Chapter 18
The McQuoids wanted to put a bullet in Culross’s heart.
Each of them. The Smith brothers. McQuoid. Every one of them wanted a shot at him.
Actually.
They should too.
And it would still be too good for Culross.
They had already done a bang-up job with Culross. From the beating Meghan’s youngest brother doled out—with a couple of extra strokes from the eldest—not a single part of Culross that didn’t absolutely throb and ache.
And he would take the same beating one thousand times over to spare himself the invisible agony rending him apart inside. Bit by bit.
Through his bloodied, swollen eyes, he silently raged at Meghan’s cousin.
Why did you not choose Meghan for me?
Culross’s fingers wavered about his former friend’s neck.
Why did I not choose her for me…until it was too late?
Anguish punched beneath his breastbone.
I am not ready to lose you…
You already lost her…
He had lost her the moment she walked in and then out of Rutland’s orangery…
Culross had been too stupid, too stubborn, too cynical to see his need to stop her wedding to Hartwell had nothing to do with the McQuoids.
The walls of his throat grew narrower.
Culross had not wanted to stop that union.
He had needed to.
Because then she would belong to Hartwell.
And he hadn’t acknowledged that he loved her.
Instead of realizing he needed to stop her marriage to Hartwell at all costs—because he wanted her, because he needed her, because he loved her—he had chosen a scheme.
“What have you done with the crew?” Meghan demanded.
That question caught every man present off guard.
“Are you referring to Culross’s crew?” McQuoid narrowed his eyes.
This was who she was.
She was a woman who would go into battle against her own family.
She was a woman who would have stood shoulder to shoulder beside him.
A wife.
A partner.
A…friend.
If his soul wasn’t dying and his lips weren’t broken, he would have allowed himself a smile.
“They have been disarmed, bound, and confined,” Mr. Campbell Smith confirmed for his sister’s benefit. “A skeleton crew for such an important undertaking, Culross?”
His crew had been spared.
Culross gave the men a grateful nod.
Meghan slid beside him.
Color splotched the younger Mr. Smith’s cheeks.
“What are you doing, Meghan?” he bit out.
Meghan twined her hand with Culross’s.
“I told you, Brone.” She shrugged. “I love him.”
Holding his eyes, Meghan pulsed. Once. Twice. Three times.
Three times.
Culross stared into her eyes and then down at their joined hands.
I could have had this…
A love that transcends time and fits in the lore that had left Meghan and hers romantics—believers in happily-ever-afters and…
My God.
She had been breathtaking in her fight.
And she had been breathtaking for him.
Culross’s throat moved rhythmically.
And it would be the last time.
Because he didn’t deserve her.
Because he had wronged her.
Because he had made all the mistakes where Meghan was concerned.
He squeezed his eyes shut—forgot about his blackening eye—winced. And then welcomed the pain.
Any physical pain—a knocked tooth, his shattered nose, his battered eye—was preferable to the agony tearing up his seizing heart.
“You love him,” Campbell repeated.
Meghan nodded.
Culross stood stiffly at her side. He let it play out the way Meghan’s brother wanted, all the while coming apart bit by bit.
He knew what was coming.
Inflict maximum suffering.
He would make sure, after this, that Meghan could never love Culross.
“What do you know about Culross exactly, Meghan?”
“I know I love him.”
The ship gave a long, ominous creak.
The walls were closing in.
“Are you aware he only wanted to ruin you?” Mr. Smith’s chest moved hard from his earlier exertions. “That is the reason he stopped your wedding to Hartwell.”
“I am,” she said, solemnly.
That admission caught Mr. Smith off guard.
“Because if you know as much as you say you do, and you stand before me—your bloody brother—swearing your love for him…”
He slid a stare filled with such hate at August that it stole Meghan’s breath.
“Then you are no sister of mine.”
Ashen, Meghan swung a desperate gaze to Culross.
“What is he talking about?”
I am going to be ill…
Culross stood with his shoulders back, his gaze on Meghan.
His swollen mouth moved, and he tried to speak.
Meghan looked to her brother for help.
“What… I don’t…?”
The eldest Mr. Smith ignored Meghan.
“Does she know?”
God, she deserved better than men who spoke through her and around her and about her.
Culross would have made her his queen and treated her thusly—seated her on a throne beside him.
You treated her worse than anyone…
Meghan searched around. She moved her stare hesitantly between them—and it froze on August.
“What is he talking about?” she repeated, her voice climbing, pitchy.
“Meghan,” he said thickly.
“Tell her,” Campbell said.
Thinly controlled rage threaded that directive.
The fragile thread snapped.
“Tell her! Tell her how she wasn’t the only McQuoid lass ruined!”
Meghan’s eyes went blank.
She blinked slowly.
“Au-August?”
Culross squeezed his eyes shut.
“I didn’t—”
“Tell my sister she was not the only woman abducted on her wedding day,” Brone spat.
Tell her.
Tell her.
Tell her.
The other man kept hammering Culross.
Hammered him with what Culross himself should have done before this moment.
“Tell her how you sent your brother after her sister. And one of your other goons after her cousin.”
Tears fell down Meghan’s cheeks.
“Meghan,” he begged, stretching his palms up in supplication.
Sobbing, Meghan slammed her fists into his chest.
“My sister!” she raged through her tears.
“My cousin!”
And then the dam broke.
Sobbing, Meghan pounded his chest with all her force.
She pummeled him over and over.
Culross bowed his head and opened himself to her.
Let her rage.
Wishing her blows landed with the force to hurt and punish.
His loyal defender.
God, how he loved her.
And how he had loved when she defended his worthless arse with that same fervor and courage.
She could stone him until he faded into eternal sleep, and if it brought her even a scrap of comfort, he would sacrifice himself.
Abruptly, Meghan stopped.
“I have hurt you.”
“No. No. No. I am fine,” he promised. “Look.”
Except Meghan did look.
At her family’s handiwork.
Her lower lip trembled.
She would still cry for his rotten soul…
Behind them, McQuoid groaned.
“He does not deserve your pity, Meghan.”
“He is right, Meghan,” Culross said, his throat buckling.
Meghan took a step.
And another.
She made a perfect little circle, only to end up right in front of Culross.
“But I love him,” she answered her cousin.
She gave that brokenhearted confession entirely to Culross.
Culross stilled.
“I called it off,” he implored, dropping to his knees at her feet.
Her lips parted.
“You…did?”
Hope stirred.
Crawling on his knees, he lifted his palms.
“I called it off before we left. I need you to understand—I am not the same.”
He thumped his fist against his own chest with each word of that avowal.
“It has been less than two days,” McQuoid said with the same cool logic Culross once possessed.
Or had possessed.
Desperation clamoring in his chest, Culross focused only on Meghan.
“Two days, Meghan—but it wasn’t just two days, right?”
He held a hand out.
Pale, she tripped over her beautiful bare toes to get away.
He recoiled.
She was afraid of him.
No. She hates you.
Tears filled his throat.
Meghan hugged her arms around her middle and looked about the room.
He saw her thoughts spinning.
He saw it in the way her freckled brow creased.
In the way her endearing pert nose puckered.
And her mouth.
His throat buckled.
Ah, God.
That mouth.
Those lips he’d coaxed and learned.
I want to start over…
He opened his mouth.
To tell her.
To beg her.
Meghan stilled and finally brought her gaze around to him.
And that foolish hope died like a whisper in a storm.
“But that does not undo the fact that they are ruined, August,” she whispered.
His eyes blurred.
Burned.
Must have something in them.
Culross rubbed.
Then realized—
They were tears.
His tears.
Why did that not horrify him as it should?
Because the greater horror is you are about to lose the only person that matters…the only woman you will ever love.
And now he had had a glimpse of what could have been.
How full his life would have been with her.
The joy.
So much damned joy.
“Oh, August,” she said softly, her palm curling against his cheek.
His eyes closed and he leaned into that benediction. “We always had the worst timing.”
“Th-the worst.”
“This would be a perfect time to give me one of those painfully bad jests,” she whispered. “D-Do you have one?”
A wistful goodbye.
“Not this time.” He smiled for her benefit—forgot his lips. “Maybe later.”
A fresh wave of tears filled her eyes. “Later.”
His stomach muscles seized.
She had already cried enough tears for him.
No.
Because of him.
The eldest Mr. Smith determined their time was at an end. “Come along, Meghan.”
He and Meghan looked at the executioner of their last moment together.
“And if I don’t?” she rejoined.
“You don’t have a choice, Meghan,” the older man said flatly.
Her mouth tightened.
Culross knew why.
Her brothers took her display as a show of temper. They didn’t have a brain between them to see how she resented the control they exerted over her.
She deserved so much more.
I will give you so much more…if you but let me…
The McQuoids and Smiths looked among one another.
A look passed between them.
Culross understood it—even if Meghan did not.
But she saw it.
“What?” she asked, glancing around the room.
Her brother rubbed the back of his neck.
Culross commiserated.
That’s where he carried his suffering—and his heart.
The bloody fucking irony.
“In a week’s time, we meet at dawn. Name your seconds.”
Meghan paled.
“What?”
Her brother reached for her.
“You have to understand—”
Meghan slapped the gentleman’s battered knuckles.
“I understand no such bloody thing,” she hissed.
“You stupid, stupid men!”
“There is no other choice,” Captain McQuoid put in quietly beside Culross.
“Oh, please do us the favor, Cousin, of you giving lessons on honor when you were the one who helped Linnie sneak off from her husband to join August,” Meghan spat, effectively silencing McQuoid.
She wasn’t even near done.
“In fact, if you weren’t all so fixated on making matches with the sisters and cousins you profess to love, none of this mess would have begun.”
Color hit the gentleman’s cheeks.
He clasped his hands behind his back and rocked.
Meghan tossed her shoulders back.
“I will tell you what is going to happen,” she said coolly.
“This”—she swirled her finger between Culross and Captain McQuoid—“ends now. With me.”
“If you kill him, it continues with August’s brother, Lord Kerr, and then when does it stop? Hmm?”
Meghan didn’t care for their answer.
“It ends with me.”
Her brothers’ expressions grew blacker.
Culross understood their plight.
Culross deserved death.
But then there was Meghan.
Clever-witted.
Breathtakingly bold.
Unceasing Meghan.
When no one wavered, Meghan lifted her chin.
That freckled chin.
He hadn’t kissed it enough.
He wanted to correct that mistake.
There must be some time, some place, in another future with her where he could.
“I will go with you willingly,” Meghan said quietly to her kin.
Something died inside Culross.
His mind screamed and raged and silently begged.
Please. Do not leave me.
Stay.
“If you promise not to duel him,” she finished.
Mr. Smith and McQuoid opened their mouths to speak.
“On your word as gentlemen. On your love of our family.”
Mr. Campbell Smith’s jaw worked.
He turned a glacial stare on Culross.
And a deal was struck.
One that saw Culross’s reason for living walk out—
Toward the future he yearned for.
With her.