Chapter Fifteen
Elspeth watched from just beyond the open front doors of Mr. Cameron’s house while he practiced sword fighting with both arms.
From her place beyond the light, her eyes studied his every move, fighting an unseen opponent like a masterful dancer.
What did she think of him? Truly, besides all the colorful words she had used to describe him.
She still wished the ground would open up and swallow her when she told him how handsome she thought he was.
What kind of man was Logan Cameron? It was a question she’d been thinking about since yesterday when he…
thinking of his lips on hers, she brought her fingertips to her lips just as Mr. Cameron turned and set his gaze on her.
And then he stopped to look at her.
She froze when his smile shone on her.
She shook her head to clear it, then watched him as he came closer. Goodness, how the mere sight of the man could dry out her mouth, she would never know.
He was her enemy. Nae. Not anymore. Who kissed their enemy? What was she going to do about it? How was she going to kill him?
She should call him Logan now, shouldn’t she? He had put his tongue into her mouth, after all.
And she had let him.
All she could think of was his closeness yesterday when he leaned down and kissed her.
Och, her knees grew weak remembering. First his scent of peat and early morning mist had filled her body.
Then the warmth of his sleek body melted the rest of her.
By the time his mouth pressed against hers, it was a good thing he held her, or she would have crumbled to the ground in a puddle at his feet.
“Would ye like to go fer a walk with me, Elspeth?”
Och, and the way he called her Elspeth filled with tenderness and the undercurrent of longing.
She shouldn’t be alone with him. It wasn’t safe. “All right.”
He smiled, and her heartbeat felt like an attack on the rest of her body.
He led the way and began to walk when the door to his parents’ house opened and Ealar stepped outside with Helen beside him.
Logan waited for his brother to reach him. His expression darkened with each step closer Ealar took.
It was clear what the two had been doing in the house. Ealar knew his brother would not approve and waited until he was occupied and couldn’t look for them.
Elspeth gave Helen a hard look of her own. It was a rude thing to do to her host, and Elspeth thought Helen fancied Logan. Did she sleep with men for fun? Elspeth didn’t understand it. She was never permitted any male visitors.
“Ealar,” Logan growled when his brother reached him. “Turn around and march yer arse back to the house, take this woman with ye, and clean every linen ye both went near. If ye dinna do it, Father will hear of it.”
Ealar sighed at him and his shoulders slumped. “Brother, it stings that ye would think so little of me to enjoy the pleasures of a woman where my father sleeps with my mother.”
“Then go scrub the floors,” Logan countered.
“Ah!” Ealar tossed back his head with dramatic flair. “Even more insultin’ that I would lay a lass on the floor.”
Seemingly satisfied with Ealar’s innocence, Logan took Elspeth’s hand and walked off. He stopped three steps later and turned to his brother.
“Go scrub whatever ye sat on.”
Ealar threw up his hands then turned around and called to Helen. They headed back to the big house together.
Elspeth suddenly felt like laughing. Goodness, it was a miracle that she remembered how. She gave Mr. Cam—Logan a dreamy look. Then she blinked and scowled at herself.
What was she doing having all these warm thoughts about him? This was no way to remember what her purpose was. She was sorry that she no longer wanted to kill or even hurt him.
She had to do something about it. She would pick a fight with him so that she could hate him once more. If he kissed her again, she would be doomed.
It might already be too late, she thought as she looked up at him while they walked. He was merciful toward his brother and patient with his cousins. He was always thoughtful and respectful with Helen and all of those things and more with her.
He angled his head to look at her and smiled. “Ye look peaceful,” he said in his musical voice. “’Tis the first time I have seen it.”
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug, as if it meant little to her. “I willna deny this place reminds me of home.” It meant so much.
“How so?” he asked.
She almost sighed out loud. She was hoping he wouldn’t ask. “It feels…safe here.”
He didn’t say anything for another moment or two. “’Twill always be safe fer ye here, lass.”
She smiled, then stopped when she realized what she was doing.
He laughed softly and then shoved his right hand into a pouch hanging from his belt—
“Left,” she corrected.
He smiled harder and used his left hand to pull two items from the pouch. When Elspeth looked down at them, tears immediately filled her eyes.
“’Tis a comb and a mirror. They are fer ye, Elspeth.”
She shook her head and a tear fell to his hand. “I canna…nae.”
“Of course ye can, lass. Yer hair will grow back and ’twill need to be combed, and this mirror is fer all the times ye want to remind yerself how bonnie ye are.”
She lifted her fingertips to her lips and let out a small laugh, unable to stop herself while she stared at the beautiful items. She wiped her eyes and looked at him again. He lifted his gaze to the heavens and blew out a deep breath.
“Ye’re so bonnie to my poor eyes, Elspeth,” he said, returning his gaze to hers.
“Mr. Cameron—Logan, we are supposed to be enemies.”
He tossed her a devilishly handsome smirk. “I have always been a bit rebellious when it comes to what I am supposed to be.”
“I doubt it. Ye were likely yer mother’s favored son.”
“In truth, my sister is her favorite. Ealar’s charms dinna work on my mother.”
“Or on me,” she let him know—and then cursed herself for her loose tongue.
“Och, ye mean ye are no’ affected by his eyes, colored in the hues of a summer storm? His milky skin doesna shine in yer eyes like moonbeams against a black night?”
She laughed and shook her head at him. “Goodness, ye think much of yer brother’s good looks.”
He scoffed. “Those are Ealar’s words from a poem he penned about himself.”
“Well, they are true enough, but a man is more than what we see with our eyes, nae matter how starkly beautiful he is.” She almost choked on a wee giggle when he scowled at her.
“’Tisna’ yer visage that sets my heart racing with every emotion.
Some welcome, some not. ’Tis deeper than that, Logan.
Ye are not what I expected. Ye are something I never believed I would see in anyone ever again.
’Tis a difficult truth fer me to swallow, in truth.
Ye are the man that birthed all the hatred in my heart, and ye are the only man who can heal me. ”
His deep smile proved he intended on doing just that. Could he? What about her family?
“What do I do about it, Logan?”
“Ye can fergive me,” he said, taking her hand. “When ye are ready, fergive my kin. I want to see and hear yer laughter until heaven and earth collide. I want ye to live a happy life. With me. If that would make ye happy.”
She wanted to nod. To say aye, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She couldn’t let it all go as if it meant nothing, when it had meant everything fer the last six years.
“I’m not ready to let them go,” she told him truthfully, breaking her own heart.
His gaze on her warmed. “Lass, I dinna want ye to let them go. I want ye to let go of the hate in which ye have encased them. Free them. Free yerself. Tragic things happen to all. ’Tis no’ yer fault fer puttin’ the guardsmen to sleep.
’Tis no’ my fault fer gazin’ at what could have been a butterfly that changed its form to a woman, and fer wantin’ to see her again.
And even if it is our fault, we have paid the price fer a half-dozen years.
If we can see beyond the sooty smoke of anger, it would be defeatin’ somethin’ bigger than us both and makin’ way fer a brand-new life. ”
Och, but his words were like silken veils across her ears, promising her a better life fer the one she’d lost. Could it be possible? Did she deserve to live a better life when she was the one who had been hiding while her family was being killed?
“I dinna think I have figured out how to do that, Mr. Cameron. Or if I can. Yer words are sweet to my ears, but that is because ye are more strikingly beautiful than any man alive, starting from the inside, then out. To be told such things—and while I look the way I do…” She raised her fingers to her hair.
“Tis what I see in the enormous blue oceans of yer eyes,” he went on. “The tilt of yer brow, the slight quirk of yer lips that revives my soul.”
He went to stand behind her and reached around her to take the mirror and lift it to her face. He held it close enough so that there was no room in her reflection for her hair. “Ye are the bonniest lass in Scotland.”
She had no strength against him. But he didn’t require any. He let her go, right after he dipped his nose to her neck and breathed her in.
And spun her world off its axis.
“I willna ask ye to make any decisions now,” he said, moving around to face her. “Ye’re free to do whatever ye wish. But I hope ye will stay.”
That was it? She thought as he closed his eyes and didn’t say anything else. He was done? Without thinking about it long enough to stop herself, she reached out and grasped his wrist. What should she say when all she could think of doing was kiss him?
She caught a movement out of the corner of her eyes and looked around him to see his cousins arriving fer the day. They’d already spotted their favored cousin and his untrusted guest and rode toward them through the vale.
There was no time to kiss him.
Was she completely and utterly mad?
He followed her gaze to his kin and then laughed a little sound that quaked Elspeth’s bones.