When a Scot Ties the Knot (Castles Ever After #3)(6)

Aunt Thea hurried to excuse her niece. “You must forgive her, Captain. We believed you dead for years. She’s worn mourning ever since. To have you back again . . . well, it’s such a shock. She’s overwrought.”

“That’s understandable,” he said.

And it was.

Logan would be surprised, too, if a person he’d invented from thin air, then cravenly lied about for close to a decade, appeared on his doorstep one afternoon.

Surprised, shocked . . . perhaps even frightened.

Madeline Gracechurch appeared to be no less than terrified.

“What was it you mentioned wanting, mo chridhe? A poultice?”

“A posset,” Aunt Thea said. “I’ll heat one at once.”

As soon as her aunt had left the room, Logan tightened his grip around Madeline’s slender wrist, drawing her to her feet.

The motion seemed to help her find her tongue.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“I thought we covered that already.”

“Have you no conscience, coming in here as an imposter and frightening my aunt?”

“Imposter?” He made an amused sound. “I’m no imposter, lass. But I’ll admit—-I am entirely without conscience.”

She wet her lips with a nervous flick of her tongue, drawing his gaze to a small, kiss--shaped mouth that might otherwise have escaped his attention.

Wondering what else he might have missed, he let his eyes wander down her figure, from the untidy knot of dark hair atop her head to . . . whatever sort of body might be hiding under that high--necked gray shroud.

It didn’t matter, he told himself. He hadn’t come for the carnal attractions.

He was here to collect what he was owed.

Logan inhaled deep. The air hovering about her carried a familiar scent.

When you smell lavender, victory is near.

Her hand went to her brow. “I can’t understand what’s happening.”

“Can’t you? Is it so hard to believe that the name and rank you plucked from the air might belong to an actual man somewhere? MacKenzie’s not an uncommon name. The British Army’s a vast pool of candidates.”

“Yes, but I never properly addressed anything. I specifically wrote the number of a regiment that doesn’t exist. Never indicated any location. I just tossed them into the post.”

“Well, somehow—-”

“Somehow they found their way to you.” She swallowed audibly. “And you . . . Oh, no. And you read them?”

He opened his mouth to reply.

“Of course you read them,” she said, cutting him off. “You couldn’t be here if you hadn’t.”

Logan didn’t know whether to be annoyed or grateful that she kept completing his side of the conversation. He supposed it was habit on her part. She’d conducted a one--sided correspondence with him for years.

And then, once he’d served his purpose, she’d had the nerve to kill him off.

This canny little English heiress thought she’d come up with the perfect scheme to avoid being pressured into marriage.

She was about to learn she’d been wrong.

Verra wrong.

“Oh, dear,” she muttered. “I think I’ll be sick.”

“I must say, this is a fine welcome home.”

“This isn’t your home.”

It will be, lass. It will be.

Logan decided to give her a moment to compose herself. He made a slow circle of the room. The castle itself was remarkable. A classic fortified tower house, kept in a fair state of repair. This chamber they currently occupied was hung with ancient tapestries but was otherwise furnished in what he assumed to be typical English style.

But he didn’t care about carpets and settees.

He paused at the window. It was the surrounding land that interested him. This glen was ideal. A wide, green ribbon of fertile land stretched alongside the clear loch. Beyond it lay open hills for grazing.

These were the Highlands his soldiers had known in their youths. The Highlands that had all but disappeared by the time they’d returned from war. Stolen by greedy English landlords—-and the occasional fanciful spinster.

This would be home for them now. Here, in the shadow of Lannair Castle, his men could regain what had been taken from them. There was space enough in this glen to raise cottages, plant crops, start families.

Rebuild a life.

Logan would stop at nothing to give them that chance. He owed his men that much. He owed them far more.

“You,” she announced, “have to leave.”

“Leave? Not a chance, mo chridhe.”

“You have to leave. Now.”

She took him by the sleeve and tried tugging him toward the door. Unsuccessfully.

Then she gave up on the tugging and started pushing at him instead.

That wasn’t any help, either. Except, perhaps, as an aid to Logan’s amusement.

He was a lot of man, and she was a mere slip of a lass. He couldn’t help but laugh. But her efforts weren’t entirely ineffectual. The press of her tiny hands on his arms and chest stirred him in dangerous places.

He’d gone a long time without a woman’s touch.

Far too long.

At length, she gave up on the pulling and pushing, and went straight to her last resort.

Pleading. Big, brown calf’s eyes implored him for mercy. Little did she know, this was the least likely tactic to work. Logan wasn’t a man to be moved by tender emotion.