Chapter 15
He’d come to find her.
He’d known he would.
The same way Tremaine could identify and recall the vast norms of the McQuoid-Smith family, he knew every room within this very townhouse. He, perhaps, knew the layout of this land even better than his own.
As a boy, during games of hide-and-seek, Tremaine had hidden within those rooms. He’d raced through the halls. Stolen extra desserts from the kitchens. Spent nearly more nights sleeping in bedchambers designated “Lord Jeremy Tremaine’s” on the main family floor than in his own bedroom.
But Linnie unfailingly had hidden within the conservatory when she was playing hide-and-seek or was sad or was attempting to read without interference from her bothersome siblings.
Just as expected, she was here.
The unexpected part being, this time, that Linnie hadn’t been alone.
Outside the McQuoids’ conservatory windowpane, he stared at the lady he’d come in search of.
Her eyes radiated a clear joy in seeing him, as if she’d been long awaiting him.
But her mouth . . . Upon her glistening, swollen lips, she wore the kiss gifted by another man.
Culross.
That name rolled around Tremaine’s mind like a cruelly blended poison that burnt every logical thought it came into contact with.
A ghastly heat pierced Tremaine’s boots and cut through the icy winter cold.
I don’t care. Why would I care? Hell, he’d shared past lovers with his brother and two friends—though now only one remained.
Answers to that question didn’t land because he did care. His frozen response defied logic and all reason.
Moreover, he’d seen Linnie turn her head away as she’d rejected the bastard and the fatherly kiss the pitiful chap pressed on her forehead.
But one question kept Tremaine rooted in the cold, on the onside looking in. How long had that embrace gone on before she’d rebuffed Culross?
He seethed.
Beaming, Linnie hastened over to the double doors leading out, fiddled with the lock, and then let him inside.
Before he knew what she intended, she threw her arms around him.
He caught her to him and automatically folded his arms about her, anchoring her close and absorbing the feel of her slender body pressed to his. How perfectly she fit against him, like she was made for him. Desire took hold as it always did when Linnie was near.
Then he recalled the way in which he’d found her—in the arms of another man. Not just any man. Culross. His damned enemy.
A peculiar, almost sinister lividity infused his veins.
“I adore her,” she gushed.
Her?
With her every unpredictable word and movement, Linnie had him listing more than a ship caught in a squall.
“Linette has a proper home in the stables. She is keeping my mare, Bonnie, good company.”
His neck heated. The bloody fucking irony of this reversal of roles.
In a moment of madness and sentimental weakness, he’d gathered up the chicken and rooster at Leadenhall Market and sent the former on to Linnie and kept the latter for himself.
And Linnie? She’d found her way into another man’s arms.
With a serene obliviousness, she released Tremaine and grabbed him by the hand.
“Come,” she said, lithesome as always. “Before you’re discovered.”
As he followed her inside, he kept a narrow-eyed gaze upon her.
“Yes.” He watched as she brought those lead panels shut behind them. “The same could also have been said for you and Lord Culross.”
Linnie turned. Her cheeks went pale, the healthy color left by the other man’s kiss now gone.
Tremaine gnashed his teeth. “But then perhaps being caught embracing you here was Culross’s intention all along.”
He’d wager a stint in hell with the Devil that’d been the bloody rake’s exact goal.
Linnie’s lips dipped, and the cold left in the wake of her fading smile could have ushered another Frost Fair into the capital.
“He would not do that, Jeremy,” she chided.
Me? She’ll defend the bastard to me?
He ground his teeth. “If it served his interests, Linnie, Culross absolutely would.”
“I don’t believe that.”
The corded muscles in his neck twanged. “What accounts for your sudden change of heart? Is it how well you know him? Or how much you enjoyed his embrace?”
Her eyes grew stricken. “Jeremy . . . I don’t love him.”
His jaw worked. “That is an oddly specific and out-of-place affirmation.”
Linnie’s face fell.
Somehow, he was the one who’d said something wrong?
“So what’s this with Culross?” he asked testily. “Never say he, after only a short time of knowing you, declared his love?”
His barbed jest landed to utter silence.
He’d been right.
A heavy feeling settled in his stomach.
“I see,” he said, nodding slowly.
Why the hell should he care either way? The only thing Linnie McQuoid Smith was to him was the delicious pawn who’d lead him to checkmate.
Tremaine arced a cynical brow. “Let me guess . . .” He tapped a finger against his chin. “Culross followed his passionate declaration with a heated embrace.”
Her cheeks went even whiter. That paling proved a worse confirmation than her pretty blush.
A grating laugh ripped from him. “No doubt in between kissing you, he had plenty of things to say about me.”
“No, Jeremy,” she said with a calm he hated himself for not managing. “He didn’t speak of you at all. Why, he doesn’t even know I . . .”
His ears pricked up.
“Call you a friend,” she finished.
“A friend?” Tremaine threw his head back and roared with derisive amusement. “Tell me, do you let all your friends pet that sweet, hot quim of yours?”
Linnie flinched.
A tightness settled in his chest.
That he’d caused her pain didn’t ease the tumultuous storm raging inside him—just the opposite. It churned to even more turbulent, violent heights. He vastly preferred being the hard, pitiless creature who’d just escaped a watery grave to this.
Tremaine scrubbed a hand over his face. “My . . . my . . .” He gritted out each syllable, attempting to force the whole thing out. “My—”
“Yes?”
But that impish smile of hers was back in place, and that cheery tip of her siren’s mouth grounded him.
He grunted. “Apologies.”
“For?” Linnie gave him an innocent, wide-eyed look—one that he didn’t believe for a goddamned minute.
Tremaine laughed; the rasping quality to the low rumble reminded him how bloody long it’d been since he’d felt lithesome about anything.
Then Linnie’s bright, bell-like laughter joined with Tremaine’s, and his own grew freer, unrestrained, and clearer. It’d been so long since anything but rage, hate, and vitriol drove his humor that he’d believed himself incapable of jocund levity.
Linnie’s mirth eased first.
Alas, life had proven an excellent tutor in teaching Tremaine all good things ended . . . or died.
He gave his head a wry shake. “You’re a saucy minx, aren’t you?”
“And you still haven’t said what your apology is for.”
God, she was tenacious. She’d always been, but now, witnessing her metamorphosis into a beautiful, bold, fiery woman enflamed him.
He rewarded her feistiness with a deferential dip of his head. “My apologies for having spoken so crudely earlier. It was uncouth and ungentlemanly.”
She skimmed her gaze over his face. “I thought you said you weren’t a gentleman.”
“I’m not, but I could be and will be—as much as I’m able—for you.”
His was the perfect rake’s response to shatter her defenses.
Her breath caught on an audible intake.
The only problem being Tremaine himself didn’t know where the solemn avowal came from. Just that it hadn’t been forged of deceit.
Bloody hell. Was he mad?
“Why?” she asked softly.
“Why?” he echoed dumbly. Hers was the perfect question, and an answer he did not have, even for himself. All of this with Linnie was ultimately a ruse. Every interaction was a product of his determination to thwart McQuoid and kill a potential alliance between her and Culross.
Linnie fisted the fabric of her wrinkled skirts. Those creases within the satin which had been made by another man.
White pricks of rage peppered his vision.
His beautiful Linnie remained oblivious. “Not long ago, you spoke about hating anything and everyone affiliated with the McQuoids, and then you sent me Linette and your letter suggested them being united . . . by us and . . .”
All her words were flying out so fast, they rolled together, and he struggled to untangle them all, but untangle them he did.
Linnie lifted her hands. “Why?”
He stiffened.
He went cold.
Culross.
“How quickly you’ve come to doubt me.” Tremaine gave the pert tip of her nose a mocking little tap. “Hmm? So what is the reason for your newfound mistrust? If it wasn’t Culross speaking ill about me, then how do you explain—”
Linnie interrupted Tremaine and his fast-spiraling fury. “They were thoughts I had when Lord Culross kissed me.”
His body tensed.
Once again, Linnie revealed her mythical power; with but ten words, she slayed the all-too-brief moment of delusory madness of wanting her for reasons unrelated to revenge.
They were thoughts I had when Lord Culross kissed me . . .
He sneered. “I see.”
And see he did. Hearing Linnie speak of Culross’s embrace made it somehow more real than Tremaine’s having watched its conclusion.
“Tell me more about this embrace,” he urged, all false playfulness.
“Jeremy,” she said imploringly.
Oh, if she believed for an instant he’d let her off this easy, she was even madder than he’d become.
Tremaine bared his teeth in a dangerous smile. “Did his fervent profession come after you two made love with your mouths?” A roaring filled his ears. The visual was too much for even him.
Color filled her cheeks. Guilty color?
She certainly had no reason to suffer that sentiment.
He let her anyway.
Tremaine chuckled wryly. “How convenient.”
Linnie furrowed her brow. “Convenient?”
“I’m sure Culross’s sudden interest in you has absolutely nothing to do with any attempts to align himself with your bastard of a cousin.”