When a Scot Ties the Knot (Castles Ever After #3)(26)

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.