“Not personal?” Incredulity crept into the lady’s echo. “What matters, August?”
Strength, not sadness.
He could address her when she was like this.
“What matters, August?” she demanded again.
“Your family is powerful. I’m merely ensuring they don’t become even more so.”
He shrugged.
Meghan drew back. “This is a game to you, my lord?”
“Not a game,” he answered automatically. “War.”
“You bloody, pathetic man.” She hurled that last word like it scorched her tongue. “You and your ships and battles and the ruins you make of people’s lives. Your wars are nothing morethan games. You think nothing of taking lives. Hurting people. Destroying lives.”
“My life?”
Meghan slapped a palm hard against her chest. The crack resonated through the room.
“You destroyed my life.”
His chest shifted. He appealed to her reason.
“I did you a favor,” he said quietly. His act, though selfish, had been merciful in its own right.
Meghan stared at him as if he had sprouted four heads.
“Hartwell would have made you miserable.”
“He will make me miserable? Hartwell?” Meghan threw her hands up. “You abducted me on my way to my wedding!” she cried. “In the middle of a snowstorm and—”
She stopped mid-sentence.
“You sabotaged my carriage.”
She was a clever thing.
“A question?” he drawled. He had always enjoyed sparring with her.
“I could have been killed!”
Her voice rang around the room.
His eyebrows dipped together.
His men were skilled. He had not worried, but the lady was right. His stomach knotted uncomfortably. Anything could have gone—
“You dragged me to God knows which wharf we are at. All that I know is it’s dark, damp, and clearly dangerous.”
As if to punctuate the accuracy of her words, violent shouting and the shattering of glass erupted in the taproom downstairs.
Meghan’s voice climbed, quivering in a way that unsettled him.
He reached her in two long strides.
The rest of Meghan’s tirade ended on a gasp.
