She stiffened, eyes going wide. “What are you doing, my lord?”
“Plotting your murder,” he told her wryly.
Her expression said she believed him.
“Bloody hell,” he swore, snatching a strawberry from her plate and holding it to her lush lips. “I am feeding you before you perish from starvation, you wrongheaded virago. Take a bite.”
She rolled her lips inward and shook her head.
He shoved the strawberry into her mouth with less finesse than he would have liked. But he nevertheless achieved the desired goal—there was food in her mouth.
“Chew,” he told her as if she were a child.
Her countenance was mulish as ever, but she chewed slowly, then swallowed.
“Good.” He held the half-eaten fruit to her lips once more. “Another bite.”
This time, instead of attempting to seal her lips, she opened her mouth. He slid the strawberry inside and the bloody harridan bit him. Pain shot up his arm as those pretty teeth of hers clamped on the fleshy pad of his thumb before releasing him.
He ground his molars to stave off an exclamation of pain. He would not allow her even a moment of triumph. “That was not very nice, my dear. Or particularly wise.”
“I was obeying your orders.” She blinked at him, her expression one of contrived innocence.
He brought his throbbing thumb to his own lips and sucked, easing the sting. “Fair warning, princess. Next time you bite me, I will bite you back.”
He would start by nibbling on her creamy throat. Then catching her lower lip between his teeth. Then, he would work his way lower. Bite those pretty nipples he had felt through her chemise…
Damnation.
Desire pounded through him, reminding him it had been far too long since he had last bedded a woman. That was the only reason he was attracted to the woman he had spent the last few weeks despising and plotting against.
“Forgive me,” she said, her voice radiating with insincerity.
Never, he vowed inwardly. Forgiveness was for fools. Lady Calliope Manning would be his enemy forever. He had learned that particular lesson thanks to his former countess, and it was one that would serve him well in the next loveless union he faced. If there was one source of solace he could find in this hellacious mess, it was that this time, he was too wise to fancy himself in love with his wife.
It would be a marriage of convenience in the truest sense.
No danger to his heart. No betrayal. No pain. No lies.
“Eat your breakfast, beloved betrothed,” he told her. “The sooner we can get back to London and you are my wife, the better.”
After all, he did not just have himself to fret over.
Chapter Seven
My rapacious hunger for conquests became a dangerous obsession, dear reader. The more I reveled in the depths of my depravity, the more I sought it, like a true satyr. Imagine, if you will, a chamber filled with dozens of men and women, all of them nude, writhing in their shared, forbidden passions…
~from Confessions of a Sinful Earl
Callie was bedraggled, tired, and wretched. Not necessarily in that order.
Her captor, however, was dozing comfortably on the Moroccan leather squabs opposite her, his long legs stretched out across the interior of the carriage, his booted ankles crossed. The deep, even sound of his breathing suggested he was slumbering without a hint of conscience, now that he had gotten what he wanted and they were en route back to London.
In repose, he looked somehow less menacing. Less like an angry god. More like a mere mortal. Still more handsome than sin.
She was going to marry this man.
Callie could hardly credit the knowledge. The last day seemed more like a horrible nightmare from which she would wake safe in the comfort of her bed at Westmorland House than reality. The man she had spent the last year believing responsible for Alfred’s death, the man she had ruined, the man with the blackest reputation in London, was forcing her to become his bride.
How she hated him.
She thought suddenly of his blade. Now that she had agreed to Sinclair’s demands, she was no longer bound like a prisoner. Mayhap it was not too late to escape him after all. She had no wish to truly hurt him with the knife—indeed, she did not think she could stomach it. But if she could somehow get her hands upon it…
Slowly, she made her way across the carriage, until she had settled herself beside him on the bench seat. He continued sleeping as the carriage went over a rut