“How is it that I knew the two of you would find a way to each other?” He sneered at them both, his florid face as repulsive to her as ever.

Ysmaine made it a point to stand tall before him, shoulders back and chin jutting out the way she had always seen her father stand while he faced a foe. “I merely wished to see about his condition, and I found my way down here in order to do so.”

He clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “We both know that isn’t so, girl. You convinced Geoffrey to show you to the dungeons.”

She went cold inside. How was it that he seemed to know everything that went on in the castle?

“I have eyes and ear everywhere,” he explained, as though he could hear her thoughts. “It behooves a man in my position to know exactly what transpires and where it transpires. Otherwise, a castle such as this one might fall into utter waste, and then where would we be?”

“You’ve already begun the process,” Quinn snarled from behind the closed door. “For this dungeon is far past the point of utter waste.”

“By design,” the Marquis snapped before turning his attention to Ysmaine. “I see I was correct in keeping a watch on you. You are no more to be trusted than your mother was.”

“She was not yours to order about,” Ysmaine reminded him.

“We had a bargain!” His voice echoed deafeningly off the walls, causing her to cringe. Even he appeared alarmed by his outburst. “We had a bargain,” he repeated, modulating his tone this time.

“You made a bargain with her father, but not with her. She did not wish to marry you any more than I do,” Ysmaine announced.

“Then you are no more intelligent than she was,” he snarled, dropping all pretense of gentility. This was the true Marquis, this snarling, spitting, vicious creature before her. His already unappealing features twisted into something even more terrible as he glared at her.

He chilled her to the core; this was a man capable of much more than harsh words. This was a man who could resort to violence if pushed to his limit.

Still, she would not back down. She would not cower before him like a beaten dog. A Fraser did not cower. She lifted her chin further. “Be that as it may, I do not wish to be your wife, and I have no intention of doing so.”

Oh, how she wished she could hold Quinn’s hand as she stood up to this man. How she wished for just a bit of his strength. She thought she’d held her own up until then, but there was no telling how much longer she would be able to maintain a false front.

The Marquis shrugged. “It matters not. If you are to claim your inheritance, you are to marry me. Those are the terms of the will, as I explained earlier.”

“If those are the terms, I have no wish to claim my grandfather’s estate.” She hadn’t expected to speak it aloud, but there it was nonetheless. She had just relinquished her claim to a fortune she could not begin to imagine, one greater than that possessed by the Marquis.

Why would he be so keen on absorbing it otherwise? It would increase his stature and his wealth immeasurably, and he was greedy enough to behave unspeakably in order to secure it. As though he were seated before his favorite meal, shoving great handfuls of food into his mouth simply because it was there, and he could.

Even if it meant the misery and hunger of others seated at the same table.

Who would wish to wed such a man?

This surprised him. His mouth hung open, his eyes bulged. He reminded her for all the world of a great, dead fish.

“You would refuse the right to such a lavish inheritance, when it is just beyond the tips of your fingers?”

She nodded. “I knew nothing of it prior to receiving your letter, and it means nothing to me. I would be no more the worse for having refused it. I had a good life in Scotland, whether you wish to believe it or not, thanks to my father. He was a good man, a brave man. No matter what it is you wish to believe about him.”

He took this in, silent for what seemed an eternity. Ysmaine could hear her heart beating in her ears, could hear Quinn’s strained breathing from the other side of the door.

When he spoke again, his response could not have surprised her more. “I am sorry to hear that.”

“You are?”

He took one step, then another, closing the distance between them. “Yes, because this all might have gone much more smoothly for you. I am afraid you will be most unhappy in our married life if this is the attitude you maintain.”

It was her turn to gape like a great fish.

This pleased him, for he laughed. “Do you truly believe that your desires are of any consequence? That I care whether or not you wish to be my bride? I cared not about your mother’s wishes, and I care even less for yours. The fact is this, our families are to be united through marriage, and our estates along with them. It is an unfortunate turn of circumstances that you happen to have been sired by a filthy Highlander, but that can be bred out in our children, and even further in theirs. Before long, it will be as if your father had never existed, and all will be as it was meant to be twenty years ago.”

He did not care. How could he not care?

How could he speak of marrying a girl who loathed the thought of touching him, and even more the thought of being touched by him? Had he no self-respect?

A single look at him answered her question. No, he had none. He carried himself and conducted himself like an animal.

“Now,” he continued, calmer than before since he felt as though his point had been well-made, “we ought to leave this disease-ridden place and return to the keep. There is much to settle prior to the exchange of our vows.”

“There will be no such occasion,” she insisted, pulling her arm away when he reached for it. “I will not marry you, Marquis d’Orsay. I will never be your bride.”

He sighed, and now he behaved as though speaking to an obstinate child. Ysmaine had sighed in such a way many times while overseeing her charges. “Do you truly believe you have a choice? Where will you go? If you think for a moment I will allow you to escape the castle, you are gravely mistaken. You are here, now, having willingly accepted my invitation to the estate.”

“Under false pretenses,” she was quick to add. Oh, how could she ever have thrilled at the thought of beginning a new life in France? How could she have fallen so easily into his trap? The entire notion of her estranged grandfather leaving her his estate was too good to be true.

“Be that as it may,” he continued, eyes narrowing, “you are here. I have you, and I will not let you go.”

No, he would not. With Quinn in a cell, there was little chance of her making an escape, and even if she did, where would she go? How would she manage all alone? She was not even aware of the route back to the harbor.

The man’s eyes burned with a manic fire; he clearly believed all of his dreams were about to come true. He had lusted after her grandfather’s estate for twenty years, after all, more than enough time for a man to go mad with obsession.

He had spent part of those years writing to her mother, which explained why Ysmaine had recognized the crest in the sealing wax. She had seen it before, perhaps when her mother had left a letter lying about, before Ysmaine knew how to read.

She could only imagine what those letters had contained. How unforgiving he must have been toward the woman who had run from the prospect of marriage with him.

How he would take that rejection out on the daughter if he could not take it out on her mother.

Life with him would be no better than a waking nightmare.

“I would sell you the land, everything the estate entails,” she suggested. “I would even give it to you, sign it over in your name. Whatever it takes, you may have what you wish for. So long as I can leave and be on my way.”

“I wish for more than just land, daft girl,” he sneered. “And why would I pay for something I can much more easily obtain through marriage? I wish for heirs, the heirs who should have been mine years ago. You might have been my daughter, were it not for your mother’s obstinacy.”

What a chilling prospect.

Her eyes met Quinn’s through the window, and it was plain to see he was at a loss. Just as she was. What recourse was there? No matter what she offered, the man refused.

An idea bloomed inside her head. Unthinkable, really, and impossible.

But it might be just what she needed to turn the Marquis away for good.

If only Quinn would forgive her for it.

She threw back her head with a bitter laugh which she prayed sounded confident and not panicked. “Very well, then, if the thought of your first-born heir carrying Highlander blood does not dissuade you.”

He frowned. “As I’ve already expressed, daft girl, it matters not that your father was a filthy brute.”

“I was not speaking of my father, or of his blood.” One more glance at Quinn. “I was speaking of the fact that I carry the child of this man inside me. You’ll have no choice but to claim the child as your own and allow it to inherit your estate, or else be branded worse than a fool by everyone who knows you.”

If the admission shocked Quinn, he did not show it.

The Marquis did not appear to be shocked, either.

He merely smiled.

And continued smiling as he raised his foot and kicked her squarely in the stomach.