Chapter 18
After being discovered with Linnie in Hyde Park, it hadn’t been a matter of if the lady’s cousin, Captain McQuoid, would pay a call on Tremaine, but when.
In a clear attempt to make Linnie’s ruin public, the fellow and his new best friend had rushed Linnie off, as if either of them could have thwarted Tremaine’s plans for Linnie.
As such, Tremaine had waited almost gleefully for his former friend’s arrival . . . only to have the tables turned on him.
“Captain McQuoid and the Earl of Culross.”
Povey, a former sailor who’d lost full use of his leg in their last battle at sea, announced the men and made no attempt to hide his vitriol for the pair.
Both captains—still apparently playing the roles of honorable gentlemen—offered short bows.
Seated behind his desk, Tremaine steepled his fingers together and seethed inside. He didn’t even bother standing. He’d been expecting McQuoid’s arrival. What he’d not anticipated was Lord Culross.
Why should his antipathy burn brighter for this man than the one who’d been like a brother?
It was all he could do to keep from storming across the room and burying his fists into the handsome earl’s face over and over until the bastard choked to death on the blood Tremaine spilled.
The fact Linnie had sworn her hatred for the earl mattered not in this moment.
They were thoughts I had when Lord Culross kissed me.
I wanted to see whether you were right and I could desire him as I do you . . .
And? Have you come to find you yearn for Culross? That he’s just as good for you?
That would certainly be easier . . .
Povey moved closer to Tremaine’s guests and gave his employer a look, one that said if Tremaine wanted the pair bruised up and then shown out, he’d do it.
Hell, there wasn’t a doubt the man would do even worse—if Tremaine wished it.
But to order one or either of them gone would be a sign of weakness. It would be an indication of Tremaine’s lack of control. The last thing he would do was allow Captains McQuoid and Culross, who were so composed and stone-faced, the satisfaction of seeing Tremaine lose his temper.
He inclined his head slightly in Povey’s direction.
The sailor promptly let himself out and closed the door quietly but decisively behind him.
Tremaine would wager what was left of his empty soul—if there was anything left to wager, that is—Povey also waited at the threshold, ready to do battle if Tremaine so wished it.
Tremaine gave McQuoid a cold look. “If it isn’t Captain McQuoid. I’d expected your company and perhaps that of a different McQuoid—or one or both of the Smith brothers.”
His baiting had the intended effect. A muscle jumped at the corner of McQuoid’s eye. Color rushed the other man’s cheeks.
Suddenly enjoying himself immensely, Tremaine folded his arms behind his head. “Given the sensitivity of our discussion, I’d not anticipated you’d arrive with . . . someone outside the folds of your loving, loyal family.”
All the previous—and angry—color vanished from McQuoid’s face. “Miss Smith will not be marrying you.”
Tremaine had to fight the restless energy coursing through him that demanded he climb to his feet and beat his fists on the desk and the other man’s face.
McQuoid took an even more furious step toward Tremaine’s desk. His friend followed suit. “Did you hear me? I said my cousin will not be marrying you.”
“Oh, I heard you just fine. For all the injuries I sustained at sea, my ears remained wholly intact.”
This time, the color that hit McQuoid’s cheeks turned his ears red, too. “And?” he demanded. “What say you?”
“I care less than a damn about your statement regarding what I will or will not do with Miss Smith, and I care everything about what Miss Smith has to say about my marrying her.”
Lord Culross let loose a short, ferocious shout and made a lunge for Tremaine. “By God, I’ll see you dead before you’re married to her.”
“Culross!” McQuoid easily and quickly handled the other gentleman. Catching Culross by the shoulder, McQuoid dragged him away and spoke in hushed tones intended solely for the other man’s benefit.
While the pair conversed, Tremaine took the whole thing in, all of it.
Rage lent Culross’s limbs a tremble. Fury boiled in his eyes, and anger tightened the man’s unscarred and infuriatingly, perfectly handsome features.
Tremaine, having experienced a like reaction a night earlier in the McQuoids’ conservatory, recognized Culross’s sentiments precisely for what they were—red, unreasoning jealousy.
Tremaine’s ribs squeezed tight.
For while staring on as a silent observer as McQuoid and Culross furiously and frantically spoke, one thing became all too unsettlingly clear: The Earl of Culross did, in fact, care, and care deeply, for Linnie.
Just because you don’t believe in love doesn’t mean it’s not real, Jeremy . . . Do you truly find it hard to believe Culross could love me?
Without a doubt, Tremaine had previously believed the other gentleman’s attentions and efforts to woo and seduce Linnie far too coincidental to be anything other than a plan to link his name to the McQuoids’.
Now, while the other man raged, that opinion didn’t hold the same weight it once had.
Tremaine found himself with the fact that he not only contended with a man who wanted Linnie for her connections but also could openly care for Linnie in a way she both wanted and deserved.
That somehow added a detestable layer of intimacy to what Culross had done and shared with Linnie; it left Tremaine unsettled, at sea as he’d never been.
Whatever McQuoid said finally managed to penetrate the earl’s deep-rooted jealousy and ire.
Culross nodded stiffly.
Alas, the damage had already been done. Captain Culross had given himself away, and that discovery could only be to Tremaine’s benefit now.
The earl smoothed his hands down the front of his jacket. He inclined his head. “I am well aware of the enmity between you and McQuoid.”
An enmity that now extended to this bastard, too.
“Your loathing for one another should not, however, result in an innocent young lady being brought into the fight between you.”
“I take it you’re here to play peacemaker between McQuoid and me?” Tremaine mocked.
“I’m here to state my intentions for Miss Smith.”
“Your intentions,” he repeated carefully.
“To marry her,” Culross said with a calm counter to the ringing in Tremaine’s ears.
While the other man spoke, Tremaine kept his focus fixed on his face.
It was the wrong place to look.
In his mind’s eye, he saw Culross’s mouth covering Linnie’s, taking hers, tasting her, drinking from the nectar of her lips.
“You’ve had vengeance on McQuoid,” Culross was saying. “You seduced his cousin.”
Where he stood at the earl’s side, McQuoid jerked like he’d been struck.
Aye, Tremaine had, but what’d transpired in Hyde Park yesterday had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with raw emotion Tremaine was still grappling with.
“The last thing a bachelor like you wants, Tremaine,” Culross went on, “is an innocent bride interfering in your career or pursuits.”
By the ease with which the other man continued over his friend’s discomfort, Tremaine gave reluctant credit where credit was due. But he’d not give a bit more than that.
Tremaine pressed his fingertips together and stared over the tops of them. When he trusted himself to speak without going stark raving mad, he stood.
“It does bear mentioning . . . that at this point,” Tremaine murmured, “I do not really have a career, given my ship was destroyed and the lumber is in short supply to complete construction on another, and the shipbuilders are subsequently pausing my work to see to another client’s business.
” He arched an eyebrow. “I have nothing but my own pursuits, as you so quaintly call them, to see to.”
Knowing it’d enrage the pair and suddenly enjoying himself immensely, Tremaine chuckled. “Ironic, is it not? Thanks to McQuoid keeping me from the sea, I was provided ample time to pursue the gentleman’s eminently lovely cousin, Miss Smith.”
McQuoid roared.
This time, he charged for Tremaine. Culross snatched the back of McQuoid’s jacket and jerked the other man back.
“I don’t believe for a bloody minute there’s anything coincidental about your sudden interest in Linnie,” McQuoid thundered, wrestling against the other man’s strong hold. “Not a goddamned minute.”
“It bears mentioning I did not initially pursue Miss Smith. The lady . . . found me.” Accidentally, but Tremaine spared the two those details and left them to the conclusion they’d reached.
His announcement had the desired effect.
Culross whitened. His grip slackened enough that McQuoid managed to wrest an arm free.
He jabbed a finger furiously in Tremaine’s direction. “I’ll kill you!”
Tremaine smiled. “Although attempting to kill me is something you’re eminently good at, McQuoid, the same cannot be said for your actually seeing the job finished.”
Culross whispered something to the half-mad McQuoid, then stepped in front of him, his mouth set at a mutinous angle.
Filled with a savage glee, Tremaine turned his sights on the other man—his competitor in shipping, his enemy, his rival. “Given your worry about my pastimes, Culross, I take it to mean you intend to save me the trouble of having an innocent bride.”
Culross inclined his head. “I do.”
God, as a tactician, the other man was as stupid as Quintus Servilius Caepio, the world’s most failed military leader.
McQuoid’s somber interjection cut the quiet. “Do you truly believe Linnie will want you when she discovers you’ve been using her to get back at me?”
“Ah, but I never said I was.”
Both men started.
He took advantage of their stunned silence. “You both came here under the assumption I seduced Linnie to hurt McQuoid.”
McQuoid found his voice first. “And you’re saying that’s not exactly what you’ve done?”
That wasn’t exactly what he was saying, but he wasn’t not saying it, either.