She smiled. "I expected to hear you call it an outrage," she said quietly.
"Well, outrage, if it pleases you. What does it mean?"
She crossed the room and stood directly in front of him, still smiling. He did not flinch, but the light in her eyes was most disquieting.
"It means, my dear Cuthbert, that you are in my power at last. You'll not leave this house alive, unless you go forth as my husband."
He stared at her in utter amazement. "Your husband? My God, woman, have you no pride?"
"Bushels of it," she said.
"But I have refused to marry you at least a half-dozen times. That ought to be ample proof that I don't love you. To be perfectly brutal about it, I despise you."
"Thanks for the confidence, but it will do you no good. I am not the sort of woman to be thwarted, once my mind and heart are fixed on a thing. Whether you like it or not, you shall be my husband before you're a day older."
"Never!" he exclaimed, his eyes flashing.
Before he could make a move to defend himself, she clasped him in her strong, young arms and was raining passionate kisses upon his lips, his brow, his cheek.