softly. “My plan may end your dearest hopes. Do you really want to
know the truth, no matter what it is?”
    “ Yes,”
Garit said, his voice low, but his tone leaving no doubt about his
determination on the subject. “I cannot go on with my life until I
learn what has happened to Chantal. After so many months with no
word of her, I am prepared to learn the worst. Never imagine that I
will shrink from the truth, no matter how dreadful it may prove to
be.
    “ But
Roarke,” he continued, “I trust you do realize that if Jenia is not
my dear love, then we will have a second puzzle to solve. For she
is almost certainly a noblewoman. If she’s not Chantal, then who is
she? And if the Great God Sebazious made two such incomparable
ladies, why haven’t we heard of Lady Jenia before this
day?”

Chapter 2
     
     
    Jenia woke to the sound of a low-voiced
discussion. Having recently trained herself not to reveal her
awareness of others nearby, she kept her eyelids closed and,
despite her increasingly uncomfortable position against the tree
trunk, she did not move.
    “ I find
it odd,” Roarke said, “that a ship could sink leaving