Chapter 3 #2
As a small girl, she, along with her sister, Linnie, and cousin, Cassia, had used pillows to practice their first kisses. Not one of them had understood the great mystery of it. Especially Meghan. She had ended with a mouth full of feathers.
And now—his breath warm against her lips—she would finally have answers.
Suddenly, August stiffened.
“Wh-what?” Meghan sought to clear her head clouded with desire for this man. For his kiss. For his heart.
An unmistakable march of heavy footfalls sounded in the corridor.
The blood drained from her face.
Outside the orangery, a frantic search played out.
Her legs finally obeyed. Meghan bolted in the opposite direction.
Click.
Heart hammering, Meghan ducked between a row of orange trees when a voice reached her.
“Culross.”
That familiar honeyed baritone sent a chill through her.
If she were not afraid a single movement would bring the duke down upon her, she would have clapped her hands over her ears.
“Commandeered Rutland’s orangery for your own tryst, have you?” Hate laced the duke’s austere tone.
Lord Culross chuckled. “Ah, the duke does not take well to being usurped.”
The duke would despise coming second, in anything. Faithless and fickle, she found herself on the side of the man baiting—
“The very same could be said of you, Culross.”
Violence crackled in the air.
Meghan bit the inside of her cheek. Pain cut deep, for August, and for herself.
August desired Meghan some—but his heart belonged to her sister. Linnie’s ghost would forever stand between them.
“Leave it to the old Duke of Hartwell to interrupt my good time,” August said coolly.
She was the good time he spoke of.
It was crude—and yet an uncomfortable ache settled between her thighs.
With careful movements, Meghan parted the shrub-like bush. Holding her breath, she peered through the crack she’d made through the branches.
A fresh wave of grief washed over her.
Two voluptuous, indecently clad masqueraders—one the duke’s earlier dance partner, the other a crimson clad belly dancer.
By the gauzy material of her low-waisted pants, with coins affixed, Meghan recognized the lady’s scandalous ensemble from a book she’d snatched from her younger cousins after they had filched it from Cousin Arran’s travel trunk.
She didn’t love Hartwell, but seeing him flaunt not one woman, but two—
Meghan shook her head slightly. She had no right to feel hurt. What she did this night was no different.
“In need of diversion this close to your wedding, eh, Hartwell?”
He knew of her impending nuptials to the Duke of Hartwell. Everyone did. Hartwell was, after all, London’s most sought-after bachelor.
Her husband-to-be snorted. “Unlike my brother, Tremaine, who married for love,”—Meghan winced—“I’m beholden to no woman.”
She inched forward through the brush and squinted for a better look at August’s response.
“And what of your delightful bride to be?” She wanted to kick August. Nay, she would for this one. “Is your bride to be here seeking her pleasures elsewhere too?”
“My God.” Hartwell laughed. “I forgot how plebeian you are. As if my duchess, who’ll carry my heir, will be afforded the same freedoms as I.”
Meghan sat, a voyeur in a cruel exchange she was at the center of but not part of.
A fresh chill settled deep in her marrow. Hers was not a love match. It was a partnership—nothing more.
His peevish lover stomped her slippered foot. “I don’t want to talk about your bride-to-be, Hartwell.”
“Zair ees too mooch talk-een.” The duke’s French paramour slinked over to August and slipped her arm through his. Leaning against the earl, she rubbed her other palm along his leather lapel. “Vhy don’t vee een-veet Lord Cool-ross too jo-een oor feun, oui?”
Meghan’s stomach twisted at the sight of that woman’s hand on him. Not Hartwell, but Cool-ross. Her throat worked painfully.
“En une autre occasion, je pourrais te faire plaisir, ma belle,” August said coolly. On another occasion, I might indulge you, sweet. He curved a hand sharp under the buxom beauty’s buttocks and gave her several lusty strokes.
And here Meghan believed the French lessons her mum insisted upon were unnecessary.
A fresh surge of pain sank vicious teeth into Meghan’s already battered heart.
“Mais pas en présence de ce pitoyable individu qui se prend pour un homme.” But not with this pitiful excuse for manhood present.
August smacked the beauty’s ample bottom, eliciting a delighted squeal, bringing Meghan’s eyes sliding shut.
“Why don’t we all join in?” the English beauty purred. “With two bucks butting heads, think how interesting it will be for all.”
Meghan balled her bare hands; her nails shredded up her palms.
August released the woman quick and nudged his chin the duke’s way. “Hélas, chérie, je préférerais me couper le pénis plut?t que de le laisser approcher de Hartwell.” The French rolled off his tongue smooth, and merciless. “Peut-être plus tard.”
Alas, chérie, I’d rather cut my own cock off than let it near Hartwell… Perhaps later.
Perhaps later?
Pain sank fresh teeth into her heart.
“Nor do I have an interest in sharing with Culross,” Hartwell said equally cold. “Nor do I require him.”
Hartwell’s lack of fealty was what she deserved.
Meghan’s betrothed and the man who she loved were about to have it out over the lush pair before them.
Tears burned her eyes.
All this was what she deserved for sneaking here to profess her love to—
“Where is your paramour for the night?” the duke asked.
Meghan jerked reflexively, the leaves swishing damningly.
Her heart in her throat, she held her breath.
The conversation carried on without interruption. “Left you waiting here has she, Culross? Something tells me I could easily take her off your hands.”
Her tears dried up. She went cold.
“How very like you to secure a third mistress this close to your wedding, Hartwell. Is that what is getting you through the prospect of marriage to the McQuoid girl?”
Meghan blinked slowly.
Her mind struggled to process what she had heard.
Meghan hugged her arms tight around her middle. A fresh wave of bitterness washed over her.
August’s hatred of the Tremaines and McQuoids ran deeper than regard for her feelings.
“I hope Miss McQuoid Smith has not deluded herself into believing her husband-to-be loyal.”
Her chest ached.
Lord Culross jeered not Hartwell—but Meghan.
“I am not beholden to anyone,” Hartwell replied with ducal frost that chilled her to the marrow. “Certainly not my future wife.”
Her teeth chattered. Meghan gritted them quickly to keep from giving herself away.
“The poor girl.” August was far too bored to ever be sincere.
The girl. He had not touched her as one pats a child’s head. He had held her like a woman he wanted.
His Grace’s hollow laugh echoed through the orangery, ugly against the sweetness of citrus. “How could I forget? You are the same pathetic romantic who believes in love.”
Her pain was not solitary, but that knowledge offered no comfort.
The duke kept at his attack. “Isn’t that why you absconded with my sister-in-law?” He fired rapid barbs. “Fancied yourself in love, did you? Still have a hankering for Lady Tremaine?”
Another spasm seized her heart. He had loved her sister, Linnie, with that same terrible intensity. And her own fiancé had never looked at Meghan with anything at all.
The urge to cross the space and silence their laughter rose sharp and reckless in her throat. Somehow Meghan found the willpower to resist.
“Your audience grows tiresome.” August did not raise his voice. “Why don’t you scurry off and enjoy your limited time as a bachelor?”
“Cela vous offense, n’est-ce pas…qu’il parle de nous ainsi, Your Grace?” It offends you, doesn’t it…that he speaks of us that way?
Bitterness washed over Meghan.
If those women believed the duke would defend their honor, they were as foolish as she had been in agreeing to a loveless match.
“I have a far greater diversion awaiting me than the whore you chased after earlier,” Hartwell said, a cruel smile in his voice.
The beauties giggled—as though he had said something charming rather than cruel words that made a mockery of Meghan.
“Ah, the fact you would rather stay here debating me suggests otherwise.”
Meghan sat stock-still.
What did it say about her future that she and the duke had both ventured here in pursuit of something else—for Meghan, one last reckless hope?
People entered into far colder, far more mercenary marriages than the one she and the Duke of Hartwell would soon commit to.
For her betrothed, it was a night of diversion.
Telling herself as much did not help.
Hartwell took one last Parthian shot. “Let’s leave Culross to his pining over my sister-in-law and find our pleasure somewhere else.”
Silence filled the orangery.
Meghan dragged her knees close and hugged them.
Please, let August leave. She couldn’t face him. It was better he go. Even she, who damned every rule of propriety coming here, could not possibly profess her love. Not after she’d heard him speak so dispassionately about her.
There would be no words of love exchanged with August. No frantic dash to Gretna Green.
Her marriage to Hartwell would continue as planned.
This night had served only one purpose—it had shown her she would have even less than she had already resigned herself to.
Her betrothed never loved her, nor wanted her. Hartwell would continue taking lovers after their marriage. Their match would never move beyond an emotionless, arranged union. Political. Deliberate. A calculated alliance forged between warring shipping families.
Drawing in a shuddering breath, Meghan eased out from behind the shrubs and continued inching back until she collided with the solid glass windows.
How vastly different from the marriage August had once wanted with her sister, and what Linnie now shared with Captain Tremaine—what every married member of her family had.
She dashed the remnants of tears from her cheeks.
Though she had longed for this night, she now yearned only to go home, tear off her gown, collapse into her bed, and sleep for as many days as it took to forget what had happened here.
Alas, Meghan could not remain. She needed to collect Andromena and Fleur and leave before anything worse occurred. A panicked laugh bubbled in her throat. As though that were possible.
She climbed awkwardly to her feet. Perhaps August had gone after some woman he truly desired and left the orangery altogether.
The earl had arrived on stealthy steps; it was just as likely he had departed on the same silent ones.
In truth, that made the most sense. Given how freely he had shared his touch with those nameless beauties, and the careless way he had spoken of Meghan while she stood there listening, it was highly unlikely he harbored any tender feelings.
Cursing softly, she retrieved her gloves from the tree where she had left them and stepped into the aisle.
Her heart leapt—then plummeted.
August stood there, arms folded across his chest.
“Why,” he purred, his gaze drifting slowly over her, “if it isn’t the bride-to-be herself, Miss Meghan McQuoid-Smith.” His eyes dipped to her neckline. “In the flesh.”