Chapter 7
When the Earl of Abington’s grand carriage lost a spoke, Meghan, Andromena, and Fleur convinced Meghan’s maid, Bridget, to let them go outside.
Poor Bridget. She hadn’t stood a chance.
It hadn’t even been a struggle to wear the young woman down.
After all, given the McQuoid traditions and well-known history of their love of snow and cold weather, what servant would be able to deny their calls?
Especially on a McQuoid wedding day to another duke, no less.
Hiding behind an ancient elm for cover, her snowball fight with Andromena and Fleur forgotten, Meghan stared vacantly at the plumes of smoke in the distance that came from the church where her family already gathered.
A heavy weight pressed in on her chest.
Just as she’d done after her return from Lord and Lady Rutland’s ball, Meghan relived the last time she had spent with August. It was pathetic to do so. He hated her family—and her by association. But her body didn’t care about his hatred.
Her wrist still burned with the memory of his touch. His kiss. The way he had sucked until he left his mark behind.
In the early morn hours, as sleep eluded her, she had squirmed and shifted beneath the weight of those memories, until the ache between her legs became unbearable.
There had been no reprieve. No matter how much she’d squirmed or pressed her legs together, the throbbing there remained and kept her from sleep.
At some point, exhaustion claimed her and blessedly there had been no dreams. Just blank nothingness.
Within minutes, she’d be officially married—and all she could think about was another man. At that, a man who disdained her.
“Found you!”
Meghan gasped, wheeling around.
Andromena’s snowball exploded on Meghan’s chest in a spray of powder.
Andromena laughed. “And I got you!”
Meghan glanced down at her sister’s handiwork.
She cocked her head.
Unfortunately, when she’d skipped about the snowy terrain, Meghan hadn’t considered her hems.
She looked lower.
Or her slippers.
Snowflakes drifted past her with a rising intensity. Meghan touched her fingers to the several errant curls whipping about her cheeks.
Or the artful arrangement made of her cumbersome curls and the Duchess of Hartwell tiara affixed to them. Crafted of diamond carnations and fuchsias, the piece weighed on her like an albatross, not a symbol of love and devotion tied to the flowers’ meanings.
She would walk down the familial aisle her ancestors had for generations to meet a duke with a muddied wedding dress and white satin slippers. Previously white, now sleek and slick with mud.
Hartwell would not only loathe Meghan in her current state; he would be beside himself with rage.
A vindictive smile tightened her lips. “What a shame,” she whispered.
If she were lucky, he would take one look at Meghan and publicly declare her unsuitable.
“Meghan?” Her sister’s cheer-filled voice cut into Meghan’s spiraling descent into insanity.
“Who do you think will be next?” Fleur’s breath came fast from their earlier exertions, leaving little clouds of white in the air.
Meghan stared blankly.
Andromena pointed her eyes to the sky. “The bride-to-be always predicts which McQuoid will find her happily-ever-after next, and which prince will come calling.” She bent her head back and opened her mouth to catch snowflakes on her tongue.
“Newly married,” Meghan murmured. A prince? The duke may be close to that lofty position, but he was no heroic, charming one written about in fairy tales.
Andromena gave up her quest for snowflakes and looked at Meghan.
“It is not the bride-to-be who makes the prediction,” Meghan clarified. “It is the newly married McQuoid.” Hartwell didn’t own her.
Yet. The duke didn’t own her yet.
Her tender-hearted sister giggled. “Which you are about to be when you marry Hartwell, silly.”
A blast of wind gust cut through the air, the sound a long, mournful wail.
She would be forever bound to the sinister Duke of Hartwell. Until last night, he had hidden his cruelty. But once married, she would not only see it—she would live it.
Every single day. For the rest of her life.
Meghan’s stomach revolted. Despite the cold, sweat broke out over her body.
Fleur crashed into the clearing, nearly dragged forward by her own heavy skirts. The younger woman, red-cheeked from the cold, panted. She looked back and forth between the sisters. “What happened?”
A very guilty-looking Andromena held her palms up and shook her head.
Fleur folded her arms at her chest and stuck a foot out.
“Fine! I threw a snowball.”
“It was nothing,” Meghan said on a rush.
Her protestations didn’t matter.
“Blast and bog it, Andromena!” Their cousin trudged the rest of the way over. “She is getting married.” She vigorously dusted snow and ice from Meghan’s cloak.
“Oh, Meghan. I’m so sorry. You look beautiful, like a snow princess,” her younger sister whispered. “Hartwell will not care what you look like. He loves you. He wants to marry you more than anything.”
He only wanted to marry her to bring their families closer together.
Resenting the reminder, Meghan briefly shut her eyes.
A hand settled at her shoulder.
Through the whorl of snow, Fleur searched Meghan’s face. “Meghan,” she said haltingly, “you do want to marry the duke, don’t you?”
Meghan choked back tears.
This was the first anyone in her family asked that question. The McQuoid clan had spent so much time telling her how perfect a union with the duke would be, but none of them actually asked Meghan how she truly felt. And if they hadn’t asked Meghan…
Another eerie howl rolled across the countryside.
A chill scraped her spine.
If Meghan jilted the duke, would her family suggest Andromena or Fleur marry the estimable gentleman instead?
Fleur’s voice whispered into the stormy quiet. “Oh, God.”
Meghan turned a dazed stare on her dearest friends.
“You do not wish to marry him,” her cousin said.
She had been weak to agree to the union. Andromena and Fleur were so young. Far more virtuous and na?ve and hopeful than Meghan. And when it came to McQuoids, she had considered herself one of the biggest romantics.
Meghan let her features show all her misery, regret, and pain.
“Nooo!” Andromena slapped her gloved palms over her mouth.
Just as the girls moved for her, Meghan found the willpower to lower her right lashes in a slow, playful wink.
Her sister and cousin flared their eyes.
With a forced laugh, Meghan made a quick snowball.
She’d already struck Andromena in the shoulder and made another missile before the pair regained their wits.
Andromena’s shriek filled the countryside.
“You gooses,” Meghan laughed, kicking snow at their skirts and lied through an enormous smile. “How can I be anything but overjoyed? I’ll be carrying on the McQuoid-marries-a-duke legend, married to one such as Hartwell?”
“I knew it!” Andromena cried. “You love the duke.”
She’d never said that, and never would.
“You are the worst, Meghan!” Fleur’s laughter told a different tale.
“Hide and fight!” Andromena let out that heralding cry that signaled the commence of a new match.
They bumped and stumbled into one another as they each sorted out where they sought to hide.
Wrestling her heavy silk and organza skirts, she stomped as fast as her legs would carry her through the snow, and in the opposite direction of the church.
Squinting, Meghan trudged through the snow. With every labored step, her wedding gown took on the added weight of snow and ice. And still she pushed, until her sister’s and cousin’s ebullient cries faded to distant background noise.
“…You do not wish to marry him…?”
And alone, Meghan finally answered. “No,” she whispered.
“Yes,” a ghost at her ear whispered, quiet as a blade drawn in the dark.
Meghan stilled. Her sister was a master at impersonating other voices. “Fleur?” she whispered, knowing her hope was in vain.
“Mm-mmm.”
Her pulse hammering loud in her ears, Meghan swung to face her visitor.
“Oh, God,” she strangled on her prayer.
His bicorn hat pulled low and the hood of his dark riding cloak pulled close, he possessed a menace that sent terror coursing through her veins. A masked highwayman, cloaked in black like the devil himself, smiled coolly. “Devil would be a more apt greeting,” he jeered.
Shout. Cry for help. Her throat was so thick, she struggled to get air into her lungs.
She opened her mouth to scream the countryside down.
“It is you or the girls playing back at the carriage,” he purred silkily. “My men are there. The moment your cry goes up, they belong to them.”
“You bastard,” she hissed.
He struck a pose. “Actually, I am not.”
The longer she kept him talking, the sooner help arrived.
“Remarkable,” she spat. Burning with hate, fury, and fear, Meghan managed to sweep a condescending stare over his big form. “With the rough quality of your speech, that is debatable.”
“How uppity of you, princess.” The low rumble of his voice dripped with disdain.
Meghan drew back. “You, a blackguard who is currently accosting me and threatened my sisters, should call my attitude into question?”
Her attempt to keep him talking failed.
“Turn it over.”
She stilled.
A flash of silver caught her eye; in the same moment, a hiss of a blade cut through the air.
Meghan’s mouth formed another scream.
From somewhere to the east, Fleur called out. “Meghan, where are you?”
Somehow, Meghan found a way to edge her chin up. “How do I know you will keep your word? That my sisters will remain unharmed?”
“You don’t,” he said. Blunt. Ruthless.
Her stomach muscles twisted into vicious knots; Meghan hugged herself to ease her desperation.
“I don’t want them, princess.” He took another step forward and lifted a jewel-encrusted dagger. “I want what you have to offer.”
Wrenching at her sopping wedding gown and cloak, Meghan struggled backwards.
“Hand it over.” The highwayman tapped the tip of his sharp knife against the brim of his hat.
Meghan’s hands went to the crown atop her snow-covered curls.
The Hartwell diamonds!
Of course!
All society knew about their union. It had been regularly mentioned in every newspaper since the day she accepted Hartwell’s proposal. All the details of the event: the bridal party, the guests in attendance, the bride’s trousseau.
Her jewelry.
Relief flooded through her. Meghan wrenched at the pins holding the bothersome piece in place. They fell from her fingers, disappearing into the snow around her.
“…much like following a warship, when you’re in a snow fight, always do the opposite of the expected action…”
Something in hearing August’s voice clear as the day he’d uttered those words steadied her.
“Faster,” he warned.
Meghan jumped. She yanked the last of her pins free, wrenched off her wedding tiara, and tossed the heirloom his way.
The prized crown landed just shy of a pace, joining her missing pins beneath the blanket of freshly fallen snow.
They both stared at the mark it had left on the otherwise flawless covering.
Her pulse picked up its rhythm.
He switched his gaze between Meghan and the mark she’d made in the snow with the Hartwell tiara.
“You should not have done that, Your Grace.”
“I’m not the duchess.”
“No, you are not.”
Nor would she ever be. If the vainglorious Duke of Hartwell wouldn’t have a wife who’d attended a masquerade with no one the wiser, he would never marry a lady who’d been tarnished by a highwayman.
Funny how moments ago, that’s all she’d wanted. Now she wanted the safety of the church and…
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Meghan’s throat worked wildly.
Her punisher stopped, terrific in his height.
“If you think to play games”—his voice emerged as ragged as shattered glass—“be prepared to find yourself hurt.”
In one fluid movement, he placed a black satin cloth over her face. A sweet, cloying floral scent flooded her mouth and nose. Meghan gagged and shouted behind the soft material.
“Shh,” he whispered, sounding strangely regretful. “Do not fight it, princess.”
Meghan’s eyes flared wide. Not fight it? “Thef heff ahf wonf.”
Her highwayman gave a pitying look.
A fresh wave of panic rooted around her brain. Meghan flailed and fought against her punisher, but her head grew increasingly heavy.
Her knees buckled.
A pair of strong arms caught her and swept her into an embrace.
Darkness licked at the edges of her mind. A strange, heavy languor overtook her body. As a velvety darkness swept over her, a single whisper reached her. “Rest.”
Meghan remembered no more.