Then Meghan was gone.
She scooted out from under him, and then, pulling her knees into her chest, she folded her arms around them.
August pushed himself over and joined her at the side of the bed.
They sat in silence.
He hated it.
And Culross did not hate it for the reason he wanted to be hilt-deep inside her—though there was that too—but because stilted silences and anguished stretches of quiet never existed between them.
Culross angled his head enough to take all of her in.
His innards twisted.
So bloody forlorn.
He was tormented with self-imposed frustration: with himself for past decisions. Recent ones. All his mistakes before Meghan had been a road map of pain that led directly to her.
Culross pinched the dull pressure built up at the back of his neck. He watched the estuaries pass, the brig moving slowly, when all he wanted was to fly to Gretna Green and get something right with Meghan.
This crime, the one that left his proud, unbendable Meghan questioning, was an accidental one. The other, he was sitting on now and withholding until he—they—worked through their past. Otherwise, this fragile thing formed could end before it even had a chance.
Meghan went still.
“Do you know why I wanted her?”
Meghan gave something between a shake and a nod.
A small corner of his mouth lifted.
His courageous girl. Brave but telling him with that forlorn little tilt that she did not want to be.
“Your family’s flair for the romantic preceded them. It took nothing to ascertain what they sought: expand their shipping connections.” He turned a palm up. “Ah, but how does a family who ascribes to ideas like love matches reconcile their ruthless aspirations with what and who they really are?”
His mouth tightened.
“I never ascribed to feelings.” His mouth curled around that word out of habit.
Culross willed her to understand.
“I grew up on the sea. I lived on the sea. I’ll die on the sea. I wanted one thing, and one thing only—a merger.”
August stopped and looked to the broad stern windows overlooking the wake—the coastline continued fading. The water widening.
“I didn’t care and I told your family what they wanted to hear,” he said somberly. “They wanted a love match. I could do that. A charming word here, a grin there. A…” He grimaced. “Touch.”
Meghan’s face crumpled.
And his heart buckled and broke for it.
Culross refused to look away. He suffered with her.
“I am no different than any of the other nobles who want the right match. It could have been you.”
There was a strange ball in his throat, one he needed to clear several times.
“I couldn’t give a damn less about your sister,” he said tiredly.
