“He was always kind to me,” she returned just as sharply.
Unimpressed eyebrows arched over Kylemore’s deep blue eyes. “A woman like you needs more than kindness. We both know it.” He reached across to lift the blind on a gray world.
The light was unforgiving on his handsome face, revealing marks of tiredness and strain. He looked as if he’d tormented himself close to madness since she’d disappeared. She found the idea more terrifying than flattering to her vanity.
He let the flap fall, enveloping them in twilight once more. “It’s raining again. We shall have a wet journey north.”
“North?” she asked, although it hardly mattered where he took her. Her eventual fate at his hands would be the same in London as it would be in Outer Mongolia.
“Yes. We visit one of my properties in the Highlands. It’s the only place I’m sure we won’t be disturbed. It’s the only place I can rely on the staff not to spread word of your presence.” This time, his smile held only gloating anticipation. “My revenge is a purely private concern.”
A weaker woman would have started screaming then. But Verity clung with difficulty to her self-possession. He was determined to intimidate her, that much was obvious.
The pity of it was he succeeded.
He paused, as if waiting for her reaction. When she denied him a response, he looked a little chagrined.
You’ll face more such disappointments, she told him silently with the first satisfaction she’d experienced since this nightmare started. Get used to it.
He made a dismissive gesture with one pale, elegant hand, as if wordlessly denying her capacity to affect him. “Where was I? Ah, yes. Sir Eldreth’s will. I got hold of it and noted a large annuity to a Miss Verity Matilda Ashton. Inquiries on his estates and amongst his cronies revealed Miss Ashton was neither a relative nor a family retainer. In fact, nobody knew who she was. By the way, Matilda doesn’t do you justice. It’s hard enough seeing you as Verity—particularly given truth isn’t exactly your strongpoint. But Matilda!”
“It was my mother’s name,” Verity said, trying not to let his needling scratch at her control.
“Ah.” He released a derisive puff of breath. “I hope she was a worthier citizen than her daughter has turned out to be.”
“She was.”
Thank God that gentle, devout woman had died before she saw what Verity had become. Her mother believed everlasting hellfire awaited a harlot at the end of her path. Verity had no intention of confiding that morsel to the overbearing tyrant opposite her.
“It was then a minor matter to arrange for certain less scrupulous contacts to break into Sir Eldreth’s solicitor’s office and steal Miss Ashton’s direction. You enjoy the delightful result of my enterprise.”
How she hated his smooth, superior voice, with its hard consonants and clear vowels. The coward who skulked in her soul whispered she could never succeed against someone with a voice like that.
Courage, Verity, she told herself, fisting her bound hands in her lap. He hasn’t won yet. Although he undoubtedly will if you convince yourself he’s invincible.
“You’ll soon tire of rape and compulsion.” Baiting him was risky, but she had to establish some power of her own in this cruelly unequal contest.
“You mistake me, madam,” he retorted smoothly. “My desire is for a partnership in the fullest sense of the word.”
In spite of all her fear, she gave a scornful crack of laughter. “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
His intense expression didn’t lighten. “I think
you’ll find we’re all beggars when it comes to desire.”
At last, he offered her some advantage, and she was desperate enough to take it. “I was a whore, Your Grace. Whores tup for money, not for pleasure. You confuse me with some fine lady who chooses where she lies down. I spread my legs for men because they pay me to do it. In your case, they pay me a fortune.”
Even in the poor light, she saw he whitened under her taunts. “More than that lay between us and you know it.”
It was her turn to sound superior now. “I’m glad Your Grace thought so. I’d fear my skills failed if you hadn’t.”
Yes! This was what she must do. Fight him. Insult him. Make him scramble to keep up. Soon, he’d weary of her acid tongue and her obstinacy. He wanted exciting, compliant Soraya, not her pigheaded facsimile, Verity.
He must have guessed her intention. “Making me angry won’t convince me to release you. Although it might make me less…careful.”
Anger surged up, clean and powerful as the waves she’d watched on the seafront that afternoon. “I don’t want your care! I don’t want anything from you. I despise you.”
Strangely, her outburst only made him calmer. “Have a thought for your safety, madam. Where we’re going, I could do away with you and not one soul would utter a word of protest.”