Logan plowed on, no doubt hoping to kill them all dead. Then there would be no witnesses.
"Were I a fire, I'd burn for thee.
But being a man, I yearn for thee."
He flung the paper down on the table and whipped off his spectacles. "All my love and et cetera. That's the end." She thought he heard him mutter bitterly, "The end of all dignity."
Quiet reigned for a long moment.
"I have a most excellent cough remedy in my medicine box," Aunt Thea finally remarked. "Captain, I think several of your men could do with a dose."
Maddie motioned to the servants to clear the plates and bring dessert.
"There's one thing I'm not understanding," Rabbie said, leaning both elbows on the table. "Why did she get the idea ye were dead?"
Maddie paused. She'd never needed to think through this part. "Well, I . . ."
"There was a farewell letter in my sporran," Logan said. "To be sent in case I died in battle. I thought I'd lost it, but evidently I'd posted it by mistake."
Rabbie's brow wrinkled. "But that explains why she stopped writing you. Why'd you stop writing her?"
Callum put in, "It isna obvious? He believed she'd lost interest. So many of our sweethearts did."
"He should have had more faith in me." Maddie reached over and squeezed Logan's hand. "You dear, silly man."
He gave her a stern look: Now you're pushing it too far.
A prickle of awareness went through her. She didn't doubt that the moment they were alone, he was going to push back.
Chapter Nine
Suddenly, dinner couldn't last long enough.
It was with a heavy sense of foreboding that Maddie bid her aunt and Logan's men good night. As she and Logan mounted the stairs together, she felt the unspoken tension between them reaching new levels.
"I had Becky make up a proper room for you," she told him, pausing at the door of her bedchamber. "It's just down the corridor."
He shook his head. "We're going to share a room, lass."
He opened the door and walked through, making himself at home.
She said, "Where I'm from, most married couples don't share a bedchamber."
"Well, you're in the Highlands now." He flung his boot to the corner. It landed with a thud. "And here, we do. If you think I suffered through that bloody poem of yours just to leave you at the threshold, you're gravely mistaken."
He pulled his other boot loose and set to work on his clothing next.
Maddie couldn't help but stare. She wondered if he had any idea how attractive he was right now, just going about the everyday business of preparing for bed. His every motion fascinated her.
He pulled his shirt over his head and cast it aside. The muscles of his shoulders and back were perfectly defined by the firelight.
He moved to the washstand and poured water in the basin, then went about soaping his face and swabbing his neck and torso with a damp cloth.
He would smell of that soap if he joined her in bed and pulled her close. Soap and clean male skin.
She shook herself.
"You really need your men to believe in this, don't you? Our marriage."
He rinsed his face, then pushed damp hands through his hair. "They've had a rough time of it, marching from one hellish place to another, then coming home to find they've no home left. I dinna want them to worry they'll be forced to move on from here."
As always, Maddie found his devotion to his men distressingly sympathetic, but she could not let it distract her from the topic at hand.
"You," she said, "are a complete hypocrite."
He answered her while brushing his teeth. His speech was muffled. "How do you reckon that?"
"You would hold me over the flame for telling a lie when I was sixteen. Yet you have also deceived those around you, and for the same length of time."
After rinsing his mouth, he turned to face her. "I did not lie. I merely . . ."
"Failed to contradict mistaken assumptions. For years. It is the same thing, Logan. Deceit by omission, if not an outright falsehood. You let those men believe we've had a relationship, and now you are every bit as invested in maintaining that lie as I am. Do you know what I think? I think you're all bluster. I could refuse to cooperate, turn you out of the castle, and you'd never take those letters to the scandal sheets."
His voice darkened. "It would be a mistake to underestimate me."
"Oh, I don't underestimate you. I can see just how deeply you're invested in your pride. How much the worship of those men means to you."
"It's not their worship. It's their trust. And yes, it means everything to me. I promised them that if they stood by me on the battlefield, they'd return to a life here in the Highlands. I am unashamed to lie, cheat, steal, or blackmail, if that's what it takes to keep that promise."
He advanced on her, and Maddie fell back a step, then two, in retreat. Until her legs collided with the edge of the bed. He had her cornered.
"And speaking of traits we have in common," he said, sliding one finger along her collarbone. "I've learned a thing or two about you. I noticed how you flirted with me downstairs."
"Flirted? Don't be absurd."
"You stare at me. You're fascinated."
"It's just the kilt."
"It might be partly the kilt. It's mostly the swagger."
"The swagger?" She tried to laugh. But he was right, he did have swagger. An abundance of sheer male arrogance and the strength to carry it. And it was, to Maddie's eyes, fascinating.
"You were undressing me with your eyes."
"What?" The word came out as a strange little squeak. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Even if I were--and I wasn't--it would be purely out of artistic interest."
"Artistic interest, my arse."
"Sorry to disappoint you, but I have not, as of yet, developed an artistic interest in your arse."
He leaned close to speak in her ear. Heat built between their bodies. "You," he whispered, "are every bit as desperate to consummate this marriage as I am."
"That's preposterous."
"Lass, I dinna think it is."
She put her hand to his chest--partly out of a need to hold him off, and partly out of desire to touch his bare skin. He was so warm, and more solid than she could have imagined. His chest hair tickled against her palm.
Oh, Maddie. You are in so much trouble.
She had to regain control of this conversation, and fast.
"You speak about needing a home, not wanting to move on . . . but it's not only your men you're concerned for. No one's that selfless. You must want this land for yourself, too."
He fell back a step, breaking their contact. "I never had a home to begin with. Didna have one to lose, so I'll never know what I've been missing. I'm the lucky one that way."
Oh, no. Not the tragic orphan story again.
Her heart gave a foolish twinge.
She gathered up some nightclothes and ducked behind the screen, desperate to hide from him and his disadvantaged past, and from her own silly feelings.
A great many people grew up orphaned, she reminded herself as she shimmied out of her frock and donned her nightrail. That didn't excuse him. Maddie had lost her own mother at a young age.
But then again, she'd always had a home. She'd certainly never been forced to sleep with the cows and live on a few crusts a day.
There it went again, that pang of emotion.
Maddie resolved to simply ignore it. Logan MacKenzie was blackmailing her into marriage. He'd given her a secondhand engagement brooch. She had no logical reason to feel sympathy for him.
She must have too much feeling pent up in her, that was all. Too much tenderness and affection, with no means to dispel it. Not even any proper pets. Only dead beetles and frigid lobsters.
She took her time washing and brushing her hair and buttoning up her shift all the way to her neck, hoping he might fall asleep before she even finished preparing for bed. At the very least, any ardor he migh
t have been feeling should have cooled.
When she finally emerged from behind the screen, she felt certain she would have no difficulty resisting him.
She was dead wrong. This was even worse than she'd feared.
Pang, went her heart.
Pang, pang, pang.
He was lying in bed, a loose shirt hanging open at the neck to reveal a wedge of his chest. His brow was lightly furrowed in concentration, and those spectacles were perched on the strong bridge of his nose. One muscled arm was flexed and propped behind his head. And in the other hand, he held . . .
Devil take him. Heaven help her.
A book.
Not just any book, but a thick one bound in dark green leather. And he was reading the thing.
Those twinges of emotion had grown so strong that they had her nearly doubled over. Little fireworks of longing were bursting in her chest.
Not only in her chest but lower, too. Some cord running from her heart to her womb hummed like a plucked harp string.
He looked up from the book and caught her staring. "Is there something the matter?"
"Yes, there's something the matter. Logan, this is bad."
"What's bad?"
"Here I am, struggling to banish any foolish imagined affections for you so that we can consummate this marriage of convenience in a proper businesslike fashion, as we agreed. And then you go and read a book?"
While he was at it, why didn't he just bring her a basket of kittens, a bottle of champagne, and pose naked with a rose caught between his teeth?
He pulled a face. "I'm trying to get some rest, that's all. I only read when I want to fall asleep."
He turned a page with one hand, hooking it with his thumb and dragging it from right to left while keeping his other arm tucked securely under his head.
The deft, practiced nature of it stirred her suspicion. She eyed the well-creased spine of the volume. The book's pages showed the wear of being thumbed from right to left, again and again, all the way to the end.
He only read to fall asleep, he claimed? Oh, yes. And falcons only took wing out of boredom.
A terrible sense of affinity swamped her. For all her life, making the acquaintance of another book lover had felt like . . . well, rather like meeting with someone from her own country when traveling overseas. Or how she imagined that would feel if she ever traveled overseas.
The love of books was an instant connection, and a true boon for a girl who tended toward shyness, because it was a source of endless conversation. A hundred questions sprang up in her mind, jostling with each other to reach the front of the queue. Did he prefer essays, dramas, novels, poems? How many books had he read, and in which languages? Which ones had he read again and again?
Which ones had felt as though they'd been written just for him?
He turned another page, less than a minute after turning the last.
"You," she accused, "are a reader. Be honest."
It made perfect sense, too. After all, who else would read and reread the rambling, silly letters of a sixteen-year-old ninny?
A devoted reader, that's who. One stuck with nothing else for reading material.
"Fine," he said. "So I read. It's difficult to attend university without some practice in the habit."
"You went to university, too?"
"Only for a few months."
She lifted the coverlet and climbed into her side of the bed. "When you spoke about not having a home, I assumed you had grown up without the advantages of education."
"I was born with no advantages at all."
"Then how did you attend university?"
"When I was ten or so, the local vicar brought me into his household. He fed and clothed me, and gave me the same education as his own sons."
"That was generous and kind of him."
His lips gave a wry quirk. "Generous, perhaps. But kindness had nothing to do with it. He had a plan in mind. He called me 'son' just long and convincingly enough that when every family was compelled to send a son to war, he could send me. So that his own sons--the real sons--would be safe."
"Oh." She winced. "Well, that's not so kind. It's rather terrible, actually. I'm sorry."
His gaze darted to his arm.
It was only then that Maddie realized she'd reached out to touch it.
"I'm sorry," she repeated, withdrawing the touch.
He shrugged. The sort of gruff, diffident shrug boys and men made when they want to say, I don't care at all about it.
The sort of shrug that had fooled no woman, ever.
"I got a bed, my meals, and an education from it. Considering what my life would have been otherwise, I canna complain." He closed the book and set his spectacles aside.
No, he wouldn't complain. But he was hurt, and it showed. He'd been given all the material benefits of a family, but none of the affection.
None of the love.
Oh, Lord. Now he was not only an impoverished orphan but an impoverished, unloved orphan with a passion for books. Her every feminine impulse jumped to attention. She was vibrating with the worst possible desires. The instinct to soothe, to comfort, to nurture, to hold.
"That pitying look you're giving me," he said. "I dinna think I like it."
"I don't like it, either."
"Then stop making it."
"I can't." She fluttered her hands. "Quickly, say something unfeeling. Mock my letters. Threaten my beetles. Just do something, anything reprehensible."
Tension mounted as he stared at her.
"As you like."
In an instant, he had her flipped on her back. His fingers went to the buttons of her nightrail.
And Maddie had absolutely no will to resist.
He gave her a wolfish look. "I trust this will do."
She heard herself say, "Yes."
Logan made short work of those tiny buttons guarding the front of her shift. He worked with brusque, ruthless motions. There was nothing of seduction in his intent.
This was her penalty for kindness. She had to learn that her sweet-tempered curiosity came with a cost. He would teach her to lay soft touches to his arm. To look straight into his soul with those searching dark eyes and have the temerity to care.
She'd asked for this.
He had undressed a fair number of women. But when he slipped loose the buttons of her chemise, he was trembling to see whatever lay beneath. He wasn't choosy about breasts. Large ones, pert ones. Dark nipples or fair. Alabaster or freckled. So far as he was concerned, the most comely pair of breasts in the world was always the pair he was currently tasting.
But nothing had prepared him for this.
When he pushed the panels of linen to either side, he couldn't believe the sight that awaited him. He'd been expecting an expanse of creamy, delicate skin.
Instead, he found a pale expanse of . . . more linen.
"I canna believe this. You're wearing two shifts."
She nodded. "I put the inner one on backward. Just as an extra layer of defense."
That would explain why he couldn't find another row of buttons.
"You didna trust me?"
"I didn't trust myself," she said. "It seems I was right not to. Look at me."
Logan didn't know whether to be offended by this strategy or impressed at her cleverness. She'd created her own virgin armor.
And he was tempted to play ravishing pirate. Seize the fabric in his hands and rend it down the middle, spilling her bosom free for his plundering.
But why go to that trouble when the linen in question was this fine, this supple and frail? He ran one hand upward, claiming the rounded swell of one breast.
She sucked in her breath. Her flesh quivered beneath his touch. He waited to see if she'd ask him to stop.
She didn't.
"I told you it will be good between us," he murmured.
"I seem to recall that promise. Was it verra good you said? Or verra verra good?"
He palmed her breast fully now, kneading and squee
zing. With his thumb, he found her nipple and teased it to a tight, straining peak. Back. And forth.
"Verra . . . verra . . . verra good."
His own blood pounded in his veins, all of it making a mad rush in one direction--down. Beneath the bed linens, his cock began to throb and harden.
He moved his attention to her other breast, spreading his fingers wide to stretch the fabric to its sheerest. God, she was lovely. Perfect pink-tinged flesh capped with a small, reddish nipple that looked as though it would taste of berry wine.
Her breath caught. "Could you . . ."
Logan froze at once. When she said nothing further, he lifted his head and met her gaze.
Damn. Why had he given her the chance? Now, even if she hadn't been planning it, she was going to ask him to stop. And then he would have to stop, because he wasn't the sort of man who'd continue.
The business of war and killing stripped a man of his humanity. Over his decade in the army, he'd seen soldiers--even ones that wore the same uniform--commit the vilest of acts against women. Sometimes he'd been in a position to stop it; other times, not. But misusing women was the one line Logan had never crossed.
He didn't view it as a point of pride. He didn't deserve any medals for it. But it let him know he'd held on to a scrap of his soul.
He wouldn't surrender that now. Not even for the chance to hold her tonight.
Don't, lass. Don't ask me to stop.
She said, "Could you at least kiss me when you do that?"
Relief and desire crashed through him.
"Aye. That I can do."
He bent his head and drew that berry-wine nipple into his mouth, suckling her straight through that damned extra chemise.
Judging by her sharp gasp, that wasn't the kiss she'd been expecting. But she didn't complain.
Logan was in paradise. She was sweet. So sweet that his brain went light as air, and he couldn't hold back a low moan.
He licked over her nipple, then moved in widening circles, painting the sheer linen to her breast. He paused to admire the transparent effect, then rolled atop her so that he could better start in on the other side.
What with the two shifts cocooning her body, he couldn't settle between her legs. Instead he braced his knees on either side of her thighs.
And his cock wedged right where it wanted to be.
When their bodies met, she gave a startled gasp. And then he moved against her, and her gasp became a low, sweet sigh.
Yes.
"That's it." He rocked his hips against hers. "Do you feel it? It's only the beginning, mo chridhe."