When a Scot Ties the Knot (Castles Ever After #3)(77)

She pressed her hand to his cheek and looked into his eyes. “I won’t leave you. You’re not going to die. Munro is going to patch you up. I’m going to be right here while he does. Neither you nor I are going anywhere.”

Rabbie returned with an armful of dark bottles. Munro uncapped and sniffed them, one by one. He handed a dark green vial to Maddie. “This should do.”

She placed the bottle to Logan’s lips. “Now drink this.”

He did as she asked, choking down the bitter liquid with barely a grimace. His eyelids began to grow heavier at once.

“Munro.” Logan turned his head from side to side, seeking the surgeon. “Munro, do you see this woman beside me?”

“Aye,” Munro answered. “I see her.”

“You see how bonny she is?”

Maddie blushed.

“Aye,” the surgeon said, smiling. “I do.”

“Well, we’ve been married for weeks now,” Logan said, lifting his head groggily. “I’ve only bedded her the one night. And I’ll be damned if that night will be the last. You had better mend me, Munro. I have a lot of pleasuring to do.”

“Understood, Captain.”

Maddie’s face burned, but she couldn’t help but laugh. She pressed a kiss to Logan’s forehead.

“Maddie . . .” His voice grew thick. He sounded as though he were speaking to her from a dark, deep well. “Mo chridhe, I . . . I . . .”

“Hush,” she told him, holding back tears. “I’ll stay with you, Logan. Always. Just please promise you’ll stay with me.”

Logan came through the surgery easily enough—-or so he later assumed, given that he could not remember it. It was the days afterward that threatened to dig him an early grave.

A fever set in the evening after Munro had removed the knife from his thigh.

The next few days were a blur of fitful sleep, racking chills, cool cloths swabbed over his body, weak broth offered to him on spoons . . .

And dreams.

His sleep was a riot of wild, vivid dreams. So many dreams that he suspected his mind was compensating for those lost years of darkness. He dreamed of -people and places he’d long forgotten. He dreamed of battlefields and bedsport.

Most of all, he dreamed of Madeline. Her dark eyes and her slender fingers, and her sweet, essential taste.

When he finally woke, his fever broken and his mind at rest, she was right there beside him.

But the woman would not let him get out of bed.

For anything.

Sponge baths were not nearly so amusing as a man might think they’d be. Not even when administered by a beautiful woman.

On the third straight day of his invalid treatment, Logan rebelled. “I hope you know I despise every moment of this.”

“I do know.” She swabbed him under the arm with a soapy sponge. “That’s why I’m enjoying it so much.”

“I’m perfectly able to do for myself now. I’m well.”

“Oh, no. I’m sentencing you to a full week of nursing in bed. If you do well with that, next Tuesday I might start letting you spoon your own parritch.”

Logan grumbled in response.

“That’s what you get for being heroic and saving my life.”

She leaned forward over him, plumping his pillow. The pose gave him an unobstructed view down the valley of her cleavage.

“Be careful, lass. You’re brushing close to danger.”

She smiled. “You’re no danger to me in this state.”

“That sounded like a challenge.”

“In all seriousness, Logan. You always work so hard taking care of everyone else. For a few days, I’m going to take care of you. And you will have to lie there and endure it.”

Logan tried not to seem too churlish. It wasn’t that he minded her presence, of course. He’d never known this kind of tenderness and attention. He simply despised the feeling of helplessness. He hated knowing that if someone charged through the door, he’d be powerless to stop it.

But he also had to admit to himself that there was a certain intoxicating pleasure to be found in surrender.

“You don’t need to sit here all day,” he said. “I know you probably have work to do. How are Rex and Fluffy?”

She set the sponge and basin aside. “Getting on very well indeed. She molted. They’ve mated and entered the tending phase.”

“And . . . ?” he prompted. “Don’t leave me in suspense. Which position do lobsters favor for their lovemaking?”

In response, she only smiled and shrugged.

Logan pushed himself up in bed, a realization settling on him. “You missed it. You missed the whole thing, didn’t you? Because you were here with me.”

“It’s no matter. I’ll just have to catch them next time. Fluffy will be ready to breed again in . . . oh, eighteen months or so.”

Her response was light, but he knew this had to have come as a blow. He reached for her. “Maddie.”

Before they could discuss it further, Munro entered the room to make an assessment of Logan’s wound and bandages.

“You’re out of the worst danger,” he declared. “No strenuous activity for a month.”

“A month?”

“A month. And if you mean to trouble me with complaints, I suggest you be grateful you’re alive to complain.”