Chapter 20
Linnie was late for their nuptials.
Oh, everyone else had arrived.
Every. Single. Last. McQuoid-Smith. From Linnie’s mother and aunt and uncle to her youngest cousins and oldest cousins to brothers, sisters, and in-laws—the Marquess of Winfield and the Duke of Aragon, both of whom appeared ready to kill Tremaine if the command was given.
She’ll be here . . .
Tremaine swept his gaze over the McQuoid conservatory—the same conservatory where he’d fallen to his knees, put his mouth on Linnie, and showed her the bit of heaven he could give her.
Nay, there was, in fact, one McQuoid missing.
He frowned.
Tremaine didn’t believe for a bloody minute that Captain Arran McQuoid’s absence was a coincidence.
The rub of having his former best friend as an enemy was that the treacherous bastard knew Tremaine too well—entirely too well. Every charge McQuoid threw his way yesterday had been remarkably on the mark.
In an attempt to shake some of the tension from him, Tremaine rolled his shoulders.
“Well, well, well,” Hart, his brother and best man, said from the side of his mouth. “You sneaky bastard. If you didn’t pull it off, after all.”
“At that, with the happy ceremony hosted in Captain McQuoid’s family residence.” Lord Kilmartin chuckled. “Revenge doesn’t get sweeter than that.”
His ship’s pilot, Beaton—who also served in the role of chaplain aboard Tremaine’s sailing vessel and now officiated Tremaine’s marriage to Linnie—burst out laughing, which the younger man immediately covered in the form of a cough.
Tremaine’s gut clenched, and he glared at his trio of supporters. “Have a fucking care.”
He glanced about. The McQuoid-Smiths watched them with varying degrees of suspicion, curiosity, and—from the younger, still innocent McQuoid-Smiths—amusement.
Eventually, everyone’s attention drifted.
Bloody hell, the last thing he needed was for them to be overheard. At that, with Linnie as the center of their deuced unfunny jest.
His gut clenched.
Or is it more than that? the devil on his shoulder jeered. And the real reason he had a pit in his stomach came from the idea of Linnie discovering his treachery?
What would she think if she found out—when she found out? Because eventually she would.
What if, even now, the lady’s cousin sought to convince Linnie of Tremaine’s duplicity? McQuoid wouldn’t act alone. Yesterday he’d brought along Culross.
“I don’t believe the lady truly knows what she wishes . . . I believe between your past relationship with Miss Smith and nefarious plans for her now, you’ve got her head so clouded she can’t see that which is in front of her.”
“That being?”
“That she has a man who genuinely admires her, loves her, and wants to spend the rest of his days with her.”
A loud pounding filled his ears. Blood rushed to his extremities, and Tremaine’s muscles spasmed with a savage need to hunt Culross down and tear him apart . . .
I want only you, Jeremy . . . I want to marry you. There’s only you. There will only ever be you.
Tremaine took a steadying breath in through his nose.
She’d chosen him.
Restless, he did another sweep of the room. For the fact remained, the lady was some twelve minutes late.
His nape prickled, and then he stopped.
More specifically, the earth stopped on its axis, and by the force with which his breath expelled from his lungs, he might as well have gotten his feet knocked out from under him.
Linnie.
He drank her in.
She stood draped in a silvery-blue, watered gros de Naples gown with filigree petals along a filmy organza bodice that carried over to the full-court satin sleeves.
Crystal and blue topaz–studded combs were artfully placed like a crown about her curls.
She had the look of a mermaid who’d taken her first steps from the water and transformed into a woodland queen amidst a field of flowers.
A weird pressure built in his chest.
From across the length of the conservatory, Linnie’s lips trembled in a smile.
“You are beautiful,” he silently mouthed.
His brother whistled softly and shattered the moment between Tremaine and Linnie.
“Not as plain as she used to be,” Hart drawled.
Tremaine tore his eyes from Linnie only long enough to glower at his dolt of a brother. “Shut your goddamned mouth,” he gritted out.
Then the family rose, and Linnie began her march to Tremaine.
To me. She is—
“What?” Hart bantered like the vexatious bastard he was. “Should I say she is as plain as she used to be instead?”
This time, Tremaine didn’t take the bait. Linnie was halfway toward him, and the sight of her up close rocked the rest of his logic.
From down the length of the makeshift aisle, the smile on Linnie’s crimson lips grew bigger.
Never had another person looked upon him with the utmost trust, awe, and warmth the way this woman did now.
For how much longer . . . ?
And then Linnie was at his side and placing her fingers so trustingly upon his sleeve.
“Jeremy,” she said softly, her eyes tender.
Suddenly feeling sick, Tremaine forced his mouth up into a semblance of a grin.
He was grateful when Beaton popped his frayed leather Bible open and jumped right into officiating.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honorable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency . . .”
Man’s innocency . . .
How bloody laughable, given how and why this gathering had assembled this day.
“. . . the first miracle that he wrought, in Cana of Galilee; and is commended of Saint Paul to be honorable amongst all men: and therefore, is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding . . .”
Tremaine stared at the top of his pilot’s head.
A brute beast was precisely who . . . and what . . . a wide-eyed Linnie bound herself to this day, in this moment.
“First, it was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord . . .”
Children. He’d never thought much about children.
Not on account of disliking them. On the contrary—as a lad, he’d gotten on great with his own brother, and being a de facto member of the McQuoid-Smiths, he’d always found himself surrounded by babes and small children, and then not-so-small children.
No, generally, a bachelor didn’t tend to think about someday siring children, not when a fellow took an overabundance of caution to keep from accidentally impregnating a woman.
But from this day forward, Linnie would be Tremaine’s wife. There’d be no need or desire to prevent her from becoming with child.
Now thoughts slipped in of children born of he and Linnie. Little girls with her big, blindingly bright curls.
Slender, soft fingers brushed the top of Tremaine’s bare hand, and he glanced down.
He blinked slowly.
Concern clouded her previously jubilant eyes. “Are you all right?” she asked softly, her query nearly soundless.
Alas, the first clever and accurate emotion he deserved that day.
Tremaine leaned close and whispered against her ear, “This is the best I’ve been in so damn long, Linnie.”
He gave her the truth.
Granted, it wasn’t saying much. But for reasons that continued to stupefy Tremaine, he felt . . . almost human again when he was with Linnie. He caught glimpses of the person he’d been before the betrayal.
“Thirdly, it was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. Into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined . . .”
In prosperity and adversity. There could be no doubt Linnie was the kind of woman who’d march into battle with her partner in life.
But . . . what happens when the adversity they face is a product of your own sins?
Tremaine felt Linnie’s concern-laden stare upon him. “You are certain,” she urged.
He wasn’t damned certain about anything anymore.
“. . . ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it . . .”
Confess it.
Confess it.
Confess your crimes. Confess your sins.
Sweat slicked his nape.
“Jeremy Renwood Tremaine . . .”
Tremaine jumped.
Confused, he looked at Beaton. What had his damned pilot been saying?
Hart leaned close and whispered, “This is where you repeat after the good vicar.”
“I’m not a damned vicar,” Beaton groused.
Tremaine’s head was swimming. He was thrown overboard, tossed into that same violent sea with the world afire around him, and couldn’t make sense of anything.
Until his gaze caught on Linnie’s face, stricken and confused and hurting.
Because I am destined to hurt her . . .
But not today. Not here. Not now.
Everything faded away. Everything except him and Linnie.
Tremaine took Linnie’s trembling hands in his and guided her around, providing his shoulder as a wall between them and her family.
A hushed murmuring rolled around the conservatory.
“Linnie,” he began gruffly.
“You’re a million miles away, Jeremy,” she whispered, her voice catching.
“Are you certain . . . ? I know you said you want to . . .” She slid her ravaged gaze over his face, searching for either his secrets or answers, and she’d be repelled by anything she’d have found inside him. “You don’t have to . . .”
God, she was ripping him apart inside.
In an epitome of wonder, Tremaine discovered some last shred of good buried away inside. For at last, he gave her the truth.
He touched his lips against her temple and whispered, “You should not marry me, Linnie.”
“Why are you saying this?” she begged.
“Because I am your family’s enemy.” His tone emerged sharp.
Linnie lifted a faltering gaze to his.
Run. You are wise to run.