“I-I don’t know what it is,” she said, pushing down another lump of fear. “It’s an ornamental gargoyle of some sort, but it’s frighteningly hideous, with this gaping mouth,” she exclaimed, gesturing wildly at her mouth, “and clawed feet, and a tail—”
Ardencaple moved so quickly that Anna could not react; with one lunge, he forced her against the wall, planted his arms on either side of her head, and glared down at her. “Where. Is. It?”
The veins in his neck and temple were bulging, his jaw was clenched, and Anna felt as if she’d been cornered by a raging beast. But as she was literally in a corner, there was nothing she could do but hold fast to her plan, or risk, by the look of him, certain death. “I won’t tell you,” she said low. “Not yet.”
“WHERE IS IT?” he roared.
Anna shrieked, closed her eyes, and dipped her head, hugging herself from his fury. “Put away for safekeeping.”
He cried out as he slammed his fist into the wall. Anna twisted away, buried her face in her hands, and slid helplessly down the wall. But she felt him move away, and lifted her head as he turned back toward her, his chest heaving with fury. “Ye’ve no notion what ye do!” he railed at her. “Ye are a bloody fool!”
Her hand went to her throat as she tried to quell her panic, and she pushed herself up the wall.
Honestly, she didn’t know what she had expected when she came here—but it had not been this. She had imagined he would be somewhat peeved, perhaps even ironically amused. She’d never expected such intense fury, not for a moment. He was always so… cheerful.
“On my word, I intend to give it to you,” she said earnestly, and started again when he whirled about, pinning her to the wall with a pointed finger and a rabid glare.
“I don’t mean you any harm!” she cried, darting to refuge behind a wingback leather chair. “Truly, I don’t!” she insisted as his eyes narrowed menacingly. “But…I am in need of your help, and I need that… that thing to assure you will give it to me!”
“Mo chreach—”
“If you will help me, Ardencaple, I will give it to you!”
“Help ye what?” he cried furiously. “Help ye torment me, aye? What could I possibly help ye with?”
“God in heaven,” she said weakly, and in a moment of overwhelming regret, she covered her face with her hands. She wished she’d never been so foolish as to come here, wished she’d once, just once, listened to her practical nature.
“Diah,” he muttered at last, and in a voice that was perhaps a tiny bit softer, he asked, “What sort of help is it that ye need, then?”
This had been a horrible idea, a wretched idea, but Anna had created an appalling quagmire from which she had no idea how to extract herself.
Except to go through with it. Walk on, as it were, into the fires of complete humiliation, for which she had no one to blame but herself. And it was the only course open to her, because she knew, looking at him now, in all his fury, that he’d never allow her to walk out of here now.
She drew a breath to steel herself. “I would like to, ah… sort of gain the, ah… affection of Mr. Lockhart,” she stammered, and risked a glance at him. “And I would like for you to, ah …I mean to say that what I hope is…”
He was getting impatient. His hands were on his hips, his head down.
“I suppose there is no polite way to say it,” she said, more to herself than him, and took another breath and said in a rush, “I would like you to teach me how to seduce him. A-And… keep my sister quite occupied.”
The anger bled from Ardencaple’s face and was replaced with a ghastly look of shock. He blinked rapidly, as if he were seeing something quite hideous. His mouth dropped open and he gaped at her for what seemed an eternity before he lowered himself into a chair, released his breath in one long whoosh, and dragged both hands through his hair. “Ye’ve lost yer bloody mind,” he groaned.
Her fingers dug into the wingbacks so tightly that they cramped, but Anna could not move, could not even think.
“God blind me, lass,” he said quietly, “but ye are indeed às a chiall,” he continued, and as he made a whirling gesture at his head, there was no need for him to translate that he thought she was impossibly daft, gone completely around the bend.
This was not exactly the way she’d pictured things when she’d imagined sailing into this man’s home, imperiously informing him that she had determined what he was about, then smoothly suggesting she’d allow him to go scot-free (pausing there to laugh lightly at the scot part of that) in exchange for a little help.