Because You're Mine (Capital Theatre #2)(49)

“Perhaps you could read to me,” Madeline suggested. They shared a love of literature and philosophy, having previously discussed subjects as diverse as the superiority of Keats over Shelley, and the theories of Plato. To Madeline's delight, she had discovered many rare and unique books in the mansion's library, many of them acquired at private auction or presented as gifts from powerful friends.

Logan helped Madeline from her chair and rang for the servants to clear the dishes. He led her to an adjoining room, a private area filled with amber cushions, works of Chinese porcelain, and paintings and bronze moldings on the walls. Sitting before the marble fireplace, Madeline shivered from the pleasant warmth of the blaze. Logan lounged on the floor beside her, leaning an elbow on a velvet pillow as he read from Henry the Fifth, his voice a quiet rumble. Mesmerized, Madeline only half-heard the words.

She tried to fill her mind with every detail of his face: the shadows of his lashes as he looked down at the volume in his hand, the elegant planes of his cheeks, the shape of his wide mouth. At times he quoted from memory rather than reading, reciting the romantic passages in which Henry wooed Katharine, the daughter of the French king. The words were wry, tender, touched with ironic humor. Suddenly Madeline felt as if she couldn't stand another moment, listening to entreaties that made her heart ache. The setting was too intimate, the words too close to her own longings.

“Please, no more,” she said breathlessly, just as he reached the line “You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate…”

Logan set down the book. “Why not?”

Madeline shook her head, beginning to rise from the cushions, but he reached out and caught her. He drew her down beside him, running a hand along her stiff body. “Don't go,” he murmured.

Madeline gasped as Logan pressed her against him. They were matched length to length, and he was so large and solid, his shoulders looming over her. She couldn't see his face, but she felt the brush of his lips as he whispered close to her ear.

“Sleep in my arms tonight, Maddy.”

The words she had worked for, waited for. Madeline nearly choked on a sudden rush of tears. “I can't,” she managed to say.

“You told me this was what you wanted the first time we met.”

“It was…but nothing's turned out the way I thought it would.”

“What a puzzle you are,” Logan said, wiping the wet corners of her eyes with his thumbs. “Tell me what you want, then.”

He was so gentle, so tender, that for a wild moment Madeline thought of confessing everything to him. But if he knew the truth, he would hate her for it, for lying to him and planning to use him, and making him the unwitting target of her ridiculous scheme. She had no choice but to leave him and hope that he would never guess what she had tried to do.

“Logan,” she said, her voice blotted against his silk robe, “I can't stay with you any longer. I'm leaving tomorrow.”

Easing her head away from his chest, he stared at her with penetrating blue eyes. “Why?”

“The past two weeks have been like something from a dream. I've been very happy here…with you…but I have another life to return to. It's time I went home.”

His hand moved over her back in a slow, repeated stroke. “Where is home, Maddy?”

“Another world away,” she said, thinking bleakly of the remote country estate where she would spend the rest of her life as Lord Clifton's wife, giving birth to his children and striving to please him.

“Is there another man?” he asked, as if he could read her thoughts.

The image of Lord Clifton's smug face rose before her, and she closed her eyes while tears squeezed from beneath her lashes. “Yes.”

Logan showed no surprise at her answer, but Madeline sensed a powerful emotion…anger?…jealousy?…stirring beneath the stillness.

“Tell me who he is. I'll take care of everything.”

She became alarmed at the steely purpose in his voice. “No, you can't—”

“You're going to stay here, Maddy.” He pulled the pins from her hair and smoothed the rippling locks over his arm. “I've needed someone like you for a long time. Now that I have you, no one is going to take you from me.”

“I'm not at all what you want,” Madeline said, rubbing the heels of her hands over her wet eyes. “We're as different as two people can possibly be.”

Logan smiled in wry agreement. “I doubt we're anyone's idea of a perfect match, but I don't give a damn. I'd forgotten how it felt to want someone this badly. After the last time, I swore never to go through it again.”

“You mean when you fell in love with Olivia,” she said.

His smile vanished, and he stared at her quizzically. “How did you know her name?”

“You called out to her during the fever. You were angry…you called her things I never…” Madeline stopped and turned scarlet, remembering the words he had used.

“Yes,” he said wryly. “That was because Olivia slept with Andrew while she was engaged to me.”

“Lord Drake? Your friend…but why would she do that?”

“Olivia was impressed with his titles and social position, far above anything I'll ever aspire to. I was a fool for thinking I loved her—but she was beautiful and sophisticated, the kind of woman I thought I would never have.” He paused, his expression becoming remote. “I don't know what you've heard about my past. It's not exactly an illustrious one.”