Instead of leaving, he shuts the door behind him. When he turns back to me, his eyes are glimmering with sadistic intent.
He doesn’t want the truth. He just wants to punish me.
“I warned you what would happen if I caught you sneaking around my daughter.”
My breath comes in short pants. “You wouldn’t dare.”
The Archduke smiles wickedly. “Wouldn’t I?”
He strides toward me, and I dart behind the sofa.
He halts, seething with irritation, and then starts around the sofa the other way. I move too, keeping my distance from him. Then I pick up my skirts and flee across the room, taking shelter behind a desk.
The Archduke growls in frustration.
“If you cause a scene, people will gossip about us,” I point out.
His eyes narrow, scheming, calculating. Just waiting for me to put a foot wrong. “No one’s going to know, unless you lose your head and start screaming.”
“Then I’ll scream!”
“Go ahead. I rather think your reputation will suffer more than mine.”
My heart pounds wildly in my chest. I glance toward the door, as if I’m going to run that way, and he steps toward it. Then I snatch up a cushion from a sofa and hurl it at his head.
He ducks, and the cushion sails past him, narrowly missing a vase and falling to the floor.
“Think about your daughter. What would she say if she knew what you were doing right now?”
I can see I’ve said entirely the wrong thing. His face suffuses with anger. “You really will use anyone for your own ends.”
He stalks around the writing desk toward me, but I take off. I stop behind the sofa, panting, and he comes to a halt on the other side.
“I know your kind, and you’re a bully. You hated me the moment you laid eyes on me and for no good reason. Can’t you just admit that you made a mistake when you assumed I was a thief, so we can both move on?”
His eyes are darting everywhere, searching for a new strategy to get to me. “Perhaps you’re not a thief, but you still need to be taught a lesson. If I don’t uphold the sanctity of the Court, then the country will come crashing down again.”
“I’m going to single-handedly cause another revolution by being friends with your daughter? Prison has made you paranoid.”
His eyes laser into me with pure hatred.
“Did they beat you in prison? Is that why you think that’s the answer to everything?”
He lunges across the sofa, grabs my wrist and drags me toward him. I wasn’t expecting him to move so quickly, and before I know what’s happening, he turns me in his arms and has me pinned against the wall.
I try to free myself, but his hands are like iron manacles.
I stop struggling and glare up at him. “Instead of terrorizing me, you should be trying to get to know your daughter. She’s desperate to get to know you better. Do you want to lose her?”
His face is close to mine, and those hazel eyes are blazing. “You don’t know anything about us.”
“I know you don’t listen to her. You don’t talk to her.”
His large hands tighten on my wrists and his jaw flexes. Nice one, Wraye. Make him even angrier. I wait for him to speak, but he just glares down at me.
“Get it over with, then. If you could hurry up and ban me from ever attending a ball, I’ll be on my way.”
“No. The Rugovas are one of the First Families of Paravel. Your presence is required, until I tell you otherwise.”
“I don’t feel like I belong. I feel like an intruder who keeps putting her foot wrong at every turn.”
Something flits across his expression, then is gone again. I look at my wrists in Levanter’s grip, and then back at his face. These aren’t the actions of a well-adjusted man.
I lick my upper lip, thinking carefully. Maybe I can talk my way out of this. “You must be finding this experience crazy, too. Hurtled from one world into another, without feeling in control of anything around you.”
I watch him closely, but he doesn’t react.
“I could help you get closer to Aubrey,” I offer. “Maybe in return, you could let me be friends with her.”
Levanter’s eyes narrow. “A bargain, Lady Wraye?”
“If you want to think of it that way.”
He lets go of my wrists and slowly stands back. I let my arms drop to my sides. The Ironclad Archduke can be reasoned with, after all.
In a flash, he scoops me up in his arms and carries me across the room. Instinctively, my arms wrap around his neck, so I don’t fall. “Hey! Put me down.”
Levanter ignores me. His eyes caress my face, as he sits down on a sofa, with me in his lap. He shouldn’t be so sexy at fifty-whatever he is. Or rather, he can be this sexy, but I probably shouldn’t be noticing.