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 saidnowhile 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.
