He shook his head, refusing to let her bait him. "If you think I'm harboring feelings for another woman, you have it all wrong. I dinna have any feelings, mo chridhe."
"That's another thing. I wish you'd cease calling me that. If you have no feelings, I don't know why you keep referring to me as 'your heart.' "
"My lack of feelings is precisely why it's easy to call you that. Because my heart means nothing to me at all."
"Be that as it may," she said, "am I to believe that you've lived chaste and hermit-like all your life?"
"No. Certainly not all my life. Just the past several years of it. And that's your fault, by the way."
"I fail to see how that's my fault."
"There was a time," he said, "when I enjoyed a great deal of female companionship. But then you put me in a cage with those damned letters of yours."
"I'm not understanding you."
"All the men believed I had a devoted sweetheart. They looked up to me, believed me to be loyal and devoted, too. None of them wanted to see that falter. They chased the camp-followers away from my tent. The other officers went to the brothels and left me to mind the camp. Our chaplain passed more time with fast ladies than I did." Agitated, he pushed a hand through his hair. "I haven't lain with a woman since what feels like Old Testament times."
She smiled a little. "Are you saying you were faithful to me?"
He rolled his eyes. "Not on purpose. Dinna dress it up as something it's not."
"Believe me, I'm trying very hard not to do that. But I have too much imagination. Now I'm picturing you huddled by a lonesome campfire while all the other officers are out carousing. You're holding one of my letters and caressing it like a lovesick . . ."
No, no, no.
Logan had to put a stop to that notion, here and now.
His hands went to her waist and he pulled her close, startling a little gasp from her. Her body met his, soft and warm.
"What I'm saying isna romantic. It's raw, primal, and entirely crude." He lowered his voice to a growl. "You, Madeline Eloise Gracechurch, have been driving me slowly mad with lust. For years."
Maddie couldn't decide whether to laugh hysterically or faint with joy. Her, an unwitting temptress? She had no idea how to respond to the idea.
So, naturally, she said the most juvenile thing possible.
"Me?"
In answer, he bent his head toward hers.
"Wait." She ducked away from the kiss. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing unless you want it." His thumb caressed an aching spot on her back. It was maddening, how he could melt her defenses with a single touch. "But I think you do want it. I know you're curious. I know how you responded to me last night."
"That's precisely why I need time. I'm not prepared for this. For what it might mean."
"It's only physical," he murmured, kissing her neck. "It doesna have to mean anything."
"I'm sure it wouldn't, for you. But I haven't yet cultivated that talent. I don't know how to make it not mean anything. I think too much, too hard. I invent meaning where there's none to be found. Soon I'll be telling myself that you're . . ."
"That I'm what?"
That you're in love with me.
That was the danger she had to guard against. She knew, rationally, that Logan was no such thing. But she also knew herself, and her heart was far too imaginative.
"Let's take a moment to think," she said. "What would happen if we didn't consummate the marriage?"
He stopped kissing her. "That is out of the question."
"Then maybe we're asking the wrong question. Perhaps there's another mutually agreeable solution. What if I were to lease the lands to you and your men? For a low rent, indefinitely."
He shook his head. "Not enough. You don't think my men had leases on the lands they already lost? The word of an English landowner is worthless in the Highlands now."
"I'm not just any English landowner. I'm one with a most compelling reason to keep my word. You could trust me."
"Trust you. That's something, coming from a woman who's lied to everyone in her acquaintance for years."
"I never lied to you."
His gaze held hers, intense. "Even if I could trust you, I canna trust the world. What if something happens to you?"
"What do you mean? If I were to die?"
"If you married elsewhere."
She laughed at the idea. "Me, marry elsewhere? Death is the more likely event. I'm so far on the shelf now, I've accumulated an inch-thick layer of dust."
"You're a gentlewoman. You come from good family. You're an heiress with property, and you're uncommonly pretty. I canna believe you'd have no prospects."
Maddie wanted to argue back at him, but her thoughts kept snagging on the fact that he'd called her uncommonly pretty.
He went on, "If you were to marry another--or die trying--the lands would pass to someone else. Then all your intentions and promises would be worthless. So a lease willna be acceptable."
She sighed. "None of this is acceptable."
Becky knocked and called up from the foot of the stairs. "Ma'am, Cook is asking how many for dinner this evening."
"Eight," Logan answered.
"Eight?" Maddie asked him.
"You, me, your aunt, and my men. Eight."
She shook her head. "We rarely have a formal dinner. Most evenings, I work late and then take a light repast in my room."
"Well, tonight you and I are going to welcome my men to dinner at a proper table. As husband and wife."
"This was supposed to be an arrangement of convenience. I thought we agreed that you would have your life, and I would have mine."
"And we will, once we're married fully and irrevocably. But as you've pointed out, that isna yet the case." He pulled a folded paper from his pocket. "Perhaps you'd prefer for everyone in England to read about your love affair with a pillow?"
"Logan, this isn't fair."
"I never promised you fairness. I promised you the letters in exchange for a proper marriage. I'm still waiting on my end of the bargain."
"You are such a rogue."
He gave her a devilish look. "I'm a Highlander, an officer, and a man who knows the meaning of 'incendiary.' I'm exactly what you asked for, mo chridhe. You shouldna have any complaint."
Then he left her, disappearing in a series of pounding, unapologetic footfalls. Tromping down the stairs as if he owned Lannair Castle already.
But he didn't, fully. Not quite yet.
Maddie had only one possible route of escape. She must find those letters. If she could find and destroy them, his claim on her would be gone, too. She'd been hoping to search for them this morning, but Lord Varleigh had called. She hadn't had the chance.
But Logan couldn't keep her from searching forever.
In the meantime, she would take inspiration from Fluffy--grow a thick, impenetrable shell around herself and stay inside it just as long as she dared.
Chapter Eight
Logan knew his bride hadn't been counting on hosting a half dozen soldiers at dinner. However, he would offer no apologies for including them. He needed to show them that this marriage was real, regardless of what had--or hadn't--happened in their bedchamber last night.
The castle's dining hall was certainly large enough to accommodate their makeshift clan. Even with five of his men, Maddie, her aunt, and Logan in attendance, they still didn't fill the whole table.
Most of all, the men deserved this--to sit down to a table laid with china and silver, and be served joints of roasted meat, jellied fruits, oysters, rich sauces, and more.
This was the lavish homecoming he'd promised them on the battlefield. And Logan didn't make promises he couldn't keep.
These men--broken-down and brash as they were--had been the closest thing to family Logan had ever known. He wasn't going to let them down.
For the first two courses, they simply ate in awed silence.
Rabbie, of course, would ruin it as soon as the edge o
f hunger was gone. "I must say, Mrs. MacKenzie, what the captain told us about you . . . Well, it did not do ye justice."
Maddie cast him a worried glance.
"Oh?" Aunt Thea asked. "What did Captain MacKenzie say about her?"
"Verra little, ma'am. But if it were me who'd been so fortunate, every man in the regiment would be sick of hearing my boasting."
Munro snorted. "Every man in the regiment was sick of hearing your boasting anyway."
With a bashful smile, Maddie set down her wineglass. She touched a fingertip to her collarbone, idly stroking up and down the slender ridge.
She did that when she was nervous, Logan had noticed. Unfortunately, the little gesture that she found soothing did not have a similar effect on him. On the contrary--it inflamed his every base desire.
He swallowed hard, unable to tear his gaze away from that single, delicate fingertip stroking back and forth. And back and forth. It was as though he could feel that gentle, teasing touch on his skin. Or on his--
"So, Captain," Callum said, sawing through a joint of mutton. "Now that we're all together, tell us the full story. Start at the beginning. How did ye woo her?"
Logan gave himself a brisk shake and turned his attention to his plate. "The usual way."
"As I told ye, ma'am," Rabbie said. "He's a man of few words."
"A man of few words?" Aunt Thea said. "But surely you're mistaken. Can this be the same man who wrote our Madling so many beautiful letters?"
"Letters?"
"Oh, yes. He sent our Madling reams of love letters. So eloquent and well expressed."
What the devil was this about? Logan sent a sharply inquiring glance at Maddie. She bit her lip and stared into her wine.
"I'm certain she saved them all. Madling, why don't you bring them down so the Captain can read a few? I always wished we could hear them in that delightful Scots brogue."
"That will not be necessary," Logan said.
"Perhaps not necessary," the older woman said, "but I think it would be sweet."
That word again. Sweet.
"No one wants to hear them."
At the far end of the table, Callum grinned. "Oh, I'd like to hear them."
His eager sentiment was seconded by every other man at the table, save Grant.
"Perhaps another time, Aunt Thea," Maddie said. "We're in the middle of a meal. The letters are in my dressing table all the way upstairs. As hostess, I can't leave our guests."
"It's out of the question," Logan agreed.
"Of course it is," Aunt Thea replied. "You stay right here, Madling. I'll go fetch them myself."
With that, the elderly woman was gone from the room before Logan and his men could even rise from their chairs as a mark of respect.
As soon as she was gone, Logan slid closer to his secretive bride. "What is she talking about?"
She murmured her response from behind her wineglass. "Well, I had to make up your side of the correspondence, didn't I? It wouldn't have been believable otherwise."
"And what, exactly, did this version of me say?"
A glint of amusement warmed her brown eyes. "Perhaps you should have made this inquiry before you pressured me into a hasty wedding. Whatever is in those letters, you're stuck with it now."
Holy God. Logan shuddered to imagine what utter foolishness a romantic sixteen-year-old chit like Madeline Gracechurch would put into the mouth of a Highland officer.
This could be bad. Verra bad.
"Perhaps we could make a trade," she whispered. "I'll give you back your letters if you give me back mine."
"Those aren't my letters in your dressing table."
"The ones I sent weren't your letters, either. And yet you claim possession of them. You can't have it both ways."
Her lashes gave a coy flutter. So this was what she turned into, given the smallest scrap of power over him. A saucy flirt.
Damned if he didn't like it. Confidence did more to enhance a woman's beauty than any kohl or rouge could manage. Lights sparkled at him from the depths of her dark eyes.
His appreciation dimmed swiftly when Aunt Thea returned to the dining room.
"Here we are."
She plunked an enormous stack of envelopes on the table. Logan marveled. There must have been at least a hundred of them. They were bound with a red velvet ribbon, which the older woman began to unknot.
Logan groaned inwardly.
This wasn't going to be bad. It was going to be a bloody disaster.
Rabbie rose to his feet and cleared his throat. "I'd be glad to offer my services for a dramatic reading."
Logan was tempted to launch a fork in Rabbie's direction. "That won't be necessary."
"So you'll do it?" Maddie asked.
"Yes."
In point of fact, there were few things on earth that Logan wanted to do less than read aloud from that menacing stack of parchment, and nearly all of those things involved spiders or entrails. But he didn't see that he had much choice. He couldn't allow any of his men to examine them too closely, or they would see the letters weren't written in his hand.
Maddie was right. Whatever was written in those missives, he couldn't disclaim it without disclaiming her. And disclaiming her meant giving up the lands his men so desperately needed.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
"Do give them here, Aunt Thea," Maddie said. "I'll choose my favorite one."
"One," he told her. "And only one."
After which he would burn the things and see that no one ever mentioned them again. Under penalty of pain.
But judging by the amused smile that tugged her lips as she sifted through the envelopes, Logan began to suspect he'd made a mistake in allowing Maddie to choose.
When she plucked a letter from the stack and handed it to him, grinning?
Logan didn't suspect any longer. He knew.
He'd made a grave error indeed.
"Read this one." Her voice lilted with false innocence. "It's one where you wrote me a poem."
Maddie watched his face carefully, awaiting Logan's reaction to this statement with giddy anticipation.
"A poem," he echoed.
Amazing. When he spoke the words, his jaw did not even move.
"Oh, yes. Two whole verses." She sipped her wine and savored his panicked expression.
At last, she had a moment of victory. This Highlander might have arrived out of nowhere and backed her into a corner, leaving her without options that didn't adversely affect the remainder of her life . . . but she had this one tiny banner of triumph over him.
And she intended to wave that banner now.
Rabbie laughed around a mouthful of food. "Never knew you were a poet, Captain."
"I'm not."
"Oh, don't be so modest," Aunt Thea said. "Yes, he sent our Madling a number of verses. Some of them were even good."
"This one was my favorite." Maddie smiled.
With a heavy sigh, Logan unfolded the letter. Then he set the paper on the table and reached into his sporran, withdrawing something unexpected.
A pair of spectacles.
When he fitted the unassuming wire frames to his face, the change in his appearance was immediate and profound.
Profoundly arousing, that was.
His features were still every bit as strong and unpolished, as though cut from granite with imprecise tools. As always, his jaw sported the shadowy growth of new whiskers--it seemed he could shave twice a day and never vanquish his inner barbarian. But the spectacles added an element of refinement to his masculine appeal. Not only refinement but civility as well. Humanity.
Strangely, they made her even more acutely aware of his raw animal nature. A lion might be trained to walk upright and wear a tailcoat, but one could never forget that beneath the manners, it was still a dangerous beast.
As Logan scanned the contents of the letter, Maddie imagined she could sense him craving violence.
From the far end of the table, his men began to urge and tease.
"Go on, then, Captain."
"What's the delay?"
"You could pass it here, and we'd read it ourselves."
"I wouldn't mind if they do," Maddie said.
He shot her a glare through those spectacles.
She felt it raise every hair on her arms.
At last, Logan cleared his throat. " 'My dear Madeline,' " he read in a bored, dispassionate tone. " 'The nights spent on campaign are long and cold, but thoughts of you keep me warm.' "
The men drummed the table in approval.
" 'I think often on the charms of your fair face. Your dark eyes. And your soft, creamy . . .' " He tilted the paper to peer at it. Suspense thickened the air like humidity. " ' . . . skin.' "
Rabbie whistled. "I was excited for a moment there."
"Good save, Captain," Callum added.
He pressed on, clearly eager to have it all over with. " 'When this war is over, I shall hold you in my arms and never let go. Until then, my love, I offer this verse.' "
"Well . . . ?"
Maddie had to press a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing aloud. She was ever so glad her talents ran to sketching and not poetry. Every verse she'd penned in adolescence was trite and insipid. As an adult, she would never willingly put her name to the horrid things.
Fortunately, she'd put Logan MacKenzie's name to every last one.
" 'To my truest love,' " he began.
"Go on," she urged. "I remember it precisely, if the ink is smudged. Let me know if you need help."
"I won't."
She leaned forward. "It begins like so. 'Were I a bird . . .' "
He exhaled with a sound of finality. Like a trapped hare with no escape, settling down to await its death.
Then he began to read aloud in that deep, resonant Scots burr.
"Were I a bird, I'd sing for thee.
Were I a bee, I'd sting for thee.
Were I a peak, I'd tower for thee.
Were I a tree, I'd flower for thee.
Were I a flute--"
The reading was interrupted as Callum began to cough with alarming violence. Rabbie slapped him on the back with vigor.
"Do I need to stop?" Logan asked. "Are you dying?"
Callum shook his head.
"Because I wouldna mind it if you were dying."
"No, no." At length Callum looked up with a reddened face and choked out, "Dinna mind me. Do go on."
"Were I a flute, I'd play for thee.
Were I a steed, I'd neigh for thee."
Now the coughing was contagious. All the men had succumbed. Even the servants had been afflicted. Maddie was fighting a powerful tickle in her throat, too.