Chapter 19
The problem with being part of the McQuoid family is that when one had one’s heart broken, everyone knew about it.
Everyone.
And the problem with the McQuoids—one of the many, many problems—is that they tried their absolute best to pretend they weren’t watching or talking about the one suffering.
Unfortunately for Meghan’s family, they did not possess her same superior acting skills.
All this to mean for Meghan, there was nowhere to go.
There was no escape.
No place to hide.
And Meghan knew—she had done her very best. There was no quarter, which only made Meghan think about daring sea ventures and the captain who had stolen her heart and broken it and—
She had been so very certain he would come for her.
Sorrow as fresh as it was twelve days, twelve hours—Meghan glanced at the very accurate La Turque pendulum clock behind her—fourteen minutes, and a handful of seconds.
“Turn it over.”
Meghan looked up at the intrusion. “Hmm?”
Her brother Oleander, on the other side of the sofa, pointed the tip of his wood sword at Meghan’s book. “It’s upside down. If you want them to avoid you, turn it over.”
“Do it,” he said when she did not move fast enough. The way he spoke from the corner of his mouth and shot furtive glances about, Meghan believe she had stumbled upon a strategy he used to avoid McQuoid-Smiths.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He grunted.
Making sure no one caught her in the act, Meghan flipped the random title she had grabbed—and never looked at again—when she followed her family in after supper.
Her eyes welled up. She trailed a finger along the gilded title.
Oleander frowned. “What tragedy did you grab?”
Meghan shook her head. She couldn’t. It hurt so bad. Everything did.
“…This would be a perfect time to give me one of those painfully bad jests… D-do you have one…?”
“…Not this time…maybe later…”
Oleander leaned over until his nose touched the cover. “Joe Miller’s Jests? Surely the jokes are not that bad?” he muttered to himself.
Her younger brother used his sword-free hand to flip through the pages. “A Gentleman eating some Mutton that was very tough, said it put him in Mind of an old English Poet: Being asked who that was; Chau—cer, replied he…”
He groaned. “That really is quite rot. Let me help you.” Coming around, he pushed the pages open, and hefted the small tome on either side of his sword.
And amidst the really, truly terrible days, there were moments such as these, with her family…
Balancing the object of offense, Meghan’s brother did a juggling act across the room.
“Oleander,” Mama murmured from behind her copy of The Times as her son sailed past. “Whatever are you doing?”
Ignoring their mother, Oleander caught Meghan’s gaze from across the library.
He gave her a smart salute, and then—
Meghan gasped.
—her brother flipped the jest book into the fire. Any other time Meghan would have caught him by the ear. One didn’t go about turning a book into kindling, but…
Meghan stilled. Kindling.
Her eyes slid shut and, in her mind’s eye, she saw her and August next to that fire. How good it had felt to rest her head on his shoulder.
How good it had felt to do so many things with him.
Therein lay the problem for Meghan.
August? Every thought led back to him—the only man she had loved, did love, and would ever love.
A fresh wave of laughter swelled in the billiards room.
Crack-Crack-Crack-Crack.
How happy all the McQuoid men were.
It wasn’t fair. They shouldn’t be. At least, not the ones who had beat him so badly and forced her to leave him behind.
August had been supposed to follow.
Meghan thought she had been clear, or as clear as she could be with her angry brothers and cousin spoiling for blood. She would get them off the ship. There would be no duel. Then, August would come for her.
She had asked him for a jest. That was their clue.
“Not this time…maybe later.”
Maybe later? He had said, “Maybe later.” Well, what else did maybe later mean, if not that?
Perhaps he was still searching for the right joke.
They always had the worst timing…
He had said that too.
Meghan’s heart ached. It always ached. She sniffed several times. With the room’s attention otherwise engaged—for now—Meghan discreetly wiped at her nose.
A kerchief appeared over her shoulder. The monogrammed initials dangled before her eyes, twisting back and forth. She went cross-eyed, and…
The fabric settled.
“JT”
Accept Captain Jeremy Tremaine’s kerchief from Linnie?
Beg to decline.
In her head, she imagined waving Oleander over for his next fireplace act.
In the moment, Meghan had no other choice but to take the token from Linnie.
When her sister joined her, Meghan forced a smile. Her fake smile became a real smile.
“Let me see you,” Meghan cooed, already taking Baby Orabelia from Linnie. “You are so cute. Yes, you are. And you know it.”
The beautiful babe with curls as black as her da’s hair made nonsensical baby sounds, with some vaguely word-sounding ones thrown in.
It was hard to be a complete curmudgeon when Baby Orabelia was about.
Wee bairns. That was something that carried no memories…
Meghan’s smile froze; she stared unblinkingly at the babe she held under the arms, Orabelia’s tiny toes almost touching Meghan’s lap.
Which Meghan’s niece seemed to take for the grandest game in the world, for she beat her little hands together in a version of a clap.
Babies.
August would be such a wonderful da, but it would not be her babe, as she had already had her courses.
Her face crumpled.
Jubilant laughter boomed, the gaiety so big it shook the walls, from three doors down.
That was the other problem. The laughter.
So. Much. Laughter.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“It?” Meghan asked.
“Lord Culross.”
There, someone had said his name to Meghan.
“I love him,” Meghan said softly. What else was there to say? "You know that.” All their family knew.
The tiptoeing about her was worse than the laughter—
Her family in the other room roared with hilarity.
—Sometimes.
“I did not know that though,” Linnie said when the noise from the other room quieted. “Do you understand, Meghan? If I had known for a moment that you were in love with him, I would have never encouraged the suit.”
“Yes, well, we both encouraged suits that we oughtn’t.”
Linnie winced.
Yes, the matter of the broken betrothal with Linnie’s brother-in-law, the Duke of Hartwell, was still something of a sore subject for all.
Except Linnie.
“I cannot believe they will not let me join.” The springs of the green velvet sofa bounced as Fleur, with a book in her hands—one she was actually reading—plopped into the seat between Meghan and Linnie.
“If I had known making my debut meant there would be no more billiards with the boys, I would have… I would have…”
Meghan and Linnie looked at Fleur.
The younger girl sighed. “I would have played more billiards.”
“Bbbbbil,” Orabelia babbled.
Meghan and Linnie erupted in cheers. “That is right, billiards, you smart girl!”
“I, for one, do not want anything to do with the boys.”
The trio on the sofa tipped their heads backwards.
Andromena dropped a hip in the sloped curve of their crowded seating. “I still haven’t forgiven Arran, Brone, and Campbell for letting Meghan believe Lord Kerr and—”
“Lord Archdale,” Fleur finished her cousin’s sentence.
“Could just pluck us up.”
Andromena pulled a face.
When Meghan arrived home nursing her broken heart, she learned the truth—her sister’s and cousin’s ruination had been thwarted before it began, and by the girls themselves.
Another round of laughter.
Meghan gritted her teeth.
Bloody controlling men.
How bloody unfair it was how happy the McQuoid men were when they had manipulated things so.
God must have agreed with Meghan.
All amusement from the billiards room cut out on an unnatural silence.
“Absolutely not,” Campbell shouted. “You can show him the goddamned door is what you can show him.”
“Yes, Mr. Smith,” the Earl of Abington’s butler informed. “I have said as much, and he indicated he will take this meeting on the pavement.”
“On the pavement…?” Mother said confusedly. “Whyever would a gentleman conduct business so? Truly strange.”
Meghan, and every other McQuoid-Smith lass, went still.
Meghan curled her hands—
It is just because you want it to be him…but it is not him, because it has been one fortnight,
—and pulsed them: One. Two. Three.
Somewhere in the house, Brone shouted.
Meghan sprang to her feet.
Oleander, with his sword, beat her there.
Meghan skidded to a stop to keep from colliding into his back.
Which only led to Meghan’s cousins, sisters, and mother knocking into Meghan—and one another.
“Please, ladies.” Oleander took them to task. “Some decorum.” Muttering to himself, the boy unfastened the latches and pushed the doors open. “Afternoon, Culross.”
Culross.
“Mr. Smith.”
Around Meghan, her family whispered and sighed.
The happy sighs.
Not the fake ones.
August. Meghan’s eyes slid shut. It was him.
Every day, she had prayed to God, and then she had pleaded. And when August still had not come for her, she had railed at the Lord.
And then promptly began to pray forgiveness for being so cross with God…and now, well, August was here.
She had dreamed what he would say, imagined it. None of those dreams began with him speaking Oleander’s name.
“May I be of service, as the rest of the gentlemen in my family are a bunch of nobs, and won’t see you.”
She pressed a hand to her racing heart. Just because he is here doesn’t mean it is for me.
“I am here for your sister, Miss McQuoid Smith.”
Oleander paused. “Which one?” The boy grunted as he fielded a number of direct hits from the ladies at his back. “Ow, would you stop. It is important to clarify on account one never knows which one of my sisters Culr—”
“Meghan.” August thundered away the rest of boy’s words. He shouted loud enough for all Mayfair to hear.
Meghan dusted both palms over her cheeks to wipe her tears.