Chapter Ten
Miss Woodburn thought she could not go traipsing around with feathers in her hair. She was incorrect.
Logan turned from throwing a rock into the stream with his left arm—as per his teacher’s instruction when they set out early this morning. It was his thirteenth rock since Miss Woodburn began washing her clothes. She would not let him help her but gave him orders on exercising his arm.
Now, he let his gaze rove over her. Why did such a statement from her about traipsing and feathers in her hair saturate him with warmth and waves of affection?
When he had reached for the feather, she hadn’t jerked away, as he feared she would.
She told him to reach for it with his left hand, and he had.
Hell. He fought a shiver going down his spine. What was she doing to him? Look at her there with her hair cut and chopped off, bending to the water.
Fairies traipsed, did they not? Pixie fairies…
“What?”
He heard her voice breaking through his thoughts. She lifted her wet fingers to her head. A droplet of water rolled down her temple and glistened in the sunlight. “Do I look so wretched?”
How was he supposed to put into words that she was the one he had risked it all just to see her one more time? And he would do it all again. He wanted to tell her the only wretched thing was his heart. “Am I lookin’ at ye with disgust or…”
“Or?” she asked when he paused.
Would clenching his teeth keep his words from spilling out like guts on a battlefield? Was there no way to stop it? “Whimsey,” he admitted. “Admiration,” he confessed.
He swallowed. Had he just spoken aloud? If the flames washing across her cheeks and the bridge of her wee nose were indications, then he had. He let his grin wash over her. How was he supposed to stop it? Could he stop his heart and still live?
“Pity,” she added to his list, then went back to scrubbing her clothes against a rock. “I dinna need it.”
“Ye’re willfully prideful,” he said as he turned back to throwing rocks.
“Verra well. I should have said, I dinna want it.”
“Stubborn, as well.” He reached up for his left shoulder and rubbed it as he readied another rock.
He was surprised when, after another moment, he still hadn’t heard her retort.
He turned in time to reach out instinctively with his right hand and shackle her wrist as it came down on him with a knife clutched in her fingers.
She struggled against him for a moment and then yanked her arm back. He released her, but the instant she was free, she ran.
She was mad! How could she try to stab him? His cousins were still at the house, probably eating everything he had on hand. How did she think to escape alive?
But there was no strength in her would-be strike. She didn’t want to kill him.
He watched her run toward the foot of the mountain. He would not chase her. If she was eaten by a wild animal, so be it. God’s will, mayhap. If she returned, hungry or afraid, he would say nothing but feed her.
He looked at the rocks, where her soaking wet garments waited. He went to them and bent to take her tunic in his hand.
He didn’t need two hands to scrub clothes. He’d been doing it for a few years now—ever since he left Tor Castle to live on his own.
But he used both hands, doing what he knew Miss Woodburn would have told him to do.
After a quarter of an hour without her return, Logan spread her clothes out to dry and then set out to look for her.
He knew he was a fool, wasting his strength on the last lass on earth he should take any interest in. But he continued looking for her for the next quarter of an hour.
Did a wild animal already get her? The thought of it made his heart and feet race.
“Miss Woodburn!” he called out as he entered the shadow of Ben Nevis. “Elspeth!”
Fool that she was to go off alone in a place she did not know. And why was he going after her? This was her second attempt on his life. First poisoning, then this! He should let her go and bid her good riddance to the trouble she caused.
“Miss Woodburn!”
He heard a sound behind him and spun around, but not before a stick smashed against his left arm. Alright then. He hated to do it, but she gave him little choice. He reached for the hilt of his claymore with his right hand and cracked it across her stick, splintering the wood to pieces.
It was over in the blink of an eye, but he stepped closer and hauled her against him with his left arm around her waist.
“Cease tryin’ to kill me,” he warned, blending their breath.
She closed her eyes, shielding herself from whatever was pouring out of his gaze.
He didn’t realize he wanted her in his arms until he pulled her closer. But she didn’t want to be there. Still, he had to convince her to stop his madness. “End this now.”
She opened her eyes to glare at him. “Give me yer dirk and I will.”
“I will keep ye tied up.”
“Ye will let me go eventually.”
He looked down at her, fighting back his enjoyment in her bravado.
He let her go now. She fell on her rump in the dirt.
“Come.” He didn’t wait for her to get back on her feet but started for home.
“Ye still want me to go with ye?” she asked with a skeptical stare.
“Aye. I told ye, I understand ye lost everything because of me. Ye’re a fool fer tryin’ to kill me, and I will do what I must to stop ye, but I will no’ leave ye on yer own.”
They walked back to the rocks to gather her clothes and then, after picking a few more ingredients for his morning stew, returned to the house. Logan was glad that for the time being, she wasn’t trying to kill him.
His cousins had gone. Alone with her once again, he questioned his sanity for agreeing to stay with her until—until when?
After they ate breakfast? In truth, he was the only one who ate.
Once she found out he had added mushrooms, she refused the meal, claiming the fungus made her feel ill last time she ate it.
She followed him to the stream when he went back to clean the breakfast earthenware and then stayed with him while he practiced swinging his claymore.
“’Tis difficult to believe the lass who was tryin’ to kill me a few hours ago is now helpin’ me regain my strength.”
“I wasna trying to kill ye,” she corrected him. “I was simply testing yer reactions. Ye held me with yer right arm and ye fought me with the same.”
He laughed, swinging. “So, ye expect me to believe that ye ran away with the intention of hidin’ until I came fer so ye could test me?”
“Correct.”
“But lass,” he said, lowering his blade and closing the gap between them in one step. “How did ye know I would come?”
“Something in the way ye look at me, Mr. Cameron,” she admitted after a moment.
“Och? How do I look at ye then?”
“Like ye dinna mind me being here.”
His heart faltered. Was he that obvious? Did he care? “Why would I mind?”
She gave him a shrug. “I’m a Covenanter’s daughter. Have ye fergotten?
“How could I?”
“Precisely.”
He sheathed his blade when she turned away from him and went after her. “’Tis ye who keeps me from fergettin’, lass. Yer anger holds us both captive.”
She stopped and turned to look up into his eyes. “Am I to abandon my family?”
He wanted to close his eyes and hide in the dark when he answered her. “They are gone, lass. Do ye truly want to die fer them? What will it serve, but to break my heart?”
Her eyes, staring back at him, sparkled with tears under the sun, but she visibly fought them. “Ye assume I will be the one to die?”
She could not defeat all his kin. Her only chance would have been her poisons, but he sent his cousins home with warnings that if anything were to befall him, they should not let her into Tor Castle. He hoped it did not come to that.
“Ye will be.”
He fought the urge to step back as she poured her gaze into him. He felt bare, on display for her perusal.
“Do ye truly believe that?” she asked.
“Lass, I pray ye hear me. Give up yer revenge. Let me cure ye of yer hatred fer me. I dinna expect anythin’ in return,” he quickly added. “I will find ye a safe place to live.”
What was she looking for so intently; tearing away layers of him until she found what she was searching for? What was it?
Since she was looking, he felt compelled to show her a part of himself that was most real. Something he believed she needed most. He let his smile shine from within, lighting his eyes, his skin, the air around him.
“Mr. Cameron,” she said dreamily.
“Hmm?
“I willna become beguiled by yer charms.”
“Then ye have the advantage, lass,” he admitted.
Was that a hint of a smile he saw on her bonnie face?
“I dinna want to be yer enemy,” he told her.
“Mr. Cameron, what ye want makes nae difference to me. It doesna change my duty as a daughter and a sister. I must do what I was put here to do.”
“Fer revenge?”
“Aye.”
He dipped his head and stared at the ground while he walked. If she was this bent on killing him, maybe he should find a place for her right away. He didn’t know what else to do.
“I never expected ye to pout, Mr. Cameron,” she muttered as they went.
He scoffed. “I dinna pout.”
“Ye are pouting right now,” she pointed out.
He lifted his head and glared at her, but when she startled away from him, he softened his gaze. “Dinna fear me, lass.”
She pulled her hand away when he reached for it. “That is an honor ye must earn.”
He ached to sweep her up in his arms, but he agreed with her.
Whether she meant it as an honor to not be feared, or to let him touch her, he agreed.
He still tried to deny that he was falling for Miss Woodburn, the Covenanter’s daughter.
But his fight against it was less passionate.
It was no use. He had no defenses against her.
He hated himself for it, but then the moment he looked at her, he understood his own heart.
It had forgiven her for a sin she had not committed. Either that, or he was mad.
“Verra well,” he said softly, “allow me to try to earn it.”