And well she ought to be. There was nothing to break her fall below save a pair of decrepit Grecian urns.
He caught her around the waist and hauled her back into the chamber. “Plummeting to your imminent demise is more like. Have you no wits in that pretty head of yours? There is no way to descend to the ground below save jumping, and jumping from this height will only have one outcome.”
She was trembling in his arms as he pulled her away from the window. The skirt of her gown tore more as he shifted her, ripping a strip off it entirely. But he had hacked off one of her sleeves the day before, so the dress was already fit for the dustbin. The proof of her terror left him oddly shaken. And furious.
“Plummeting to my demise seemed a better fate than remaining trapped here with a madman,” she bit out, her hands clawing at his as the fight returned to her. “Release me, you oaf. You have ripped my gown.”
“You ripped it yourself with your ill-fated attempt at playing a bird,” he observed, spinning her about so they were face-to-face.
Her eyes were wide, framed by lashes that were impossibly long. “Return me to London, and I will not tell a soul what you have done.”
Did she truly believe she was the one who possessed the bargaining power between them?
His grip on her waist tightened. “I will return you to London after you have agreed to become my wife.”
“Then I suppose we shall both remain here for all eternity!” Her gaze flashed with defiant fire.
Even after almost falling to her death, she remained stubborn as ever. He supposed he ought not to be surprised. The woman had been fighting him at every turn. Clearly, his plan was going to require some additional effort. Spiriting her from London had not had the intended effect of forcing her hand.
Instead, she had been all the more determined to flee him.
Her bosom was heaving with her breaths. She was glorious in her ire, in her bravery. He could not deny it. Lady Calliope Manning was a ravishing creature. Infuriating. Wrongheaded. Vicious, too. But there was something about her that fanned the fires of desire within him into raging, blistering flames.
“Eternity is a long time to wait,” he told her with a calmness he little felt. “Too long for me to wait to secure a wife.”
“Find a different wife,” she spat, fighting him with renewed vigor.
“I would have,” he gritted from between clenched teeth. “You chased them all away with your lurid tales and heartless lies.”
That much was true, lest she had forgotten. She was the reason for this war.
But like earlier when they had been abed, her fight stirred the beast within him. Her spirited rebellion made his cock hard. Preposterous, especially since he detested her and what she had done. Nevertheless, it was true.
Her nostrils flared. “I would never have written those serials if you had not murdered my brother.”
“A stalemate once more, my future beloved,” he said. “As I have already informed you—ad nauseam—I did not harm your brother. Has it ever occurred to you that he alone was at fault for his demise? Perhaps he was soused or otherwise behaving in reckless fashion when he fell.”
“Alfred was not reckless,” she insisted.
“Says the woman who was attempting to leap from a window,” he observed. “Have you never wondered, in all your fantasies about me, why I would have wanted to kill your brother? He had already been cuckolding me for months, and he was hardly the first to do so.”
“The servants said you argued with him,” she returned. “They heard raised voices. You left in a rage, they said.”
Perhaps he had; in truth, he could not recall. The time after he had realized the depths of Celeste’s betrayals remained something of a blur of drinking himself to oblivion and attempting to discover the extent of her debts.
Devastating, as it had turned out. She had sold off every jewel he had ever bought her. Even the Sinclair emeralds and rubies were gone.
“I did not like him, Lady Calliope, but I did not kill him.” And then, because she was still squirming and attempting to get away, he did the reasonable thing.
He bent and scooped her over his shoulder.
“Put me down, you brute!” she screeched, pummeling his back with her dainty fists.
He swatted her bottom. “No. We are going to have breakfast, and you are going to listen to me. And no more attempts at jumping out the blasted window.”
Callie glared atthe Earl of Sinclair from across the battered kitchen table.
“Eat,” he told her, gesturing to the plate he had placed before her.
