Chapter 13 #2
Linnie took another, longer sip of her drink.
“And,” Campbell chimed in, “I do believe Culross here indicated our Linnie suggested it?” His brow furrowed in feigned confusion. “Did I hear that right, everyone?”
Oh, it’d be a wonder if he heard anything when she got to boxing his ears.
Arran drummed his fingertips together like a gleeful child. “Yes, Culross,” he drawled. “Do clarify for those of us at this end of the table. Was it in fact Linnie who put forward the idea of that particular parlor game?”
Lord Culross had already caught the clear overtones. His smile slipped, and he looked around the improbably quiet dining table.
He looked to Linnie for help.
She lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. She’d be the last to get either of them out of this exchange.
“What is snapdragon?” Oleander asked. “And why haven’t I played it before?”
“Who amongst us can explain for the lad?” Campbell did his own—and not at all innocent—scan of the table until his gaze landed straight on Linnie. “Linnie! Perhaps, you’d care to describe—”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Oh, can we please be done with this?” Meghan exclaimed. She slapped a hand in Linnie’s direction. “Linnie caught the table on fire during a game of snapdragon. The fire destroyed the carpet and entire dining room, and it has never been played since.”
Mama sniffed. “’Twas a lovely dining room, too.” She wiped at her eyes.
“Thank you for that, sister,” Linnie said dryly. “Very helpful.”
“You’re welcome.” Meghan held her arms out and made a circular motion. “Now, please, can we discuss something else?”
And wonder of wonders, they did.
Lord Culross picked up his drink. “It appears that amongst the valuable warnings you’ve provided regarding the McQuoid-Smiths, you failed to leave out the slightly important one about risking death by fire.” He flashed a devastating smile.
Linnie’s heart sped up. She hated he should be so cool when her tongue was tied up in knots.
Striving for collected, Linnie gave her eyebrows a little waggle.
“It is best you know I am cut of the same cloth as this raucous lot. Once a McQuoid-Smith, always a McQuoid-Smith, I fear. Now, you have been informed of the risks that come with being a part of this family, my lord. Proceed at your own peril.”
Instead of the smile she’d anticipated, his expression turned serious; his glorious golden lashes dipped a fraction, hooding his eyes.
“On the contrary,” he murmured. “I find you”—he paused—“and your family refreshing, Miss Smith.”
Regret made her careless. “My family,” she repeated dumbly.
Said family had now begun coming to their feet in a signal the evening meal was over.
Linnie and Lord Culross remained a moment longer.
“As for you . . .” He trailed his gaze slowly over Linnie’s face, like he sought to memorize each line. “I would happily die by fire to be with you.”
Her heart stirred. The earl spoke with the manner of devotion she’d longed for in the man whom she would one day marry.
“Linnie,” he said with a quiet resolve. “You are to call me August.”
How effortlessly Lord Culross commanded her name; he did so the way only one other man did.
“August,” she murmured.
“Very good, Linnie.” Catching her fingers, he drew them slowly to his mouth. August turned Linnie’s hand over, palm up.
His captivating eyes never moved from hers as he placed a slow, lingering kiss upon the place where her wrist met her hand.
His touch compelled; the feel of his lips upon her skin did so even more.
When he’d finished worshipping that delicate seam, August straightened. But he made no move to release her.
She swallowed convulsively. August, the Earl of Culross, possessed an even greater charm than the gossip columns purported.
She knew propriety dictated she take her hand from his, and her love for Jeremy merited she do so, too.
For that latter reason, Linnie shouldn’t like the way this gentleman made her feel.
Heart racing, Linnie snatched her fingers back.
Do you not wonder why you’re afraid? a voice within her head jeered.
Shaken, Linnie jumped up.
August reached out to steady her.
She backed away like a scalded cat and again stumbled. “My lord.”
Then, before he could again touch her, Linnie, avoiding his gaze, hurried from the room.
Or more accurately, she bolted for the exit and, to evade the lines of McQuoids and Smiths, darted down the nearest intersecting hall.
Once out of sight, Linnie ran at an uneven gait and continued doing so in a reverse direction of the billiards room, where the men always gathered, and the parlor, where the ladies consistently met.
She was suffocating.
She wanted to escape, to flee.
Linnie didn’t stop until she’d reached Aunt Catherine’s prized conservatory. Gasping and out of breath, she stumbled into the crystal enclosure and collapsed with her palms upon the green-painted iron gardening table.
“Linnie, are you all right?”
Gasping, she spun.
Meghan stared with concern in her pretty brown eyes.
“Fine.” Linnie’s voice came out dulled.
So similar were the two women, they were oft referred to as the third set of McQuoid-Smith twins. From the way her sister folded her arms, and the forever-long look she put on Linnie, Linnie suspected Meghan also knew her thoughts as well as any twin would.
“Not fine?” Linnie haltingly confessed.
Meghan snorted. “I would say.”
She joined Linnie at the gardening table.
“I am . . . I wanted to apologize . . .” Meghan said.
Linnie glanced over. “For?”
“I called dinner short, thinking you wished for it to end.” Meghan looked Linnie in the eyes.
“I did.”
Meghan gave her the look only an annoyed sister could. “Should we discuss why?”
“I’d rather hoped we might not?” Linnie infused a hint of humor to tip her statement into a question.
“Why?” Meghan chided. “I am your sister. Surely you know you can confide in me.” She moved a wounded gaze over Linnie’s face. “I know I’m not Cassia, but—”
“It is not that,” Linnie exclaimed. “At all.” She pressed a hand against her head. How could her sister believe herself second to their cousin?
Because you let it be so . . .
Linnie let her in, as she should have long before this. “It is just not something I know how to speak with anyone about.”
“You mean Captain Tremaine,” Meghan murmured.
Linnie gasped.
Her sister’s lips twitched. “Come now, Linnie. I saw you two together, and you think we’ll simply not discuss the fact you and the captain, who were sneaking about, appeared more than friendly. And you appeared so very desperately in love with him.”
Because I am.
Linnie swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want an apology,” Meghan said gently. “I want you to tell me what it is so I can help you. You are not alone in this.”
Until now, Linnie had been.
Which was perhaps why the story came pouring out of her, or maybe it was the drink—it was definitely the drink, some.
But she went all the way back, starting with the lifetime she’d spent loving Jeremy, his mistaking her identity at Lord Forsyth’s, and then how she and Jeremy had hidden in the poultry shop, excluding the portion when Linnie had experienced the most surreal moment of her entire life.
But now there was August, and he was proving dangerous to Linnie in different ways than Jeremy. He made her wonder and question and . . .
For a long while after she’d shared all, Meghan didn’t say anything.
Until she did. “What of Lord Culross?”
Linnie’s stomach muscles spasmed. It was as though Meghan lived within her head. “Lord Culross?”
“Do you care for him?” Meghan asked insistently.
Now her sister knew Linnie loved Jeremy. What would she say if Linnie confessed the earl left her feeling things she oughtn’t for any man—let alone for two—who wasn’t her husband?
“Linnie?”
“I . . . He is . . .” Mesmerizing. “Kind and . . .” Exquisitely made. “He is charming.”
“Yes, yes. But do you care for him, too?”
No! She couldn’t.
“Is that possible?” Linnie asked beseechingly.
Meghan looked at her and then laughed. “Linnie. You are the one who knows that answer.”
“I love Jeremy with all I am.”
Meghan peered intently at her. “And Lord Culross?”
“We’ve only just met, but he . . . makes me smile and—”
“Yes.”
And he left her warm inside. Unable to confess the physical yearning he stirred, Linnie searched for what was appropriate for her also-unmarried sister. “Lord Culross is easy. He is uncomplicated and carefree—”
“In the way Captain Tremaine used to be,” her sister murmured.
Linnie flinched. “Yes.” Well, that was not what she’d been thinking, and she suddenly felt guilty at the realization.
When Meghan stated it that way, she had no choice but to face how wrong it was to be drawn to the earl for traits Jeremy once possessed—and ones he no longer did because of whatever had happened upon the sea between him and Arran.
“The thing of it is, Meghan, when Jeremy is with me, when we are together, he reveals that same lightsomeness I—we all—remember.” I’m the one who makes him feel that way. And I want to do that every day for him.
Linnie wanted to devote her life to helping Jeremy find that joy again.
But part of her . . . could also dream of having a love who came to her not of anger and misery.
“Ahh.” Meghan inclined her head in understanding. “Linnie, enjoying the earl’s company is not a betrayal of your love for Jeremy.”
“It’s not?” she asked haltingly.
“No! Culross merely reminds you of Jeremy from before, silly.”
But what about her body’s response to even the gentleman’s fleeting touch?
Hating herself all over again, all the way to her soul, Linnie glanced down. “Thank you, Meghan.”
Her younger sister wrapped an arm about Linnie and gave a sideways hug. “That is what sisters are for, is it not?”
Making one feel guilty?
Linnie nodded.
Letting her arm fall, Meghan took her fingers. “Now come, the dull part is ending in the parlor. We’ve both managed to avoid that. Let us go play the Alphabet Game.”
As only a sister could, Meghan had gathered Linnie’s feelings for Jeremy with the same ease with which she knew Linnie’s favorite parlor games.
She managed a loose smile. “I will shortly.” Never. She was not going near August.
Meghan’s face fell. “You’re certain.”
Never, ever. Linnie marked an X across her heart.
Her sister gave her a weird look. “Perhaps I should stay with you.”
“No, truly.” Linnie gathered her sister’s hands in hers. “I am grateful. I would just like a moment.”
Meghan hesitated. “You’re certain?”
“Sooooo”—Linnie stretched her arms out wide—“certain.”
Her sister giggled. “Very well.” She placed a kiss upon Linnie’s cheek and left.
Linnie seated herself and stared out the window as the snowflakes began to fall, until the chill of the winter storm beginning to brew penetrated the welcome warmth of the claret’s effect and the cloud over her head lifted.
Forever later, there came a light knock on the glass door.
Linnie dusted a hand tiredly over her face. “I promise I’m fine, Meghan,” she assured her sister. “I just need a short time al—” Linnie turned. “Oh.” Her breath hitched loudly and her heart kicked up its rhythm. “You’re not Meghan,” she blurted.
August.