Chapter Nine #2
His smile deepened. Damnation, he couldn’t stop it as he lifted his left hand to her head and removed the feather.
He wanted to say something. But what? He was a grown adult who knew very little about lasses.
Looking into her eyes made him forget his arm and who was guilty of it.
He didn’t like it. What kind of spell had she placed on him?
It felt like a spell; like he was not in control of his thoughts or his feelings.
Thankfully—or not—they both heard the front door open and Steafan and Ewen enter the house.
“What do we do with her?” Steafan put to his cousin.
“I dinna know yet,” Ewen said, entering the sitting room. “First we must find Logan.”
He stopped dead when he entered the sitting room and saw Logan. “Ye’re here!” he said with relief pouring from his mouth.
Miss Woodburn blew out a frustrated sigh. “I told ye all I didna harm him.”
“Ye also told us ye wanted to kill him,” Steafan reminded her.
“Well,” she argued. “I didna kill him, did I? There he stands perfectly healthy and vir—”
As she snapped her lips shut, Logan turned to her with a slow scowl when she did not continue.
What did she stop herself from saying? Virtuous?
Nae. She would never consider him virtuous.
Virgin? Nae. She did not know him enough to make that assumption.
Vir…virile? An odd thread of something warm wove through his blood and his belly.
He bit his bottom lip and then his tongue to cool down.
He could not allow himself to feel anything for her.
No matter what else she had done, good or bad, he must not let himself forget that she had poisoned his food. She truly meant to kill him. He almost let himself forget when he used his arm. But he could not let down his guard with her, especially for his kin’s sake.
“Miss Woodburn,” he said with a hint of menace in his low tone, cooling his gaze, “did ye offer my cousins anythin’ to drink?”
She gave his dark expression a curious look and shook her head. “Nae.”
He felt his life return to him. It must have shown on his face because Ewen placed his hand on Logan’s shoulder.
“What is it, Logan?”
He would warn his cousins not to eat or drink anything she prepared. But he would not tell them that she had already poisoned him. They would not forgive her. Aye, he would tell them not to trust her later, when she was away from their blades.
He grinned at his cousin. “I killed a roe deer with my bow.”
“With yer—how is that possible, Logan? Can ye use yer arm, then? Steafan, are ye hearin’ this?”
“Aye!” Steafan exclaimed. “Venison fer supper then?”
Ewen leaned forward and swung at him, but Steafan laughed and leaned up to fling his beefy arm over Logan’s shoulder. “Huzzah, cousin.”
Logan flicked his gaze to Miss Woodburn, but she looked away, then rose up and left the sitting room.
Logan watched her go. Was she on her way to Jamie and the deer? He almost broke free from Steafan’s arm when he heard the door to her room close. Should he go to her? He wanted to. How could he not trust a woman this much and still care about her feelings?
“Where is Jamie?” Steafan asked, breaking away from him.
Logan told them and then accepted a cup of ale from Ewen. He found himself looking at the entrance of the sitting room, looking for Miss Woodburn.
“Ye fancy her,” Ewen said, watching him.
“Dinna be ridiculous,” Logan replied on an exhalation of breath and without looking at his cousin. “She helped me.”
Steafan returned to his side. Ewen leaned in. “Helped ye in what way?”
“She is trainin’ me. Her brother taught her.”
Steafan shook his head. “What in blazes are ye saying?”
“Findin’ the use in my arm is her doin’,” he told them.
“Logan,” Ewen said, trying to sound calm. “Ye just met her a few days ago. There isna a way she could have helped ye so quickly. Ye give her praise because ye fancy her.”
Logan flicked a warning gaze at Ewen. “Quit speakin’ like a fool. I give her praise fer helpin’ me because she did.”
“What did she do? What could she have possibly done?”
Logan laughed a little. “Mayhap I am mad, but she told me to use my arm. Just try to use it in everything I do.”
Ewen nodded. “Ye’re mad.”
“But I can do this.” Logan lifted his cup in his left hand and drank from it.
He didn’t tell them how moving it exhausted him. It was perfectly normal for muscles that barely moved in six years to be in poor form. The pain would eventually fade.
“Logan,” Steafan said. “Dinna ferget who she is.”
He was trying. He could not tell them that, though, because it would prove he was having difficulty not forgetting.
“She hates Camerons. She hates me, and I believe she would try to kill me first chance she gets. I havena fergotten that. Neither do I blame her fer her hatred. We killed her entire family and made her an orphan and a slave in a merciless world.”
“Cousin, send her away.”
“Ewen, where can I send her that she would be safe? Because of me, she doesna have a father or brothers to protect her. How can I cast her off as though she were a half-eaten apple? Hmm?”
“Because of ye?” Ewen asked incredulously. “Because her father attacked ye, ye mean. Logan, here me oot, Cousin. Ye have a big heart. Ye’re fergivin’ and compassionate. Just be careful not to trust her because yer heart tells ye can. Yer heart is a liar.”
Logan smiled with him. He didn’t want them to worry about him.
But he wasn’t completely certain that they shouldn’t.
*
Elspeth sat by the window looking out at the setting sun. He’d left her alone in the solace of a locked room. Oddly, she felt comfort and safety here in a place that reminded her of home, her home that she missed every day.
Safety. She hadn’t felt safe since the night her father died.
She shouldn’t feel safe in the home of a Highland warrior who hated Covenanters, but he knew she had poisoned him—she was sure of it, especially when he asked her if she’d given his kin anything to eat or drink—and yet he hadn’t informed his cousins.
He’d kept her safe from them, even knowing she tried to kill him.
When she had tried to stab him with his own dirk and then tried to slap his face, she was instantly afraid, but he hadn’t struck her.
Good thing too. She’d been struck by far less mighty men than him, and with frightful effects.
But he had merely hoisted her over his shoulder and locked her in her room alone.
Thankfully, she’d slept until his cousins arrived and let her out, but he wasn’t angry with them for doing so.
He was kind to her, even when he was scowling.
Refusing to think of him another instant, she picked up the small, sharp knife she’d lifted from the small kitchen. She looked at it. It was time. She had waited long enough. He’d touched her, put his fingers in her hair. She hadn’t stopped him.
She could kill him tonight if she wanted. She didn’t need poison. She had a knife.
Lifting the blade to her temple, she pulled on a fistful of hair.
She closed her eyes, but only for a moment.
She wanted to see her knots falling to the floor—all that was left of her once glossy sunlit waves.
With them were the last shreds of any hope of her life changing.
Indeed, it was going to get so much worse after she killed him.
She sliced and sawed and tossed her tangles away and out the window. She stopped combing her hair a few years ago. What was the use? She rarely could find a comb and had no time for grooming herself if she did find one. She had blamed the decline of her hair on Mr. Cameron.
She cut down to her scalp and only cursed her mortal enemy once.
When the last knot fell to the floor, she felt surprisingly better, lighter. Her knots were gone. And she had a knife.
She changed her tattered woolen breeches and threadbare chemise and tunic for tattered skirts of dark blue and stays to match. Along with her linen undergarments, she had brought three complete changes of outer clothes. Three was all she owned. They were faded, tattered, and worn—but clean.
That meant she was going to have to wash the clothes she just discarded, including her undergarments, if she meant to wear them again in the next few days.
Should she wash her clothes in the stream or did Mr. Cameron have a pot large enough to boil water for soiled garments?
She gathered up her clothes, trailing a wisp or two of hair behind her and left the room to set off and find her enemy.
She did not completely feel like his enemy, but in the same way she had instructed him to try remembering to use his left arm, she had to try remembering who he was. His easy, pleasant, extremely handsome smile made her forget everything else.
When she passed the Main Hall on her way to the sitting room, she stopped. The doors were open. His laughter drifted through the corridor, luring her closer, even against her will.
She peeped her head into the hall and tried desperately to remember—remember—while she took in the sight of him.
Though he stood with two of his cousins, she saw only him.
In the firelight, his chestnut hair shone with the hues of russet and autumn.
His skin was tanned and golden from time under the sun, his shoulders wide, his smile genuine and warm.
Remember.
She saw her father’s faded face in her mind as Mr. Cameron’s dark gaze turned to find her.
His eyes opened wide. He abandoned the carrots he was chopping, and dropped his knife. “Lass…”
“What in blazes happened to ye, woman?” Steafan gasped, holding his palm to his forehead.
“What? Och.” She reached up to her shorn head. “’Twas too unruly.”
She backed up a step when she noticed Mr. Cameron coming closer. He said nothing but just stared at her head.
“I couldna go traipsing around with feathers in my hair.”
He smiled, then cast her a somber look. “I will make certain ye have brushes and combs.”
When he blurted out these sorts of things, it made her feel as if she just tripped over a rock and tumbled over a cliff and falling…to her death, just punishment failing to avenge her family.
“I only need to launder my clothes,” she said more harshly than she intended. Her parents were counting on her. But brushes? Combs? How could the promise of such trivial, mundane things make her eyes sting?
“I will take ye to the stream tomorrow,” he told her.
“Och, but I should—”
“Nonsense, ’tis dark ootside. I will take ye tomorrow.”
She wasn’t afraid to go outside after the sun set. She’d had to do it many times when her other masters ordered her to gather water from the well or clean the supper bowls or help gather whatever was being harvested—sometimes late into the night.
And why did Mr. Cameron insist on accompanying her?
Did he think she would run away? It was as he said, where would she go?
How would she get there? Would his horse truly harm her if she tried to mount it?
She’d had a horse as a young girl. She remembered how to ride, but she also remembered how intelligent horses are.
If they are loyal to one, they will not let anyone else ride them.
She couldn’t run away. Even though she hated Mr. Cameron, being with him was better than being alone.
She watched him smile at something one of his cousins said, and then he turned that smile on her. She thought of the knife tied to her thigh. When he was dead, she would be completely alone.