“What else is there?” A sad smile touched her lips. “Aside from enemies.”
His jaw worked.
For a moment, his control slipped. Heat crawled up the back of his neck.
He saw what she was doing…
Or what she attempted to do.
“It is time to leave,” Culross said.
He stiffened, prepared for her fight, welcoming it.
“Yes. Lord Greyhold informed me.”
Greyhold certainly had not mentioned how Meghan would leave this establishment—wrapped in a carpet and carried aboard Culross’s ship.
“Where is your fight?”
“He insisted I be concealed aboard the ship for my safety. That made sense.”
Meghan lifted one eyebrow.
That slight auburn arch that highlighted her red-rimmed eye.
“Do you want me to fight you?” She sounded amused.
Culross locked every muscle rigid with restraint.
“If you do,” he said silkily, “you will regret it.”
Meghan lifted her chin. “When this is said and done, the only one who will regret anything, August, is you.”
“Who will make me pay, Meghan?” He weaponized his grin. “The duke?”
Her shoulders squared.
“The same devoted chap you crawled across the floor to avoid at Rutland’s?”
Meghan gasped. “How dare—”
“How dare I speak the truth?” Culross laughed—cold and cutting. “Which would you rather, Meghan? That I lie as I often do, or give you the truth raw as it stands?”
“Please.” She spat the word like a nail driven home. “Let us not pretend there is anything honorable about you, Lord Culross.”
Had she been a man, he would have cut her down for the insult. The sting was worse because it was true. There was nothing honorable about him. And even so, he would not endure her disrespect.
“I should bend you over my knee for that,” he snarled.
The image tightened his body with brutal heat.
Meghan’s face flushed the prettiest shade of defiance. “You wouldn’t dare!”
Ah. But he would.
“Once again, you prove how little you know me, Meghan.” He lowered his lashes. “I not only dare, kitten. I would relish it.” He let his gaze linger deliberately. “And you would love it even more, sweetheart.”
Meghan stared at him, her already enormous eyes wider still, ablaze.
