Chapter 6
Culross had never been more eager for an offensive.
Everything lay within his reach.
On the dawn of his most ruthless undertaking yet, Culross would take it all. He would once and for all end the line that the Tremaines, McQuoids, and Ellsbys had drawn around him.
The younger women would weep. Meghan, however, would not break. She was his.
Some might claim revenge drove Culross. They would be wrong. Revenge was a child’s game.
Power and control were what compelled him.
From aboard his mount Kraken, he scanned the horizon.
Snow fell without sound.
It muffled the road, the trees, the world itself—pressing everything into stillness. Culross stood just beyond the reach of moonlight, the dark of the trees swallowing him whole. Breath left his mouth in a thin plume of white. He did not move.
The Roman road lay before him, narrow and unforgiving. One way in. One way out.
Snow this early, while the sky remained pitch black and the moon hung low, felt almost deliberate. As though that absurd German fable of St. Nicholas and his Yuletide indulgences had conspired in his favor. Only instead of sweetmeats and sugared plums, Culross had been handed the keys to a kingdom.
With the aid of his two most loyal crewmen, he had designed a three-pronged assault to abduct the last three unmarried McQuoid sisters and prevent them from ever being used as pawns again.
Since forming the plan, he had been filled with a restless, sharpened anticipation.
A church bell tolled somewhere in the distance—low, hollow. It carried through the trees and faded, leaving silence in its wake. Culross welcomed it. Silence revealed more than noise ever could.
The wind tugged at his cloak. Snow crept along the leather of his gloves, melting slowly, seeping cold into his fingers. He felt it. He ignored it.
Ahead, the faint grind of wheels reached him at last—iron rims biting into frozen earth. Measured. Predictable. Exactly as planned.
Kraken shifted beneath him, sensing the change before Culross permitted himself to acknowledge it. He smoothed a hand along the stallion’s neck. The horse stilled at once.
Obedience was a language Culross spoke fluently.
From this distance, the carriages were little more than shadows moving through white. No voices. No laughter. Only the slow, patient approach of inevitability.
Culross watched dispassionately. His thoughts were disciplined, precise—yet one image slipped through regardless. Just as it had last evening.
Bountiful freckles. Enormous eyes. Brown hair threaded with flame and light. A mouth that said no while her body betrayed her.
Culross inhaled, deep and controlled. The cold burned his lungs. He welcomed that too.
Soon.
From his vantage within the dense line of trees, hidden in plain sight, he possessed a full, unobstructed view of the approaching bridal party—and of the wedding that would never take place as planned.
An honorable, respectable gentleman might have felt qualms. Might have hesitated at the thought of ruining not one, but three innocent ladies.
Culross was no such man.
He was a dark lord, bent on power and wealth earned through his own ruthless hand. Anyone could be used. Everyone served a purpose. And if a person could be moved upon the battlefield of life to advance his ambitions, he did so without hesitation.
He had arrived beside the gnarled oak thirty minutes earlier. Wind gusted through the branches, flinging white spirals of snow into the air. Despite the velvet-lined leather gloves he wore, his fingers ached with cold. He rubbed them together anyway—eager, anticipatory.
Oh, how the McQuoids loved their winter festivities. Their snow. Their rituals.
They had welcomed him into their fold once, thrown open the curtains on their habits, their schedules, their affections. Foolish. One expected such openness from McQuoids.
But the Ellsbys and Tremaines? Those sea-hardened privateers who were more pirate than patriot should have known better.
They once had.
Marriage… No, the indulgent weakness they called love had dulled them. It made them careless.
A well-placed coin here, a sovereign there, and Culross knew the exact order of the wedding entourage. He knew which carriage would lead, which would lag, which would be easiest to isolate. He’d gathered which family would be present and those who could not attend.
Everything was in place.
All that remained was the arrival of his two right-hand men—and the three McQuoid ladies who would travel together. Accompanied by the Duke of Aragon and a single lady’s maid.
The three-pronged strike he’d designed, himself and supported by two of his most loyal men, would remove the last unmarried McQuoid sisters from play entirely.
Ruthless satisfaction had lived in his bones for months.
Never more keenly than now.
Aragon was the perfect weak link. Tremaine and Ellsby men were seasoned. Privateers carried battle instincts whether on deck or cobblestone. The Duke of Aragon, for all his titles, possessed none.
Hoofbeats approached.
Kraken, his charcoal stallion, sensed it first, shifting beneath him. Culross smoothed a hand along the mount’s withers, calming him instantly.
Moments later, his brother, Lord Alec Archdale, stepped into the clearing.
Alec, so like Culross that he might have worn his face, led his horse with practiced ease. Beside him came Lord Kerr, quartermaster and friend. Half his face was classically handsome; the other bore the scars of sea-fire.
“I take that smug grin to mean your morning efforts succeeded,” Culross said.
Kerr inclined his head. “Better than planned.” His voice, once smooth, had been burned into a roughened growl.
Culross scanned the grey horizon. He’d expected nothing less. He paid his men well, treated them with respect. Loyalty followed.
“The details,” Culross ordered.
Alec spoke first. “I loosened the linchpin on the bride’s carriage. Given the weather and the road, it will fail halfway. The driver will seek aid from another McQuoid carriage.”
He nodded once.
“Kerr suggested,” Alec continued, “sawing partway through the lead reins. In case the pin holds longer than expected.”
A cool smile edged Culross’s mouth. Thorough. Exactly as he required.
“There is one change,” Culross said.
Surprise flickered across both faces. Any seasoned soldier knew deviations carried risk. Neither man challenged him.
“The original arrangement stands altered.” Culross’s gaze sharpened. “The bride belongs to me.”
Hunger surged, hard and unwelcome, straight to his cock.
Thoughts intruded of Meghan confined to his cabins, her defiance stripped away. Of how she would loathe him. Of how she would burn.
Kerr cut across his musings. “And the others?”
“Take whichever is convenient. Scatter them,” Culross replied. “Make rescue…complicated.”
“I’d prefer one who knows how to keep quiet.” Alec grimaced and understandably given his twenty-six years. What young chap would want to have dealings with any polite lady?
At that, a quiet McQuoid or Smith? “Don’t hold your breath,” Culross muttered, meant for himself alone.
Lord Kerr frowned. “What was that?”
Alec angled his head, eyes flicking between them. “I didn’t catch that.”
Culross did not repeat himself. “As I said,” he replied coolly, “one McQuoid or Smith chit is as good as any other.”
Kerr’s gaze sharpened. “That isn’t what you said.”
The faintest pause followed.
Culross turned fully then, fixing the tall, wiry sailor with an unblinking stare. “It is what I said earlier,” he answered, his voice smooth, measured. “Do you have a problem with that?”
The wind snapped Kerr’s brown-haired queue against his shoulder. Something dark stirred in his eyes—anger, suspicion—but it died as quickly as it surfaced.
“No,” Kerr said at last.
“Good.” Culross inclined his head a fraction. “Then the matter is settled.”
They drew their masks and hoods on.
Culross fixed his gaze on the road.
Before the morning was over, three women would be ruined, and the McQuoid, Ellsby, and Tremaine ambitions to shut him out completely of the space at sea ended.
A cynical smile touched his mouth.
As for Miss Meghan McQuoid Smith? The chit was a hellcat and, for that reason alone, she bore closer watching. The termagant had a set of teeth and claws on her, but Culross could handle her.
He would handle her.
He—
Bloody hell.
His ears picked up on the loud grind of carriage wheels. Of a sudden, horse whinnies swelled through the dawn quiet. Shouts went up from the Smith family driver.
His brother Alec paled. “They are early.”
Which meant they couldn’t get into position.
August held a palm up, urging quiet…and waited.
Silence.
The quiet lasted as long as all McQuoid silences did.
“…wheel is loose, Miss Smith…”
Culross shook his head in annoyance.
The old fellow bellowed loud enough to summon the damned chit’s family.
“…have to leave for a short stretch and—”
Culross’s eyes flared.
The servant planned to leave them?
Sure enough, after a good deal of noisy muttering, the Smith driver freed one of the mounts, climbed astride, and headed towards the church.
It could not be this easy.
At least, it should not be.
But McQuoids were nothing if not predictable in their carelessness. They would, of course, make it so.
That delighted squeal pierced the early winter morning.
“What in hell are they shouting for?” Culross’s quartermaster sounded more affronted than relieved that a plan meant to abduct three ladies and thwart a wedding should unfold without resistance.
Laughter followed, bright, reckless, and the noisy trampling of boots through fresh snow provided all the confirmation Kerr required.
The silly girls at play remained on the periphery of Culross’s vision. His attention stayed fixed on the carriage.
With deliberate care, he withdrew the wooden spyglass from inside his cloak. Lifting it to his eye, he slid the tubes in and out until the image sharpened. He adjusted the objective lens, fine-tuning the focus.