Chapter Twelve
Sitting on a wind-strewn perch high on the wall of Ben Nevis, Logan looked toward the glen with today’s breakfast and supper strung to his hip. He was alone, abandoned for the lass Elspeth had brought home last night.
He wasn’t happy to admit that Miss Woodburn had not followed him around everywhere for any reason other than the one she’d told him. She had not wanted to be alone.
Now that she had a new friend with her, she barely noticed that he’d left. It stung.
Still, he watched her with his hood whipping around his face, unable and unwilling to look away while she hung wet clothes on the thin rope she and her friend had tied between the two houses. She enjoyed doing laundry, it seemed. Today it was the bed linens, his included.
He’d been told by Helen, whom he’d met returning from the outdoor privy just before the sun came up, that Miss Woodburn had refused his bed and told her to sleep in it.
Elspeth didn’t want to sleep in his bed after she’d kept him alive by laying with him to keep him warm. He’d remembered her slender arms around him; her warm body pressed to his. And then, like a fool, he’d pulled her into his embrace last eve.
She had pulled away. I lost everything because of ye. I canna ferget. I willna ferget.
He watched her stretch to pin the linens to the drying line and then bend to gather more. She turned at something Helen said. He saw no one but her.
Around her head she wore a red snood, tied into a bow in the front. Tufts of uneven, pale hair stuck out in various places.
Mesmerizing.
She looked light enough to blow away at the next gust of wind. She was braw and resilient, capable and altogether lovely.
She wanted to get away from him first chance she could. Late last eve, he’d sent his cousins to Tor and told them to say nothing about his guest. She would stay with him for the time being.
When she finished hanging another linen, she walked out from between the houses and searched the glen and the surrounding area, shielding her eyes from the sun.
She wouldn’t be able to see him from where she was.
Was she looking for him?
He almost rose up to go to her. He smiled instead and then scowled for being so ridiculously happy that she might be looking for him.
Mayhap, it wasn’t just anyone whose company she sought, but truly his.
He knew she didn’t hate him as much as she claimed.
She had the perfect opportunity to kill him whilst he’d lain poisoned by mushrooms he had foolishly added to his breakfast.
What had changed for her? One day she had tried to kill him three different ways, and hours later she let him hold her in a pile of blankets beneath the shelter of Ben Nevis.
When she pulled her tattered arisaid around her shoulders and returned to her friend, Logan stood up and made his way down the mountain.
Should he let her prepare their food today?
Did he trust her? Surely, she would not poison her new friend.
If he was going to stay here with her for a wee bit, he should be able to trust her.
He remembered handing her his dirk to quit talking about killing him and doing it.
She had snatched the weapon up and brought it down on him!
She came upon him like a stealthy feline, and if he had been a bit slower, she would have struck him.
She’d poisoned his food and killed the fish that ate it.
She’d dragged all his blankets to him and prepared a makeshift bed, using her own body to provide warmth. He owed her his life, and the return of his arm.
She made him feel lightheaded when he looked at her. Whatever her effect on him, he didn’t mind it.
He wanted her forgiveness. It was what she needed to give so that she could live the rest of her days without the weight of her hatred. She deserved that after all she had lost.
He reached the glen at the same time as the sun. The women had retired from their outdoor work, leaving the vast sunlit glade vacant.
He walked to the back of the house and the butchering block to deposit his kill and spill the blood.
He saw her a little while later when he entered the Main Hall. Was that the soothing balm of relief in her eyes? A soft smile relaxing her stiff mouth?
He would not move too quickly—the way he had last night. She was not a conquest. She was his humility. He had to work for her acceptance, and ultimately, her forgiveness.
Aye, he could blame her father, the Covenanters, or the king, for taking his arm. But what would that accomplish? He had to keep moving forward in his life, letting go of blame and hatred. It was time. He wanted her to let go, as well.
“How did hunting go?” she asked him.
He smiled. “I killed two hares and three quail without my pistol. After the second, my strength faltered, but I pulled myself together and shot three more times.”
“That is good news, Mr. Cameron,” she said with a smile that put him in a grateful mood.
Helen looked up from chopping carrots. “It means ye have good strength of will, my lord.”
He nodded but his eyes didn’t leave Elspeth. “I’ll go prepare the meat,” he said, then left the house without waiting for her reply. He didn’t expect one, really. He’d been refusing her help preparing his meals. Why should she expect him to accept this time?
He smiled as images of her visibly happy to see him conquered every thought.
She thoroughly enchanted him. Why else would he remain with her after his arm was finally beginning to heal?
He shook his head at himself and chuckled on the way to his task.
He knew from the beginning that he didn’t want to let her go this time. His arm had nothing to do with it.
He heard a sound and turned to see her coming up behind him. How did she learn to use such stealth? She carried no weapon this time, nor were her hands raised to strike him. Still, her silence made him uneasy. She could attack him and we wouldn’t know it until…
“Mr. Cameon, a pity that seeing me makes yer laughter turn to dread.”
“Ye’re quiet, lass.”
“That doesna necessarily mean I have come to kill ye,” she countered, and caught up with him.
He raised an eyebrow. “Och, has yer desire to kill me ended?”
“My desire has nothing to do with my duty. As a Highlander, surely ye understand that.”
He nodded then shrugged as they walked together. “And yet here I am, askin’ ye to give up yer duty.”
“If ’twas yer family who died and I asked ye to give up yer duty, would ye?”
“If my duty was revenge and death, I would give it up fer ye, Miss Woodburn.”
They walked in silence until they reached the butchering table.
“What were ye finding so humorous before ye saw me?”
He wasn’t about to tell her his foolish meanderings about lying to himself and wanting to be close to her from the moment he saw her again, tangles and all. He couldn’t even climb a mountain without finding a way to see her.
“Ye look verra bonnie in yer snood.”
When her warm gaze went a wee bit dull and she lifted her hand to her red headband, Logan stopped her.
“Ye are bonnie with or withoot it, as well as with or withoot yer tangled hair. But I admit,” he added with a tilt of his lips, “that I am glad ye took interest in yerself and cut off the unwanted to make way fer the shiny and new.”
She smiled at him. Again. Like a spell, the more she smiled at him, the more he wanted.
“How is it that every word ye speak is a word I have wanted to hear from someone almost my entire life? Someone, but no’ ye.”
“We dinna get to choose where our desires will be satisfied, lass.”
She looked at him and swallowed hard enough to make a sound. Then, she appeared to pull herself together. “How may I help?”
He handed her the three quails and asked her to pluck them while he skinned the hares.
While they worked, Logan stole glances at her from time to time, stunned that they could share such casual time together after being enemies for so long.
Before long, he found them talking about their lives before and after the incident. He discovered that she had been sold six different times. She had humorous stories about most of them, though none were kind to her.
“So, tell me, Mr. Cameron, why is there nae Mrs. in yer house?”
He laughed softly, liking her boldness. What if he told her the truth? “I dinna know. Mayhap I was waitin’ fer ye.”
She dipped her head when a blush stole over her face. “Who says ye could ever win me?”
“Never I,” he teased. “I know ye will hate me ’til yer dyin’ breath.”
“Aye,” she said with a playful smile of her own. “I may not hate ye until I die, Mr. Cameron, but I would never be yer wife.”
He grew serious. “Are ye so certain, lass?”
“Aye, nae matter how ye beguile me, I am stronger than ye think.”
She had defied her father for him by venturing to the dungeon that night, had she not? She had endured the loss of everyone she loved and being sold to cruel masters. She was stronger than he thought he might be in her situation.
“I dinna doubt yer strength, lass,” he told her. “But I hope there is still in ye somethin’ stronger.”
“Ye mean love?” she asked him.
“Aye. Love. Is it too bold of me to think the first person ye love could be the one ye have hated fer so long?”
She laughed. “Are ye presuming to think that I lo…I love ye?”
“No’ yet.”
She laughed harder. He smiled, watching her. “Not yet? Then, ye think ye will be able to change me?”
“Nae, no’ ye. Yer heart.”
“Mr. Cameron, let me assure ye—”
“Och, are ye both bickering again?” Helen called out as she left the house and headed for them.
“We were no’ bickerin’,” Logan said, suddenly bothered by the thought of anyone thinking they bickered often. He turned his head to Miss Woodburn. “Were we.”
It wasn’t meant to be a question but a statement he hoped she agreed to.
“Nae, we were not bickering. We were teasing each other with ridiculous notions.” She turned to him. “Fanciful ideas of what could never be.”