She had been weak to agree to the union. Andromena and Fleur were so young. Far more virtuous and naïve andhopeful than Meghan. And when it came to McQuoids, she had considered herself one of the biggest romantics.
Meghan let her features show all her misery, regret, and pain.
“Nooo!” Andromena slapped her gloved palms over her mouth.
Just as the girls moved for her, Meghan found the willpower to lower her right lashes in a slow, playful wink.
Her sister and cousin flared their eyes.
With a forced laugh, Meghan made a quick snowball.
She’d already struck Andromena in the shoulder and made another missile before the pair regained their wits.
Andromena’s shriek filled the countryside.
“You gooses,” Meghan laughed, kicking snow at their skirts and lied through an enormous smile. “How can I be anything but overjoyed? I’ll be carrying on the McQuoid-marries-a-duke legend, married to one such as Hartwell?”
“I knew it!” Andromena cried. “You love the duke.”
She’d never said that, and never would.
“You are theworst, Meghan!” Fleur’s laughter told a different tale.
“Hide and fight!” Andromena let out that heralding cry that signaled the commence of a new match.
They bumped and stumbled into one another as they each sorted out where they sought to hide.
Wrestling her heavy silk and organza skirts, she stomped as fast as her legs would carry her through the snow, and in the opposite direction of the church.
Squinting, Meghan trudged through the snow. With every labored step, her wedding gown took on the added weight of snow and ice. And still she pushed, until her sister’s and cousin’s ebullient cries faded to distant background noise.
“…You do not wish to marry him…?”
And alone, Meghan finally answered. “No,” she whispered.
“Yes,” a ghost at her ear whispered, quiet as a blade drawn in the dark.
Meghan stilled. Her sister was a master at impersonating other voices. “Fleur?” she whispered, knowing her hope was in vain.
“Mm-mmm.”
Her pulse hammering loud in her ears, Meghan swung to face her visitor.
“Oh, God,” she strangled on her prayer.
His bicorn hat pulled low and the hood of his dark riding cloak pulled close, he possessed a menace that sent terror coursing through her veins. A masked highwayman, cloaked in black like the devil himself, smiled coolly. “Devil would be a more apt greeting,” he jeered.
Shout. Cry for help.Her throat was so thick, she struggled to get air into her lungs.
She opened her mouth to scream the countryside down.
“It is you or the girls playing back at the carriage,” he purred silkily. “My men are there. The moment your cry goes up, they belong to them.”
“You bastard,” she hissed.
He struck a pose. “Actually, I am not.”
The longer she kept him talking, the sooner help arrived.
