Somehow, he had procured fruit and cheese and some delicious-smelling bread. Perhaps his accomplice, the man who had replaced Lewis as her driver? Whatever their origin, fresh strawberries had never looked more tempting than they did now, mocking her on a chipped piece of crockery.
She crossed her arms even as her stomach growled. “No.”
He had even managed to make her what looked and smelled to be a passable cup of tea. Her lips were parched and her throat was dry, particularly after her near-demise earlier. As it turned out, attempting to leap from a second-floor window was not as excellent an escape option as she had supposed when she had been standing safely on the floor. Halfway out the window, she had not only gotten her dress hung up on the hinges of the casement, but she had also been assailed by a troubling burst of dizziness.
It had not been one of her finer moments.
Or one of her better ideas.
And it had ended in the Earl of Sinclair pulling her to safety and then hoisting her over his shoulder as if she were a sack of flour.
Also not one of her finer moments.
“You will eat, damn you,” he growled. “I even made you some bloody tea.”
Had he recalled her request the night before? It hardly seemed likely he would have gone out of his way to please her. After all, he made no effort to disguise his disdain for her.
“You cannot force sustenance down my throat,” she told him brazenly.
In truth, he was wearing her down. Part of her dizziness had been down to the unexpected height of the fall from the window to the ground below. Nary even a tree in which to shimmy onto a branch. But the other part of her faintness was being caused by the lack of food and drink she had stubbornly enforced since the evening before.
“Do not tempt me, oh darling future wife.” Grinning at her, he held a strawberry to his own lips and took a bite.
What was it about the sight of his sensual lips moving? Those white, even teeth flashing? There was nothing carnal about eating a strawberry, and the man before her was her sworn enemy. She ought not to be affected by the mere act of him breaking his fast. She ought not to think about those lips claiming hers.
About those kisses…
Those hated, awful kisses…
She frowned. “I am not your future wife.”
“You love your brother, do you not?” he asked mildly, before taking another bite of the strawberry.
Callie clenched her jaw. “Of course I loved Alfred. That is why I wrote those memoirs. That is why I have been seeking vindication for his death.”
His protestations that he had not been responsible for Alfred’s death meant nothing to her. The timing was too suspect. Lord Sinclair’s rage and hatred for his dead wife was still palpable, a year later. She would not believe a word that slid from his lying tongue.
“Yourotherbrother, my beloved betrothed. The current Duke of Westmorland.” The earl took a sip of his own tea. “Mmm. I do prepare a fine cup if I say so myself. The tea is a bit old, but you would never be able to tell by taste.”
Vile man.
She wrinkled her nose, casting a glance around the cavernous, stone walls of the kitchen. Last night, much of it had been bathed in shadows and darkness. By daylight, all its details were plainly visible. Including the fact that it had been abandoned for some time.
“Where did you find it?” She would not be one whit surprised if there had been rodent offal mixed in with the tea leaves if he had found it within the sparse depths of this centuries’ old kitchen. “And I love Benny as much as I loved Alfred. They are my brothers, my blood. The three of us were inseparable.”
“Fret not, Countess of Sinclair-to-be.” He sipped at his tea again, cool and calm as could be. “The tea is safe to drink. No poison or rat droppings, if that is what you suspect.”
She cast a longing glance in the direction of her own tea before she could quash the urge. So thirsty. She was so very thirsty, and the tea certainly smelled sweet and inviting. She could practically feel it gliding over her tongue.
But there remained one insurmountable problem:hehad prepared it.
“I would sooner leap from the window upstairs than become your next countess,” she returned with what she hoped was equal composure.
“Ah, but you had your chance, did you not?” He cast her an amused smile. “Instead, I saved you. You are welcome, by the way. I did not hear you thank me for sparing you the certain fate of the bird who cannot fly.”
He was so smug.
So horrid.
