“You do not want to sail with me.”
He opened his mouth. “When did I say that?”
“You didn’t.” Meghan paused, her lower lip quavering. “You suggested it. It is because I am the worst sailor, August,” she whispered.
“Isuggestedit because you are bloody ill, Meghan, and I will not have you this way,” he said sharply, anger whipping through him.
At her for failing to understand, at himself for being unraveled.
Tears fell. Hers. Unlike the ones she had wept last night, these she kept in silence.
Somehow, they struck worse; pain leavened in his chest.
No, they all made him feel like he’d rather take a bullet to his breastbone. “Why are you crying now?” he demanded.
“You believe I am the worst sailor.”
Cursing, he yanked a handkerchief from his pocket and stalked over, angrily waving the fabric as he went. “You will not cry, madam.”
Defiant to the very marrow of her being, Meghan lifted her chin and cried more silent tears. She let him in and kept him out of her grief—all at the same time. Only this contrary, obstinate minx managed the feat.
“Yousaid that, Meghan,” he implored. It would be helpful if she remembered that important detail.
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “But you did not correct m-me.”
He didn’t know whether to laugh or launch himself overboard for having fallen so damned hard.
Culross reeled.
This was what love was then. The abandonment of all logic and reason, and a complete surrender to the incomprehensible.
“You will not have me sick, August. You will not allow me to cry?” Meghan demanded. “In what waywillyou have me?”
Culross stared at Meghan, seeing her again for the first time. Seeinghimselffor the first time.
“Happy,” he whispered. “I would see you happy.”
Meghan’s red-rimmed eyes rounded. “Oh.”
His own wonderment was reflected back in those depths. He had been sent to sea as so many lads were. The experience had thrilled. It had taught Culross everything he knew about order. It had taught him what mattered—but within that confined world. He had built his life on things. Power. The sea.
Never before on a person.
A knot in his throat moved. “Meghan—”
Knock. Knock. Kno—.
The moment was shattered.
At bloody last. “Enter!” he thundered before the third fist fully fell.
By God, it was he who had bloody summoned them. Culross dragged another hand through his hair. Did he think he needed the fourth announcing anyone other than himself? Even if it had been his command.
Six of his lads streamed in with buckets of water and a tub between them. Culross clasped his hands at his back and scrutinized their every move. “It is important to go out and walk around deck,” August explained while the small crew attended their work. Not once did either glance at her. They did not look Meghan’s way once. They knew he’d cut their eyes out.
“You are not a sailor yet, Meghan. But you will be,” he said, assuaging her fears.
“But what if I don’t take to it?”
