A menacing figure, formed of well-hewn muscle and jaded flesh.
The door snapped closed at his back.
“Yes,” she agreed, returning his hard stare with one of her own. “I am free of my bonds. I am also healed of my wounds, and I grow weary of remaining in this place, Your Grace. Take me to wherever it is you intend. Deliver me to prison. See me hanged. I care not.”
He moved then, striding inside the chamber, dwarfing it with his large, powerful presence. His hands were clasped behind his back. This morning, like the other day she had seen him here, he was stripped of his finery, wearing only solid black trousers and a white shirt. Not even a necktie or a waistcoat to provide him the trappings of his ducal authority.
“I have told you before, madam, and I shall tell you again: give me the information I need, and in turn, I will do my best to aid you.”
How very tempting an offer that was, but doing so would mean betraying everyone close to her. Betraying Cullen. Leaving him to be sent to the gallows as he would certainly be sentenced.Dear God, but the mere thought of it—the noose tightening upon his young throat—made her ill. Made her cough into her hand, regaining what remained of her composure.
“I cannot.”
“Who do you protect?” he demanded, as if he could read her thoughts, see straight through to the heart of her.
She wanted to look away from him, but she could not. His gaze trapped hers. “I protect myself,” she lied.
For that wasn’t true, was it?
Indeed, she was not the one who had started down this treacherous path, though she felt strongly and firmly in favor of Irish Home Rule. Her homeland’s people, who knew it best, deserved to be responsible for creating and upholding its laws. Certainly not an English parliament that outnumbered the Irish and ensured they would remain at the mercy of England indefinitely. But it had been Cullen who had first involved the both of them with the Fenians.
Bridget had never imagined they would commit murder.
But they had.
Nor had she ever imagined Cullen would be in prison.
But he was.
And in the interim, the Duke of Carlisle was approaching her, his expression fierce. “Who is Cullen O’Malley to you?”
Just hearing the name on Carlisle’s lips was akin to a blow to the gut. It meant he was close to unraveling the tangled webs of deceit she had been spinning for the last year. It meant he was as intelligent and formidable an opponent as she had been warned, for she had revealed nothing that would provide him a connection between herself and Cullen.
“I am sorry,” she lied with a bravado she did not feel. At least this time, she was not clothed in only a thin chemise. Today, she wore a simple day gown offered her by Annie since her wound had healed well enough to enable her to dress herself. “I have never heard of such a name.”
He stopped when he reached her, towering over her. His lip curled, and she knew an ill-timed memory of his kisses. His mouth moving over hers. His tongue sliding inside to taste her. To tempt her. His scent was intoxicating: the outdoors and his musky soap. She had never smelled anything better.
You must arm yourself, Bridget.
You must be strong.
You cannot afford to weaken for this man.
“More lies.” His cold voice hit her like a lash.
She stared back at him, defiant, silent, vowing she would give him nothing.
“Is he your lover?” he asked silkily. “Your husband?”
Bridget ran her tongue deliberately over her lower lip, provoking him. “Are you jealous, Duke?”
His nostrils flared, the only sign he was affected. “As I said before, if I had wanted you, I would have already had you, darling.”
Though he used the endearment in cutting fashion, Bridget could not stay the reaction it produced in her, a blossoming warmth. A frisson of that same, confounding desire he alone lit within her.
“It would have been force,” she taunted, fighting against it, “for I would never willingly lie with you.”
His eyes darkened, becoming almost obsidian. “Another lie. I wonder, madam, have you any truth in you?”
