Chapter One
Lady Calliope Manning, sister to the Duke of Westmorland, social darling, and one cunning, vicious harridan, was about to learn that when a man had nothing left to lose, he was bloody well dangerous.
She was also about to learn that her efforts in chasing off all his future marital prospects had been for naught.
And that telling the world the Earl of Sinclair had killed the previous Duke of Westmorland and his former countess both came with ramifications. Dire ones.
Sin waited in the shadows as Lady Calliope left her publisher’s office and moved toward her waiting carriage. She was so accustomed to running wild all over Town and doing whatever she pleased, she did not even bother to cast a glance around her. If she had, mayhap she would have seen him watching.
Mayhap she would have known how much trouble she would soon find herself mired in. Or, at least, she may have had an inkling. But because the self-absorbed chit had never had to worry a day in her life about how she would afford her silk Worth gowns fresh from Paris or her lavish balls or live with a roof over her damned head that was not leaking, she never looked.
She never saw him coming.
Nor did she appear to take note that her driver had been replaced with a man he trusted. A man who had been paid with what little funds Sin had remaining at his disposal to drive them to the country. Her driver would have come to by now, suffering from the very devil of a headache in a nearby alleyway thanks to Brinton’s left hook.
Sin strode forward, timing his every action with utmost care. One false step, one precipitous move, and all his plans—and indeed, his only chance at saving himself—would be dashed. She was nearly within the carriage now, her back to him, foot on the step. Sin caught her waist in his hands, his grip firm, and shoved her inside.
She made a startled cry as she heaved forward in a mess of skirts and petticoats, sprawling over the Moroccan leather squabs. Sin joined her in the carriage and slammed the door, then knocked on the roof. He sat on the bench opposite her as the conveyance swung into motion.
Just in time for her to scramble around, terror on her pretty, treacherous face. The fear was chased quite neatly by recognition. Her lips parted on a gasp.
“Lord Sinclair? What the devil do you think you are doing in my carriage?” she demanded.
“I am abducting you,” he told her with a sangfroid that was owed partly to the whisky he had swallowed to fortify him just prior to this mission of desperation. And partly to his desire to make the alarm return to her features.
She scoffed. “You cannot abduct me, my lord.”
So much for her alarm. But there was plenty of time to draw blood. The journey ahead was long.
Sin held up his hands, gesturing to the interior of the carriage. “Observe, Lady Calliope.”
She raised a dark, elegant brow. “All I see before me is an interloper in my carriage. What are you doing here, Lord Sinclair? Do you not have an innocent to debauch? Some opium to eat? Another murder to plot?”
He was going to enjoy destroying this despicable creature.
Sin gave her his most feral smile. “You have been paying attention to my reputation, my lady. I am all aflutter.”
“I hardly pay you any attention at all.” She frowned at him, her dark eyes flashing with defiant fire. “You are beneath my notice.”
Lying witch.
“Indeed, Lady Calliope?” He reached into his coat and calmly extracted the blade he had secreted there for just this purpose. For her. He tested the point at the tip with his thumb, watching her.
Her gaze had fallen to the blade. Beneath her hat, which had been knocked askew when he had shoved her into the carriage, her skin paled.
“Why do you have a weapon?” she asked.
“Perhaps I am plotting your murder,” he suggested, slowly running his thumb down the length of the blade. “Since I have already killed your brother.”
She stiffened. “If you think to do me harm, my lord—”
“Has no one informed you it is poor form to threaten the fellow with the knife?” he interrupted. “Tut, tut, Lady Calliope.”
“I daresay no one has ever wielded a knife in my presence,” she snapped. “What is this about, Lord Sinclair? I have other calls to make today, and you are wasting my time with your nonsense.”
How she deluded herself.
“There will be no other calls.” He stroked his thumb back down the blade, this time with too much force.
He knew a quick sting in the fleshy pad, followed by the wetness of his blood. What irony. The first blood he had drawn was his own.
“You cut yourself,” she gasped. “You are bleeding everywhere.”
So he had, and so he was.
“It is a minor scratch,” he said, unconcerned. “It will stop. This knife is very sharp, Lady Calliope. I would hate to have to use it upon your tender flesh, to cut you.”
“You are attempting to frighten me,” she countered, her eyes narrowing. “I do not know what you want or why, but surely you must realize this is madness and it needs to end at once.” She rapped at the ceiling then. “Lewis! Stop this carriage.”
He laughed, the sound bitter. “Do you truly think I would be stupid enough to abduct you with your own driver?”
Confusion stole over her expressive face.
It was a pity he hated her so much, because Lady Calliope Manning was one of the most stunning women he had ever beheld. Stunning and deceitful and reckless. He would crush her before this war she had begun was over between them.
“What have you done with Lewis?” she asked, fear making her voice tremble.
All her bravado leached away.
Good. Perhaps she was beginning to realize the gravity of her situation.
“Mayhap I killed him, like the others,” he growled. “Like my wife. Your brother. That is what
