poor form to threaten the fellow with the knife?” he interrupted. “Tut, tut, Lady Calliope.”
“I daresay no one has ever wielded a knife in my presence,” she snapped. “What is this about, Lord Sinclair? I have other calls to make today, and you are wasting my time with your nonsense.”
How she deluded herself.
“There will be no other calls.” He stroked his thumb back down the blade, this time with too much force.
He knew a quick sting in the fleshy pad, followed by the wetness of his blood. What irony. The first blood he had drawn was his own.
“You cut yourself,” she gasped. “You are bleeding everywhere.”
So he had, and so he was.
“It is a minor scratch,” he said, unconcerned. “It will stop. This knife is very sharp, Lady Calliope. I would hate to have to use it upon your tender flesh, to cut you.”
“You are attempting to frighten me,” she countered, her eyes narrowing. “I do not know what you want or why, but surely you must realize this is madness and it needs to end at once.” She rapped at the ceiling then. “Lewis! Stop this carriage.”
He laughed, the sound bitter. “Do you truly think I would be stupid enough to abduct you with your own driver?”
Confusion stole over her expressive face.
It was a pity he hated her so much, because Lady Calliope Manning was one of the most stunning women he had ever beheld. Stunning and deceitful and reckless. He would crush her before this war she had begun was over between them.
“What have you done with Lewis?” she asked, fear making her voice tremble.
All her bravado leached away.
Good. Perhaps she was beginning to realize the gravity of her situation.
“Mayhap I killed him, like the others,” he growled. “Like my wife. Your brother. That is what you think, is it not, my lady? That is what you wrote for all the world to read and believe, pretending to be me.”
She went paler still. “I do not know what you are speaking of.”
“The false memoirs you have been writing and publishing in regular, despicable little serials,” he elaborated, bringing his cut thumb to his mouth and sucking the blood clean. Copper flooded his tongue. “Confessions of a Sinful Earl, I believe you titled the deceitful tripe. Not terribly clever of you, but then, your sole intention was to make certain everyone had no question in their minds that your vicious fictions were about me, is that not right?”
“I read the memoirs along with the rest of London, but I am not the author, my lord,” she denied.
He had known she would not confess her sins easily. He was prepared to refute her claims. He had been waiting. Watching. Preparing. Lord knew he had nothing else to do since all the doors in London had been closed to him.
“And yet, I just caught you paying your weekly call to the offices of J.M. White and Sons, the same publisher of Confessions,” he countered.
“J.M. White and Sons publishes pamphlets for the Lady’s Suffrage Society.” Her response was quick. “That is the reason I pay calls there regularly.”
He smiled. “An excellent excuse for your trips, is it not? But how do you explain the manuscripts in your bedchamber at Westmorland House, Lady Calliope?”
Her eyes widened. And an expression stole over her face then, one he imagined mirrored that of a wild beast staring down its hunter. “How would you know what is in my chamber?”
His smile deepened, along with his triumph. “Because I was there. I saw it myself.”
But his triumph was short-lived. Because in the next breath, the virago launched herself at him.
Callie knew the Earl of Sinclair was desperate.
She knew he was dangerous.
She believed he had murdered her beloved brother and his own countess, who had been engaged in an affaire and had mysteriously died on the same day in suspicious circumstances.
And she also knew she had unwittingly led the wolf straight to her door. Now, he was out for blood. But she was damned if she was going to allow him to spirit her away somewhere to do Lord knew what with her. Kill her? Because she was the author of Confessions of a Sinful Earl?
It seemed unlikely he would commit murder again, with so many suspicions raised about him.
Still, she was not taking any chances. Callie launched herself at him, hands balled into fists, pummeling his chest. But he was stronger than she was. He caught her wrists in an iron grip. Belatedly, she remembered the blade. His