Ah. This would do.
Kerr frowned. “What in hell are they doing?”
The question held no humor. Born to Mad Jack Kerr, the late viscount whose excesses had been legend, his son had dedicated himself to a life of severity. Discipline. Purpose. Everything his father had scorned.
“Hide and snowball fight,” Culross said quietly, barely moving his lips, keeping the words as soundless as possible. Not that there was any remote chance the three brainless chits could hear him. Even if they did, it would not matter. They were no match for him alone—let alone with his two ruthless counterparts at hand. Their fates this day were sealed, and not in the foolishly romantic fashion Meghan believed. “It is their wintertime version of hide-and-seek.”
“Hide-and-seek?” his quartermaster echoed, his confusion mirroring the bafflement Culross himself had once met the game with upon his entry into the family. Confusion and more than a little disgusted.
In truth, when the McQuoids and Smiths invited him into their fold last year, Culross had not been disgusted.Unmooredwas the truer word for his response.
Tinkling laughter rang incessantly across the snow-covered grounds.
“How old are these women we are abducting?” Kerr asked coolly. “We’re certain they’re not actually children?”
For the first time since Culross had come to them with his scheme, his quartermaster voiced a reservation.
“They are women.” Culross cataloged the ages without inflection. “The eldest, I believe, twenty-four. Maybe twenty-five.”
“Twenty-four.” Alec rubbed his gloved hands briskly together. “Are we certain these ladies are right in the head?”
Culross could account for only one of them.
Miss Meghan Smith.
Sharp as a blade. Tongue honed. Spirit unbowed. Wit quick enough to draw blood. They were dangerous qualities, particularly in a woman who did not yet understand how much danger she was in.
Alec’s predatory gaze followed one of the ladies scampering through the snow. “I believe the lack of assurance confirms the ladies are stark raving mad.”
His jaw worked once. He sent a silencing glare his brother’s way.
The sharp sting of ice and snow cut through Culross’s hood and mask. He registered it distantly, the cold, the wind, the weight of stillness. Everything else narrowed to timing.
The time was now.
Culross raised two fingers at his face and crooked them inward.Advance. In the deafening roar of battle, sailors adapted or died. This war Culross fought would be his most important one.
After Culross, Alec, and Kerr fell into position in sight of one another, each taking a vantage over the hollow, he held his hand flat and pushed it downward.
Hold.
They would need to strike cleanly. Decisively.
And Culross knew all too well the peril of complacency. Indecision. The last journey he’d sailed had been with Captain Arran McQuoid and Linnie Smith. He’d been so singularly focused on spiriting the lady away, and hammering that wedge between their families, he’d failed to heed the threat approaching at sea.
The deafening echo of cannon fire. The clang of blades striking blades. The curdling screams. Those sounds of war had haunted him. At night, he’d welcomed the demons. He’d let them in. He forced himself to confront the memories—to master them, or be mastered.
He chose the former.
It was why, this time, there would be no mistakes. And why McQuoid and Tremaine would remain forever trapped by their own.
Let the driver gain just enough distance to feel secure. Not so much that the careless fool had time to reach the members of the bridal party capable of mounting a meaningful defense.
Through the thickening snowfall, Culross studied the churned footprints dotting the ground. The young chits played like puppies—heedless, laughing, blind to the threat closing around them.
He remained with his palm pushed downwards. His lip peeled in a faint sneer.
Had he been a man of honor, he might have felt a flicker of pity, for Meghan, for her companions—and contempt for the gentlemen who had failed so spectacularly in their duty to protect them.
