“Mr. Fury!” she hissed, half outrage, half disbelief. “You truly are the brute they claim!”
“Why pretend not to be?” he murmured against the shell of her ear, urging the horse into an easy pace. “Are you comfortable?”
“Why ask when the answer won’t matter?” Her gaze snapped over her shoulder to his. Sharp. Blue. Defensive. Beautiful. He ought not notice that. Ought not let his attention linger on the faint sun-kissed freckles across her nose, the stubborn tilt to her mouth that made him want to haul her closer and kiss the anger right out of her.
Fool’s thoughts.
While he’d never been a man to deny himself a desire or indulgence, he didn’t need to consult a fortune-teller to know this one would bring him a lifetime’s worth of trouble.
“You are enjoying this,” she accused.
Point in bloody case.
“Not particularly,” he mostly lied. Becauseenjoywasn’t exactly the right word, though it also couldn’t be discounted as the wrong one.
“I should never have trusted you,” she muttered, averting her gaze.
Ah, little flame. “I never asked for your trust.”
Even so, the word carried an odd sting that scraped beneath his skin. Trust. As if that were a thing to be required so easily.
“Good. You shall never have it.”
“Good,” he said back. “You should never give out such a valuable thing too freely.”
She said nothing to that.
Drake adjusted his hold of the reins.
He should have felt in command with her trapped in his embrace. He wasalwaysin command. Power belonged to the man who could hold it, and he was holding her. So why, by all the devils in Brighton, did he feel likeshewas the one with her hands on the damn reins?
Chapter Five
Violet had neverquestioned her choices as much as she did at this very moment. Where was herlandlordtaking her? Where else but through the back entrance of some unholy building, candelabra in hand, down wet and eerie steps, and into a room that seemed devoid of life and smelled as unsettling as the place itself.
A dungeon.
Drake Fury had taken her to a dungeon!
Was he going to lock her up here? It had been bad enough to be embraced in the brute’s arms up till here, but now... She cursed the man. Fear spiked her heart, and with it came vigilance. She eyed him while her gaze never strayed too far from the door, her memory racing through the route. Steps, hallway, door, freedom.
While doing that, she also gathered the courage to ask, “What is the meaning of this, sir?”
The corner of the brute’s lips hitched. “Is the meaning not clear?”
“Forgive me, but I am the sort of person for whom one must spell out the meaning for me to understand clearly. This is both for your benefit and mine.”
He set the candelabra upon a low stone ledge and crossed his arms, leaning against the bars of one of the prisons. “This is where people end up who cross me.”
Violet couldn’t help a little shiver crawl over her skin at that. “Since you are showing me this and not locking me in a cell,” yet, “that seems to mean you believe I will cross you?”
“Correct.”
Of all the things and all the men! Violet’s temper sparked. She would love to challenge him to list all the things he knew about her and watch his face as he realized there were practically none. “And, pray tell, what’s given you this idea of me?”
Unless . . .
Oh, Lord. That wasn’t possible, was it?
