Chapter Twelve #2
She scoffed aloud as she swept past him to return to the house. Logan didn’t stop her but watched as she passed Helen and then stopped. She backed up two steps and stared at her friend, staring at him.
“What are ye doing, Helen?”
Helen smiled at him as his gaze finally fell to hers.
“I was just going to see if Mr. Cameron was in need of anything.”
Logan was sure he heard a cat hiss somewhere.
“Come inside with me, Helen,” Miss Woodburn said, taking her arm and tugging her away.
Alone, Logan let his smile grow into a grin. She was jealous of Helen. He wanted to laugh and kick up his feet. It was a step in the right direction.
He happily prepared their breakfast of hare stew with carrots, turnips, and squash, and just a short while after the food was served, two of his cousins arrived.
“Where is Steafan?” Logan asked after him.
“Alina warned him not to come with us once she found oot aboot the lasses,” Jamie advised him as he made his way to Helen.
“Why did he tell her?” Logan demanded. “I told ye all no’ to tell anyone.”
“Logan,” Ewen said, sitting next to Miss Woodburn—where Logan planned to sit, “’twas only a matter of time before ye parents found oot who was here.”
Logan’s belly flipped and tightened into a knot then loosened again when he tried to swallow. “Are ye sayin’…they know?”
His closest friend looked at him straight in the eye and nodded.
The Lochiel wants to ride here but he is meetin’ with Duke of Nottin’ham and canna come to ye in the near future.
” He smiled. “By the time he gets here, ye will have already found a place fer her. Aye?” he added when Logan didn’t respond.
“Aye,” Logan agreed. What else was he to do? Given the choice, Miss Woodburn would likely flee, mayhap return to kill him later. If he told his cousin the true reason she was still here, Ewen would bring her somewhere else.
“Logan, tell me ye are no’ lettin’ her charms get to ye.”
Colored in the dim light in shades of fine wine were Logan’s eyes when he set them on Ewen. “What do ye know of her charms?”
“Are ye jealous fer her sake, Cousin?” Ewen asked him.
Logan laughed a little, but it sounded forced to his ears. “When did ye say ye were leavin’?”
“Yer mother asks that I stay and keep an eye on ye with this woman.” He grinned and shrugged as if there was nothing he could do.
Ewen wasn’t food driven like Jamie, so Logan couldn’t threaten to take his food. As far as Logan or the others knew, there was no lass who had caught Ewen MacDonald’s fancy. There was only one vulnerable spot for Ewen.
“Ewen,” Logan began, “Where does yer loyalty lie, with me or with Lady Ismay Cameron?”
“With ye, Logan.” He dipped his gaze to his boots. “Yer mother didna save my life three times.”
“Then dinna go along with her when she treats me like a child.”
“Aye,” Ewen said, but Elspeth had leaned forward to speak to him above the clatter of voices around them. Logan stopped hearing anyone but her.
“Mr. Cameron, who is this Ealar yer kin speak of?”
“My younger brother,” he told her. “What are they tellin’ ye?”
“That he is the most handsome lad in Lochaber. He can recite most of the poets and he’s been known to do so while in battle.”
Logan nodded. “Aye. ’Tis all true.”
She gave him a doubtful smirk. He raised a curious eyebrow. “Ye dinna believe it?”
“Only some of it,” she confessed.
“Ah,” he smiled and leaned forward with her, “which attributes dinna ye believe?
“I dinna believe that he is the most handsome man in Lochaber.”
Was that a playful spark in her eyes?
“Och? Have ye met the true title holder?”
She nodded, smiled into her fingers, then sat back in her chair.
“Who is he?” he asked, needing to know.
“Who is who, Logan?” Jamie asked him, looking up at Logan’s outburst.
Logan sank a little in his seat. “No one.” He waved his hand at Jamie and then returned his attention to Miss Woodburn. She was trying to hide her smile, but it shone like the finger of God tracing her mouth.
“Who?” he mouthed, smiling across from her.
Her face turned scarlet in an instant. She shook her head and leaned in again. “There is no one, I was teasing.”
“I thought ye would have said Ewen.”
She scoffed in her seat.
“Jamie fer certain then,” he muttered, bending toward her.
She tossed back her head a little and laughed. He reclined back in his chair again and let his smile shine on her. She could be speaking of Steafan, but Steafan rarely showed her kindness once he’d heard she wanted to kill Logan.
Nae, Logan thought, reveling in the unforbidden sight of her, knowing this time that she enjoyed looking at him too.
Six years ago, he would have been ready to pledge his devotion to her, and for the last six years, he kept his heart free of any feminine attachments. What mere human lass could compete with the faerie, the angel, the ghost that lived in his dreams and his heart?
Aye, he had blamed her father for his arm, but Logan had believed she was a ghost because of him.
But she had not died that fateful night. And now, he was growing accustomed to seeing her bonnie face every day.
He became aware of his cousins’ silence and blinked away from Miss Woodburn to look at them. They were staring at him, slack jawed.
“Hmm?” he wondered out loud.
“What is the matter with ye?” Jamie voiced.
“What are ye talkin’ aboot?” Logan asked, a wee bit insulted.
“Ye look all…” Jamie scrunched up his face, trying to find the right words.
“Quiet doun, whelp,” Ewen warned with the point of his elbow into Jamie’s ribs and a glance around the table at Helen.
Logan wasn’t surprised that his cousins noticed the change in him.
They all knew one another well enough to note the slightest nuance of change in manner or expression.
Would they think of his fondness for Miss Woodburn as betrayal?
Why would they? He and Miss Woodburn were the ones who had suffered, not them.
Still, he was relieved Ewen had stopped Jamie since Miss Woodburn looked mortified.
Soon enough, conversations picked up once again, leaving Logan and Miss Woodburn to eat or speak to each other.
“Dinna mind the lads,” he told her. “Especially Jamie.”
“I dinna mind him at all. I think he is verra sweet.”
Logan wasn’t oblivious to his cousin’s charms. Second to Ealar Cameron, most of the lasses at Tor and in the surrounding villages fancied Jamie. Did Miss Woodburn fancy him as well?
He made a sound that resembled a bear more than a man.
He hated himself for being jealous. It was a pitiful trait.
He’d never been jealous before, but he knew what it looked like from his many male and female cousins in the castle.
He didn’t like it, and he didn’t like how it made him feel.
He also didn’t like how he felt as if he was losing his good sense.
Wasn’t he just smiling like a fool at the thought of her thinking him handsome?
Now he was worried about her fancying Jamie?
He shook his head at himself and then muttered under his breath, things about bears and going dull-witted before he realized that both his cousins were staring at him again.
He muffled his desire to laugh and managed to keep a stoic expression until his gaze returned to her and she smiled.
With her wide, bonnie eyes and blushed cheeks, she appeared as innocent as an angel, an angel that tore his heart to shreds.
Despite her sharpest claws, he presented himself to her anew every day, letting her do her best to hate him. Hopefully, she would tire of it sooner or later.