The dust cleared, revealing a pair of ice-gray eyes trained on her. Callum reared back and shook his head. “What in the bloody hell are ye doing?”
Callum rarely let a situation get the best of him. He’d held an entire shipyard straining to hear his every word, brought striking laborers to tears with a scowl, and once kept the crew of a sinking ship from panic with a raised hand.
But he had never felt so out of control as he did staring at his shamefaced cousin and his petulant partner in crime. He loomed over where they sat side-by-side on matching armchairs, James tensed and poised for flight while Violet glared in return, her knee bouncing under her wrinkled skirts.
“Really, Cal,” James stammered. “It’s not that serious—”
“Itisserious.” His voice boomed through the empty parlor where he had dragged them after discovering their ill-advised carriage rendezvous, Violet covered in stable dust and silently fuming. A footman had told him James had slipped away to the stables, and Callum sent up a silent prayer of thanks that he had been the one to find them. “Anyone could have walked in andfound ye.”
“That was the entire point.”
He turned slowly towards the petite woman, the lass who was quickly upending every assumption he’d made about her. She crossed her arms tightly under her bust and glared at him with sufficient force to send him rocking back on his heels. “Pardon?”
She leaned forward and a piece of straw fell out of her hair. “We intended to be caught.”
The air rushed from his lungs as though she’d punched him in the gut. “Why in the hell would ye want tha’?”
“Watch your mouth, a lady’s present.”
Callum swung on his cousin. “A lady? Ye were doin’ yer best to make her seem the wrong sort of lady—”
“I asked James to do this.” Violet had shot to her feet, her hands fisted at her sides. She truly was comically small, as though he could tuck her in his pocket and carry her around.
She would most likely light his clothing on fire.
“None of this was his idea,” she said, “and he doesn’t deserve your anger. Your issue is with me.”
James lifted his hand. “Should I leave?”
“No,” Callum barked at the same moment Violet said, “yes, please.”
James pushed to his feet and scampered towards the door. “So sorry, Cal, but the lady requested I go, and—”
His words were lost as the door slammed behind him. Callum narrowed his gaze until the muted yellows of the parlor walls blurred, until only she filled his vision. “Explain.”
His growled mandate only seemed to inflame her further. “I owe you nothing—”
“When my cousin is involved, ye best tell me ev’rything before I march yer arse back to Oxfordshire!”
Her jaw dropped and he winced; his brogue had thickened with his anger, and he was probably frightening her.
He didn’t expect her to step forward and push him in the chest with enough force to knock him off his feet.
Well, not quite, but healmostmoved.
“Youare nosy, and arrogant to a fault if you think you can treat me like a wayward child. I’m making a choice about my future,something men get to do every day but is still precluded from the lives of aristocratic women.”
“Fer chrissakes, woman.” He raked his hands through his hair and pulled at the ends. “What are ye goin’ on about?”
She emptied her lungs in a rush of air. “Iwantto be ruined.”
Callum prided himself on not speaking unless it was absolutely necessary; words carried far more weight when they were delivered sparingly. But this—
She’d left him speechless.
After watching him gape for several moments, she huffed and crossed her arms again. “My family is pushing me into a society marriage, and the man they want me to marry will be here, the final night of the party, to ask for my hand. I have no good reason to refuse him, none that my father will accept.” Christ. This was why he avoided high-class women and their inane problems. “Aye, I’ve heard this tale before.” He huffed and drawled his next words. “Ye want true love—”
“Yes, and I deserve it. That’s why I was with James—”
