Page 28 of Lady Constantine & the Sins of Lord Kilgore
He looked up as well at the bright moon, recalling she’d been speaking of it at the ball last night. “I’ve always found it intriguing, though I know nothing about it. Will you tell me some facts tomorrow?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you one now,” she said, tugging on her glove and allowing him to help her up into the carriage.
“Some medieval scholars say a full moon represents a time when one realizes their desires.”
“I like that very much,” he replied, unable to keep the huskiness out of his voice.
A concerned look suddenly crossed her face. “Lord Kilgore—”
“Callum,” he countered, wanting to hear his name on her lips.
“All right, Callum, and you may call me Constantine. If Lord Pierce, whom I find to be quite unreasonable personally, will not remove the wager—”
“You want me to send word so you can avoid me like a plague?” he guessed. Immense disappointment filled him, but he could not blame her.
She laughed. “Heavens no. I’m not some skittish mouse. I was going to say, I’d still come. I just want you to know that.”
“You’d risk your reputation for me?” he asked, dumbfounded.
“I’d be risking my reputation for possibility,” she replied.
“Possibility of what?”
The innocent but astonishingly blunt woman blushed. “Something wonderful, of course.”
Chapter Ten
January 1839
Present day
London, England
Callum thrashed on the bed, struggling to open his eyes, but his lids felt so damn heavy that the feat seemed impossible. And when he heard Constantine’s soft, soothing voice by his ear, he decided he must surely be dreaming, because why would she talk so sweetly to him after what he’d done at the asylum? Yes, yes, he was dreaming, and he didn’t want to wake. He wanted to stay in this place where there was still possibility for them.
He ended his fight to open his eyelids, and he let himself sink back into the darkness and the warmth, where her image floated just in front of him. Yet, when he tried to reach out and touch her, her image parted as if it were no more than smoke lingering in the air. In her place, the Enforcer appeared, face twisted in rage and determination, a bloody whip in his hand.
“Ye will break,” the man roared, his face so close to Callum’s that the man’s spittle hit Callum’s face.
Callum, who was bound to a chair in the courtyard of the asylum, had to swallow repeatedly in an effort to try to form words. He’d been denied drink and food for the last several days as part of the Enforcer’s plan to bend Callum to his will. Finally, his cracked lips pressed into the words he wanted to say. “I am the Marquess of Kilgore, and you are no match for me,” Callum replied, just as he’d done every single time the Enforcer had tortured him for the last two months.
The wide circle of inmates around Callum and the Enforcer erupted into cheers at Callum’s denial, and then a chant began—with White, Callum suspected—and spread through all twenty-six prisoners, because that was what each of them here really was—a prisoner. “Kilgore. Kilgore. Kilgore. Kilgore.”
The chant grew in strength, despite the Enforcer’s roaring for the men to stop, and Callum grinned up at the man. The Enforcer quickly sent his fist into Callum’s mouth once, twice, three times. Blood filled Callum’s mouth, which he spit toward the man’s boots. The men roared their approval, the sound deafening.
The wooden door to the courtyard suddenly swung open, and one of the guards walked in with a woman beside him. That was surprising enough, as the only inmates at the asylum were men, as far as Callum knew, but her similarity to Constantine was what made Callum wonder for a moment if he was now hallucinating. He squeezed his eyes shut. The woman had the same hair color, and her build was eerily similar to Constantine’s.
Foreboding gripped Callum, and he strained wildly against his bindings, feeling them cut into his flesh but not giving. The guard and the woman stopped in front of the Enforcer. They spoke briefly, and then the guard turned and went out the same way he’d come. The Enforcer pointed to Callum. The woman looked at him, an emotion akin to pity skittering across her face, and then she nodded as the Enforcer whispered in her ear.
He left her standing there then and strode to Callum, leaning over Callum’s right shoulder to whisper in his ear. “Ye used to live in Mayfair in quite a fancy townhome, which I’m thinking is part of the reason ye think ye are so much better than me.” Callum stilled, the world around him tilting. “Yer pretty little wife still lives there on the corner in a red brick home with a black door and two large trees perfectly spaced on each corner. Quite the beauty your wife is, or so I’m told by the guard I sent to locate her.”
Rage swept through Callum like a violent storm, and he roared and tried to buck out of the chair, but the bindings held firm, and the Enforcer clamped a hand on Callum’s shoulder and pressed his mouth close to Callum’s ear once more. “I am the lord here, Kilgore,” the man whispered. “And you are my servant. You will do as I say from this day forward or Lady Kilgore will get a visit from me, and I don’t mind telling ye, I have always wanted to bed a fine lady.”
Every single part of Callum wanted to jerk his head sideways and smash it into the man’s mouth, but he held still as rage coursed through him, searing his veins.
“Ye are Mr. Selkirk now. Ye’ll never be Lord Kilgore again. Yer actions now will either ensure yer wife lives in safety or that she is made to pay for yer sins.”
“I am Mr. Selkirk,” Callum said immediately, though the words seemed to scrape the skin of his throat raw as they came out. Anguish at knowing he was helpless to truly protect Constantine ripped through him, but he held it in. He’d not show it.
