Chapter 17 #2
Strange. Before now, his only reaction to these particular remembrances had been rage, hate, and pain.
You do not deserve Linnie’s loyalty. Not with all that’d sent him in pursuit of her. Not with how he’d conducted himself. Not with his intentions.
Feeling suddenly sick to his stomach, Tremaine curled his hands inward.
This time, when he continued, he couldn’t even bring himself to look at her.
“Triton’s Mistress fared well at the start.
As I’d anticipated, upon maneuvering her closer so we might board, she took cannon fire to the hull and sustained devastating injuries.
The combat was vicious. Alternately, my crew and I were fighting for our lives, and to keep Triton’s Mistress afloat. ”
Thoughts of the battle worked their way into his brain, and he squeezed his eyes shut in a bid to escape.
Tremaine felt the gentle press of her slender body against him and opened his eyes.
He glanced down and discovered, at some point, Linnie had wrapped her arms around his waist. She held him tight, and the feel of her, that support she conferred, chased away the nightmare.
His arms tightened reflexively around her.
Emotion closed his throat, leaving his voice ragged. “When my ship began her descent into the sea, I wanted to die, Linnie. I insisted he let me. Arran got into the waters with me that day and fought to bring me back.”
Her breath caught on a swift intake; it was the only confirmation he had she’d heard his admission.
“Culross entered the waters to drag Arran back to the safety of his vessel and left me, as I wished.”
“Oh, Jeremy.” Her voice caught on his name.
Tremaine hadn’t spoken about that night to anyone. Not his brother. Not Kilmartin. Hell, Kilmartin had enough demons of his own from that fated battle. It was enough those nightmares lived in the other man’s head that he needn’t be further bothered by Tremaine’s demons.
A slow shaking took hold of Linnie’s body. Her lithe frame trembled like the narrow poplars around them, wavering under the weight of the winter snow. Her teeth began to chatter.
Cursing himself to perdition, he held her more tightly, attempting to absorb Linnie’s horror. “Forgive me,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve said too much. I shouldn’t have—”
Linnie wrestled her way out of his arms and cast a stony glare up at him. “Don’t you dare, Jeremy.”
He raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “I don’t—”
“You are the one person, the sole person in my entire life, who doesn’t seek to gild the lily. You speak to me plainly, bluntly—”
“Too much so,” he said thickly, shamed by all the ugly ways in which he’d spoken to her.
Her face crumpled. “Don’t you see, Jeremy? Even my own family treats me as though I’m some child who cannot know about the hardships of life. I love you for not couching your words around me.”
“Ah, Christ, Linnie.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “There’s a difference between being direct and being cruel, and there have been too many times in a very short while where I’ve been an utter bastard.”
Their last exchange came back to haunt him. Taunt him.
Weren’t you the one who said you’d be all too happy to service me or fetch some other fellow to take care of the job . . .
“That thing I said . . .” He jammed the heels of his palms against his temple, wishing he could purge the memory of the crude words he’d hurled.
“Jeremy?” she ventured.
“I didn’t mean it!” Tremaine managed to squeeze that out through his painfully constricted throat.
Her brow furrowed in consternation.
“Last night . . . that first night, at Rutland’s.
” He stuttered and stammered like a schoolboy.
“About . . . about . . . you and another man.” Even when he’d finally placed her identity at the masquerade and offered to fetch some other gentleman, he hadn’t truly meant it.
He could now acknowledge that to himself .
. . and her. “I should be flayed alive for how I treated you.”
As natural as the flow of a breeze, Linnie slipped back into his arms and Tremaine folded them about her.
They remained that way. Linnie with her cheek upon his chest, against the place where his heart beat, and his cheek pressed against the top of her scratchy bonnet that harkened back to a time when everything had been simpler between them.
Tremaine closed his eyes. All along, he’d believed the only touch he needed or ever wanted to be the carnal sort, to now discover a trusting, tender, all-encompassing embrace born of emotion to be one he craved with an intensity he feared.
They remained that way, holding one another, neither of them speaking, each absorbing the other.
“A British naval ship came upon me and my crew,” he said quietly, somehow matter-of-fact and not filled with his usual rage.
“They plucked us from the waters. By that point, I was too tired to fight. When I returned to England, I discovered McQuoid and Culross falsified their ship logs and claimed they alone took down the enemy target.”
“I lost not only my ship but also a share of the prize to compensate my loss and recognize my contribution to bringing down a French ship.” Tremaine sighed.
“And the thing of it is, Linnie? I’m bloody rich.
I don’t need the funds, but that he’d pretend my contributions weren’t vital.
” He shook his head. “That is the betrayal I cannot ever forgive.”
Linnie eased back just enough to run her palms over the lapels of his cloak. “I shall forever hate Lord Culross,” she said quietly. “And where Arran is concerned, I can never forgive him for his transgressions against you, Jeremy.”
For all the transgressions Linnie now spoke of her cousin committing, none could be darker, more heinous, or more hurtful than the ones Tremaine himself carried out against her.
Like a weight bearing down on his chest, pain gripped about his heart.
There came the distinctive crunch of snow.
Fuck.
Tremaine stiffened.
A sharp hiss shattered the quiet of the woodland Eden. “Christ.”
At the sound of her cousin’s voice, Linnie jerked. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.
Tremaine, caught off-guard, stared dumbly from over the top of Linnie’s head at their audience of two: Captain McQuoid and Lord Culross.
The lethal pair took in the damning sight: Linnie clasped close in Tremaine’s arms, where she belonged.
When they returned their livid gazes to Tremaine, the promise of murder glittered in their eyes. The sight of their hate managed to steady him and clear his mind from the pandemonium inside his head and heart.
He met their rage with an icy grin.
Perhaps their intrusion hadn’t been so very unwelcome, after all.