Chapter 16 #2
August proved as relentless and ruthless as Jeremy purported him to be. “Though he was unable to provide me with the gentleman’s identity, the milliner did mention the hard-looking fellow had a scarred visage.”
The earth swayed under her feet, and it was all Linnie could do to keep from collapsing.
“August,” she implored, catching him by his arm the same way he’d grabbed hers. “You mustn’t say anything to Arran.”
“Mustn’t I?” He flashed a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Being McQuoid’s actual friend, I believe I have an obligation to inform him you’ve been stealing away with Tremaine.”
Fury tunneled out her fear of discovery.
“You will do no such thing!” Linnie took an angry step closer until they stood toe to toe. “You should also believe I will never consider the suit and certainly not marriage to a man who has spied on me.”
Lord Culross’s gaze went to Linnie’s mouth.
The fire remained hot in his eyes and threatened to burn her.
Why, he’s not enraged. He is filled with desire.
Linnie drew back from him, but the enigmatic earl wasn’t having it.
He caught her hand.
“You are right,” he said, his breathing faster and harsher. “I will not inform Captain McQuoid because my allegiance to you proves greater, Linnie.”
That didn’t make any sense. They’d only but recently met.
A sad grin teased his hard lips. “Leave it to me to fall for the one woman on Earth who doesn’t believe in love at first sight.”
The pressure in her chest grew. Regardless of her love for Jeremy, no part of her wished to hurt this man. And maybe that was the greatest betrayal to Jeremy, for he’d surely see it that way. Her heart wasn’t run by logic or facts, but what she felt deep inside.
“August,” she said gently.
He cleared his throat, not allowing her to speak the regrets she’d intended to make.
“Be assured, Linnie, I did not make the inquiries I did at the market to spy on you, but rather to determine whether you were in need of my protection.” He drew her closer.
Linnie’s pulse raced with a fear she could not place.
“Linnie,” he whispered. “you find yourself in great peril. The man you have been stealing away with, the man whom you insist you love, no more has honorable intentions for you than he does me and your cousin. I can promise you that.”
A sound of protest rose in her throat.
“If you let him, he will only hurt you, Linnie.” Lord Culross’s nostrils flared slightly, and he sucked in a shuddery breath through them. “And if . . . or when . . . he does, you can count on me being there, ready to love you completely.”
“Lord Culrooooss!”
They looked to the owner of that summons echoing throughout Hyde Park.
Fleur and Meghan had doubled back and stood shoulder to shoulder.
The younger of Linnie’s sisters waved both arms wildly back and forth over her head. “Require your assistance, Culross. Get back here.”
Ever the charmer, Lord Culross doffed his fur-lined beaver top hat and waved in return. “Your wish is my command,” he boomed.
Returning his focus to Linnie, he gave his head a wry shake. “Another irony.”
“And what is that, my lord?”
“The only Smith lady who does not desire my company is in fact the one I long for.”
Linnie lifted her palms toward him.
“Please, none of that,” Lord Culross said gruffly. “I do not want your pity.”
He executed a deep bow and then trotted on ahead to join her sisters; instantly, the trio were all smiles, with Culross’s giving no indication of his earlier emotion.
“Why so glum?”
Linnie started.
Cousin Arran had sneaked up on her with the same stealth of the boy she’d played hide-and-seek with when they were both children.
Linnie sighed. “I’m not glum,” she said, stuffing her hands deeper inside her fur muff to keep warm.
“Well, you certainly aren’t smiling,” he pointed out. “Do not take the attention he’s paid Fleur and Meghan as anything more than a kindness he feels for our family.”
“Ah.” She inclined her head. “He sees himself as one with the McQuoid-Smiths?”
Arran nodded. “He—”
“He is not unlike Captain Tremaine in that regard.”
At her side, Arran stiffened. “He’s nothing like Tremaine,” he gritted out.
Linnie searched her gaze over her cousin’s strained features. “What happened between you, Arran?”
His eyelid twitched. “It doesn’t matter.”
She’d had enough of his not revealing the cause of that great divide between Jeremy and their family.
Linnie dug her fingers into Arran’s arm and forced him to stop next to her. “It matters to me,” she implored. “He was your best friend, and it may be easy for you to have just cut him from the fabric of the family—”
“Do you truly believe this has been easy for me?” he exploded, his harsh voice, inordinately loud in the winter quiet, earning looks from their nearby family.
They ignored them.
“I don’t know, Arran,” she said quietly. “You carry a remarkable blend of apathy and antipathy for the gentleman who was like a brother to you and who was as much a part of family gatherings, traditions, and celebrations as any blood-born McQuoid-Smith.”
The wind whipped about them.
“You don’t know anything about it, Linnie.”
She leapt at that. “That is precisely my point, Arran. Why don’t you tell me the reason for your falling-out and let me decide for myself?”
He leveled Linnie with a sharp look. “Whether or not you support me or Tremaine?”
She’d not feel guilty for the clear affront she’d done him. “What if the roles were reversed, Arran? What if you and Jeremy were like family, and then one day, the Smiths suddenly informed you that you were now mortal enemies. Would you simply accept that blindly and not demand answers?”
Arran scrubbed the heel of his hand along his jawline.
And she knew it was the moment she’d reached him.
He spoke quietly, directing his words to the top of her head. “There was a battle at sea. Even with our crews combined, we were outnumbered. Tremaine’s ship took a catastrophic hit, and bloody thrawn as any damned Scot, he refused to abandon. He went into the sea with his ship.”
How concise a telling. Linnie’s eyes slid shut. But having felt the burn of Jeremy’s hatred and resentment of the McQuoids, and seeing the scars he wore upon his face, Arran’s words painted a more vivid and excruciating picture of what he’d suffered.
There’d have been the roar of cannons and splintered wood and flames. Battle cries and screams of sorrow and suffering.
The acrid sting of bile burnt her throat. Linnie inhaled deep, cleansing breaths of frigid air through her nose to keep from casting up the contents of her stomach right here in Hyde Park.
“And you . . .” Linnie attempted to speak around the thick sensation choking her. “Left him?”
The blood leeched from her cousin’s face so only crimson patches from the cold filled his cheeks. “I didn’t want to. I tried . . . I had to leave . . . I . . .”
He had to leave? She went hot and cold all over. “Who . . . saved him?”
“I don’t know the details, Linnie.”
Never before had she heard Arran as close to tears as he was now. Good. He should suffer, and horribly, for what he had done.
To keep in her moan of anguish, Linnie clamped her teeth down hard on her bottom lip. “And why is his ship not yet constructed, Arran?”
His pallor took on a waxen hue.
“Yes, I hear things, as all women do. You and all men just think we are entirely oblivious to the secrets you keep.”
“I didn’t say I had anything to do with his lumber, Linnie.”
“I didn’t say you did,” she repeated, affectless.
Linnie saw the exact moment Arran realized he’d given himself away.
His lips moved in a silent curse.
A shiver of warning traveled through her. “I asked you a question.”
“Christ, Linnie. This is business. This is how business operates. There are limited resources, and whoever has the greater influence will get the contract. And in this case, Tremaine was not the one of greater influence.”
Oh, my God. “You left him.” Her voice shook with anger. “If that was not criminal enough, you prevented him from having a new ship built.”
“You don’t know anything about it, Linnie,” he said between clenched teeth.
She most certainly did. Jeremy would be dying inside slowly at being kept from the sea.
“The alternative is Culross’s ship remains moored in the dockyard, which you apparently aren’t at all concerned about.”
Linnie drew back. He’d try and twist this? Paint her as though she were the faithless one of the two?
“Get away from me,” she whispered. “I cannot look at you.”
His face crumpled. “I didn’t want to leave him, Linnie,” he said, a faint entreaty in his voice.
“Are you trying to convince me, Arran?” She inched her chin up. “Or yourself?”
He flinched.
Aching and angry on Jeremy’s behalf, Linnie needed to move, to put distance between the beloved cousin whom she’d never, ever be able to look upon the same after his confession.
What must it have been for a man of Jeremy’s pride and strength to not only suffer the cruelest betrayal at the hands of one who’d been like a brother but also lose his ship?
“Linnie, the family is motioning for us to join them. Please do not let things that were done in the past ruin this day.” Arran settled a hand on her shoulder.
She shrugged off his touch. “Yes, we mustn’t let our annual McQuoid-Smith outing in Hyde Park be spoiled. That would be the very greatest tragedy.”
This time, he revealed no outward indication he’d been hurt by her snideness, which was fine. It was enough knowing he was eaten up inside.
Sighing, Arran clasped his hands behind him and rocked forward on his heels. “I understand you’ll need a bit to compose yourself.”
Arran’s treachery had left him mad.
A bit? That’s how long he believed it would take for her to come to terms with his horrifying confession? As if she ever could.
Arran stood, looking as though he wished to say something more. Linnie stared mutinously ahead to where the McQuoid-Smith party vanished to small specks on the horizon.
That was, with the exception of Lord Culross, who lingered some yards away, doing his best to look like he wasn’t keenly aware of the volatile exchange between her and Arran.
Linnie won the battle of silence with her cousin.
At long last, he took himself off to join the day’s fun.
As soon as he’d gone, Linnie’s teeth began to chatter. They knocked together with such ferocity the grating filled the quiet. Pain built at her jaw and radiated up her cheek.
She folded her arms tight around her middle, but an unrelenting cold had invaded every corner of her body and soul, and she’d never be warm again.
As Jeremy’s best friend during that battle at sea, Arran had an obligation to use any means possible to rescue Jeremy, and that included rescuing him from himself. Instead, he had made Jeremy rely on the benevolence of the same mercenary stranger responsible for his misery.
Linnie closed her eyes.
If that wasn’t enough treachery for a man to endure, Arran had gone on to replace Jeremy as easily as he might a wrinkled cravat.
Jeremy’s loathing for everyone linked to Arran now made sense in every way.
Taking in a shuddery breath, Linnie opened her eyes.
Her gaze collided with a stoic Lord Culross, who stood conversing with Arran, but whatever the latter man was saying appeared to go unheeded as Culross stared intently at Linnie.
The exchange between Arran and Lord Culross came to an end, with Linnie’s cousin heading after the rest of the McQuoid-Smiths.
The earl remained, his gaze on Linnie.
Lord Culross was the one to look away first from their lengthy study of one another.
He turned to go, and his shoulder hitched like he physically fought to make himself quit this place.
When he finally trotted on ahead to join Arran, her shoulders slumped with relief. She no longer fought the torrent of emotions. Her body shook even harder.
It was only a matter of time before someone returned for Linnie. Undoubtedly, it’d be Lord Culross, sent by her matchmaking mother.
She didn’t want to see him. She didn’t want to see anyone.
There was only one man she yearned to see right now—needed to see.
Blinded by tears, Linnie glanced about in search of escape and then took flight. Her family had made this park their personal playground when the ton abandoned London for the winter, so Linnie knew this nature sanctuary like the back of her hand.
She sprinted through the park, welcoming the sting of frigid air slapping at her cheeks. The cold was so great it sucked the very breath from her body and kept her tears from falling.
At last, Linnie found herself—through no coincidence—in a private copse. The same enshrouded forest area where she and Jeremy had met earlier in the week. Shielded by the oaks and poplars and shrubs, Linnie staggered to a stop.
Winded, her legs and lungs equally burning, Linnie hunched over. Resting her hands upon her knees, she attempted to breathe and then froze, forgetting her efforts.
She remained absolutely motionless as the tall, broad figure stepped into the clearing.
It was as if she were some mythical Frost Fairy who’d gathered the snow to conjure the larger-than-life gentleman approaching.
“Jeremy,” she whispered.
Hands stuffed inside his tail pockets, he strolled over like he was the ultimate hero she’d conjured of her dreams—and to Linnie, he was.
He flashed a crooked, devastatingly sexy half grin. “Hullo, Linnie-lo—oomph.”
Jeremy caught Linnie as she hurled herself at him with a velocity that sent her bonnet tumbling backward.
She clung to him for all she was worth, and he held her as she needed to be held.
As she needed to be held by him.
In his arms, she was home.