The words cut like daggers, despite being the truth. Though she’d rebelled in small subversive ways, she’d always been a servant to her position. With him. With Talbot. With anything that had been required of her. At least on the surface.

“When one is a princess,” she ground through her teeth, “duty is the only thing that matters.”

“You were a princess.”

Her burning gaze collided with his. “I beg your pardon?”

“You were a princess. You’re an English lady now on hallowed English soil. Daughter of a Scottish countess. Fiancée of an English duke. The only duty you have is to me as your future husband.” His mouth widened into something that could hardly be counted as a smile, his eyes remaining cold and slyly calculating.

Sarani felt like a mouse being toyed with by a lion, and she did not like it one bit. Her gaze slid to the door latch. She could end this right now. Open that carriage door and leave. Find her own way out of this mess somehow. Her emotions crashed and jumbled, spinning wildly.

“Have second thoughts already?” the duke asked, watching her. “Might I remind you of the dangers you’re facing, Princess.” His use of her defunct title was a mockery. “You need me, remember? You have no home, a family that might not welcome you, no connections, an assassin on your heels, dwindling funds, and nowhere to go.”

The perfunctory list slammed the wind from her sails. When he said it like that, her problems sounded insurmountable. Sarani gathered her anger, cloaking herself in it. She refused to feel powerless, even in the face of such miserable odds. With a hiss, she reminded herself that he needed her as well.

“I have money,” she snapped. “And you need me, too, my lord duke. You have no marriage prospects, a mother who expects you to wed for the sake of the dukedom, and no way out of your predicament but for me to pretend to be your fiancée. People in glass castles should think before casting stones.”

A bark of laughter burst from his lips. “Good thing we’re trapped in this glass castle together, then.”

“You and your castle can get buggered.” She gasped as the vulgar oath left her lips, a hand flying to her mouth. Blast those foul-mouthed boatswains…and blast her ungovernable temper where the duke was concerned.

“So crude, Lady Sara.” Rhystan tutted, though something flashed in his eyes before it disappeared. Heat? “Surely, you don’t expect anyone to believe you’re a demure English lady when such filthy sentiments fall from such pretty lips.”

“This is never going to work,” she muttered. “How can I be your fiancée when you make me want to tear my hair out by the roots? I can’t pretend to…care for you when all I want to do is stab you with a shard of glass from your stupid invented castle.”