“Your argument is pointless,” he told her. “The dye has been cast. Do watch that step. It is rather rotten, I fancy. Tread with care.”
“Where the devil have you brought me?” she demanded. “This leaking monstrosity is more fit to be a ruins than a home.”
“Not for long,” he said calmly, hauling her to the top of the stairs. “With the proper coin, it can be repaired and restored to its former glory.”
“Is that what this is about?” She yanked at her elbow again, making herself a dead weight as he attempted to pull her down the hall toward the state apartments. “You have abducted me so you can convince my brother to pay you ransom and settle your debts? Are you truly that desperate?”
“Yes, I am that desperate,” he snapped, pulling her with all his might. “But I am not that stupid. “I do not want a ransom. I want a lifetime of reassurance. Only marriage will buy me that.”
“I repeat, I will not marry you.” She attempted to wrest herself from his grasp once more, but it was futile.
He was far stronger than she was, and he simply dragged her into the chamber. “Yes, you will.”
Unfortunately for his captive, this chamber was the sole habitable one of the lot. Which meant they would be sharing both the room and the bed.
“I do not know what you are about, Lord Sinclair,” she huffed with more of that signature bravado of hers, “but abduction is against Her Majesty’s law. Nor can you force me to marry you.”
“Who said anything about force, princess?” He lit another lamp, all while keeping a firm hold on his wife-to-be, lest she attempt to clobber him with a random household object.
The chamber smelled of must, but evidence of its former glory abounded in the plasterwork on the ceiling and its sheer size. A shame, truly. This ramshackle old beast was once a prized jewel in the Sinclair earldom’s coronet.
She laughed, the sound shrill. “If you think I shall willingly marry you, my lord, you are even madder than I thought.”
Oh, he was definitely madder than she thought.
“If you wish to use the chamber pot, you will find it behind the screen just over there,” he told her coolly, gesturing to the shadowed corner of the room. “I will await you, and then we will dine before retiring for the evening. The journey has left me tired.”
Her gaze narrowed on him. “And where will you be awaiting me, Lord Sinclair? Surely not within this chamber.”
“Wrong again, princess.” He flashed her a grin. “I will be right here. Naturally, I do not trust you not to get yourself into trouble, should I offer you even a moment alone. Therefore, I shall wait.”
Callie gaped atthe Earl of Sinclair, trying to control the fear threatening to clog her throat. She was terrified of him, it was true. How strange it was to at last be face-to-face with the man she had turned into a veritable devil in her mind. Before her brother, Alfred’s, death, she had scarcely ever crossed paths with the earl, her social circle being quite a bit removed from Sinclair’s dubious connections. In the wake of Alfred’s death, she had fled to Paris and her aunt Fanchette, and the man responsible for Alfred’s sudden demise had been a world away.
She had forgotten how handsome he was. She wished he was a great, ugly gargoyle of a man. That she could take one look at him and see the evil somehow reflected upon his visage, burning from his eyes.
Instead, he was not hideous. Nor had he been particularly violent or vicious thus far. But he was certainly a lunatic. He watched her now with an implacable calm, as if he had not just ordered her to use a chamber potwithin his hearing. And as if he had not suggested she would willingly become his bride.
“I require privacy,” she told him, pleased that her voice did not betray even a tremble.
In the battle she waged with this despicable foe, she knew she would need to maintain as much ground as she possibly could.
“And you shall have it,” he agreed. “Behind the screen.”
She was in desperate need of relief. They had traveled hours from London—she knew not how long. But he had not stopped for her comfort, and as a result, she was about to burst. Still, she had her pride.
Callie shook her head. “I cannot possibly do it.”
“You will have to accustom yourself to all manner of intimacies with me after we are wed, princess.” He quirked a brow at her, unrelenting. “This will be the least of them.”
His words chilled her to her core. “Considering you murdered your former countess and my brother both, I will never marry you, my lord. Nor will I use the chamber pot within your earshot. Get out.”
He chuckled, and even that sound was sinister. “You seem to be confused about which one of us holds all the power. Allow me to educate you: your hands are bound. You are at my mercy. You have no choice.”
The insistent pain in her bladder reminded her he was close to being right. But she was not going to give in just yet. Her mind spun.
“I cannot use the chamber pot with my hands bound,” she tried next.
If he forced her to humiliate herself, at the very least, she could perhaps have her hands free so she could attempt to escape him. Her eyes went around the chamber in search of something with which she could bludgeon him and settled upon a strangely shaped figurine on a nearby table.
