Unless he knew it was her last night.
Should she confess? Explain? But then, last night had been a trap for her brother, had it not? Which meant, logically, this Fury was her brother’s enemy, not hers. But who knew what the man might do if he ever discovered thatshewas his enemy’s sister... In no world would that prompt anything good!
“Why don’t you tell me what might have given me such an idea?” he countered, eyes as sharp as a predator.
Once again, a tiger came to mind. All brute force and cunning. Big, but soft on his feet. That sort of feel. And on the heels of that thought, only one word repeated over and over in her head.Deny, deny, deny.
“I cannot possibly begin to say,” she ventured. “But do you not think,” she waved to the cells, “this is all a bit too much?”
“Bringing you here, you mean?”
“This form ofintimidation. A verbal warning would have sufficed.”
He shrugged. “I am a visual man, Miss Sharpe. I wish to show you and thereupon see your face when I do.”
Remarkably brutal.
“For curiosity’s sake,” and because she had to ask, “what do you do with the people you lock in here?”
A full-fledged grin, truly wicked in nature, stretched across his face, twisting his scar, slicing its length.
You just had to follow him here, didn’t you, Violet?
I had no choice!
“The time depends on the crime.”
Oh, God. What had been her crime? “Accidentally” wandering into his trap? She would swear by that story until her skin peeled off! Nevertheless, her lack of sense, the way she’d abandoned her wits, both confused and annoyed her. She ought to know better. She ought to act smarter. She ought not lose her nerve at the mention of her brother.
She had to become stronger.
Realistically, probably most certainly, Violet would not be able to avoid her brother forever. Fate was a wicked thing. She had to use this time to build a life he could not yank her from. That, however, was easier said than done. Although, she figured in a few years, she’d be old enough that no man would want a spinster off the shelf either. Especially one that lowered herself to commerce. How scandalous, was it not?
But first, she had to survive her landlord.
She had not declared war on men like her brother just to fall prey to the first predator that stepped into her new life.
Her gaze swept the cell, her frustration growing. “And how do you determine the time of the sentence?”
He chuckled. “You seem awfully curious, Miss Sharpe. Are you worried?”
She mimicked his stance and crossed her arms. “Why would I be worried when I have done nothing wrong?”
The man stepped forward, clearly to intimidate her further, and she forced her feet to stay put. “I shall be the judge of that, Miss Sharpe.”
Annoying, truly. He clearly didn’t have any intention of telling her what her supposed crime was, although there could be only one thing, a thing she’d never admit to, so they seemed to have come to a stalemate.
His words had scarcely faded into the stifling air when steady footsteps approached the dungeon.
Violet startled, head snapping toward the sound. Was there more to this situation than met the eye?
A moment later, a giant of a fellow with sleeves rolled to his elbows filled the doorway, tall as an oak beam and twice as broad. His face was strong, sharp, unmistakably cut from the same stone as her abductor’s, and took them both in with a single, utterly unimpressed sweep. Then the man released the slowest, driest exhale Violet had ever heard.
Nothing more.
As though that sigh itself was already enough.
Before Violet could grasp the significance, the big man turned on his heel without further comment and strode back up the steps, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, “Not my bloody problem.”
