Chapter 14
Lord Kerr had been so good as to loan his younger brother, Greyhold, to Culross for his short voyage.
Unfortunately, Culross was going to repay the favor by killing the younger man.
It mattered not that Greyhold was the size of a tree, and thick as one too. Or that he had more than half of a foot on Culross. Or the newly titled war hero had four stone extra on Culross.
He was going to kill him.
Culross fixed his stare on his new quartermaster, Lord Greyhold. Because if he moved his focus lower, he would see it. That small, inconsequential scrap of material, the only barrier between the reckless gentleman’s skin and Meghan’s.
He buried his hands into fists.
The insolent bastard, the same man who had laughed with her over an Axminster carpet, had dared lay a hand upon Meghan. Culross inhaled slowly through his nose.
Greyhold, maritime marvel, had stood in Culross’s chambers, his fingers grazing what did not belong to him.
For that he would pay the ultimate price.
To give his hands a purpose until the inevitable killing, Culross loosed the tips of his black leather gloves, one at a time.
Even garrulous Meghan, who never found a void of silence she did not yearn to fill, sensed the gravity of the moment.
One glove free.
Culross, with forcible restraint, returned the weathered article to the front pocket of his boat cloak beside his spyglass.
Culross worked on his other wet glove.
Did Meghan know a man would be flogged within an inch of his life this day because of her?
Culross flicked his stare briefly to the fiery minx who had upended his natural order. A grim line touched his mouth. It was an unfair thought. The crime was Greyhold’s alone.
It belonged solely to the one who dared graze his hand upon her body. It was Culross’s alone to touch.
Meghan, Culross’s future wife, soon to be countess, stood with her head hung low. Her arms hugged tight to her waist in a sorrowful little embrace. Culross hated even that embrace for taking what belonged to Culross alone.
Meghan’s gaze: that breathtaking, undaunted, unconquerable gaze, was now vanquished.
In shame. In guilt.
Not in all the time he had known her last year. Not at Lord Rutland’s. Not during these two days alone with her.
Now.
For the first time, Meghan, always splendorously proud, carried emotions unworthy of her.
A fresh wave of rage sizzled through his veins.
Greyhold would pay.
Culross added that second sin for Kerr’s pup of a brother to answer for—
“Captain—”
“You dare speak, Greyhold?” Culross let the steel that would seal the sailor’s fate thread through his command.
The other man’s latest transgression.
The fact the other man even breathed the same air as Meghan was a crime for which a lash would be added.
When Culross trusted himself not to kill in Meghan’s presence, and in the quarters where he and she would sleep, he looked fully on Lord Kerr’s not-so-little brother.
The viscount kept his gaze just over the top of Culross’s head. This time, he knew to stay silent.
It was a lesson learned too late. The damage had already been done.
He ignored Meghan; he did not trust himself to speak, lest he lay himself bare and exposed in ways he had never been before. Not for any woman. Not for anything. Not his entire fleet of ships.
A tiny, misery-laced moan filled the quarters. “August.”
Culross whipped his attention over to Meghan. His nostrils flared. She would take umbrage on the other man’s behalf? He dared her with his gaze to speak. Look at me, he silently raged. Lift that confident, fearless head.
He craved her defense of Greyhold even more than he needed the air in his lungs. Only then could Culross turn the weight of his resentment upon her.
How dare she. How dare she make him feel.
It was bitter, insupportable. Unforgiveable.
Oh, his contrary Meghan did not oblige, even in this. She did the next worst thing.
She crept trembling fingers around the bedpost knob—she squeezed it as she would fingers—until her knuckles whitened.
Culross sucked his nostrils in.
His bed. Now his and Meghan’s bed…and she had been in here alone with Greyhold.
Fire scorched his veins. It blistered through Culross’s chest, a conflagration of rage—laced with a cancerous jealousy that had him consumed, eating him up and leaving only insanity in its place.
This was why men did not harbor women aboard their ships. Mutinies were born of far less. It mattered naught that with no female servants about, men would be required to interact with Meghan in this space.
Culross added the worn article to his pocket and smoothed the folds of his cloak.
When he trusted himself to be composed enough to speak without committing murder—in front of Meghan—he leveled his attention on the big man.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Meghan chose then to make her voice heard—her very threadbare voice.
“August,” she said weakly. “Lord Greyhold h-has been m-most…”
Most?
Most what?
Gallant?
Charming?
Devoted?
Whatever the rest her defense might be trembled into silence.
Nay. Not silence.
Culross kept a sharp glare on the fool who’d dared lay a finger upon her. “Rest assured, madam, the quartermaster can answer for—”
Through the haze of bitter, insupportable jealousy, Culross froze.
And then Culross truly saw her.
Her face, pale as parchment, glistened with sweat. Her freckles that fascinated him stood stark against her skin. The rank scent of sickness clung to the air. The sight of her hit him like a fist to the gut. A sharp hiss sailed between Culross’s clenched teeth.
Greyhold cleared his throat. “Her Ladyship has been hit with seasickness.”
Culross glared at the other man. “Yes, I see that now.”
The impenetrable wall of rage and jealousy found its chink. Worry—over her. This woman who had upended his world.
“Christ, Meghan.” His throat moved uncomfortably. “You look like hell.” Worse.
Clinging to that knob, like it was the line that kept her from being dragged out to sea, Meghan lifted her head.
She gave him a tired smile. “Sir, you turn a lady’s head.”
Panic pumped his heart faster. “I am not trying to turn your head, madam. I am trying to keep you bloody alive.”
“I know, August,” Meghan said with a sigh filled with as much disappointment as the ocean was water. She lifted her fingers and waggled them his way. “Sadly, I live.”
His eyebrows shot to his hairline.
She would make jokes? Now? Looking like this? Feeling like this? His strides ate up the space he had kept between them. “Do not even jest so, madam,” he raged. With a forearm that shook, Culross folded an arm gently at her waist to guide her into the bed.
He scoured the rumpled sheets—a bed not fit for a beggar, let alone the queen who would be his wife.
Cursing, Culross swept her into his arms. Her auburn and gold curls fell like a waterfall over his shoulders. She curled so trustingly up against him, a kitten in search of warmth.
Sweat beaded his brow.
Why in hell had he sailed them to Scotland? Because her family would expect them by land. The McQuoids would have soldiers on every road. He and Meghan would never make Scotland. Culross scraped an unsteady hand through his damp hair.
That was why he had taken the longer route. The safer route.
But safer for whom?
He pointed that rage within himself on the only suitable outlet. “At what point did you intend to tell me the lady suffered?”
Greyhold kept silent.
Damn the man’s infernal soul to hell. Culross wanted him to fight back. Wanted an excuse to smash his hand into something. To make someone else suffer, so that maybe the vengeful God of the sea would be sated and spare Meghan.
Meghan tugged at Culross’s collar. Heat blazed up from under it and hit his cheeks.
“He will not answer you,” she said.
Did her voice sound stronger? Or did he hear what he needed to?
She tapped his cheek.
His muscle jumped under her fingers.
“He will not.”
From over the slight burden in his arms, he glowered at the man who, with his silence, asked for another lash. “He will if he wants to live,” Culross gritted out.
This was what happened when a man made a naval captain his second-in-command. Kerr’s brother had sailed his first and last voyage aboard The Lady Serpent.
His legs knocked into something.
He glanced down.
They had reached the upholstered sofa set at the fire; Culross held Meghan still. He could not put her down. As long as she was in his arms, no harm could befall her.
“He will not answer you, August, because he will not tell you that he attempted numerous times, but I forbade it.”
“You forbade it, madam?”
“I did.”
The minx didn’t hear the rhetorical there. She wouldn’t have cared if she did. That was one of the things Culross lo—
His arms convulsed around her. “His loyalty is mine.”
Some color had returned to her cheeks. Good. Otherwise, he would be forced to shed the blood of another and tender it to her.
“As your future countess, am I not owed the same? Would you not want the second-in-command of your ship, the second only behind you, who stands between me and any risk, give me that same fealty?”
Meghan did not understand Culross’s call for allegiance first from Greyhold mattered not so that Culross held power over Meghan, but so that Culross knew everything about the spitfire in his arms, and everything that befell her, so he could keep her safe.
“No,” he gritted out. “I would have him answer to me.” The muscle of his jaw rolled. “And know that only if I die aboard this bloody vessel and my lifeless body is buried beneath the sea will he stand as I once did for you. You above all others.”
The man whom they discussed as if he were not present stood, arms clasped, behind him.
Meghan released a weary sigh and rested her cheek against Culross’s chest. In the mirror, he caught the slight apology she mouthed to the other man.
“August…” Meghan pleaded.
She would beg him.
Meghan caressed his cheek. “Please—he only tried to help.”
Twice.
For another.