When a Scot Ties the Knot (18 page)

After the man quit the room, a silence fell.

Logan began pacing back and forth in the small room. “I told you he wanted you. He probably planned this whole ball as a means of impressing you—­perhaps he even meant to propose to you. Now he's taking his petty revenge because he's angry that you're here with me.”

“Now that's absurd.”

“Is it?”

“I can't believe that any man would care enough to go to all that trouble. Not for me.”

He stopped pacing and approached her. He put his hands on her shoulders and forced her to meet his intense blue gaze. “I am wearing a cravat and cuff links at the godforsaken Beetle Ball. Does this not count as going to trouble for you?”

“But . . . that's not for me. Not really.”

“Maddie,
mo chridhe
.” His grip on her arms softened to a caress, and his gaze dropped to her mouth. “Like hell it isn't.”

Her heart swelled in her chest. If he kissed her right now . . .

If he could
love
her . . .

Perhaps nothing else would matter.

Losing work was a disappointment. Maddie wanted that encyclopedia post. Even more than that, she wanted to be recognized for her illustrations. Lord Varleigh's snub had settled in the pit of her stomach like a bitter, queasy lump.

But the prospect of losing Logan tore at her heart.

In a strange, illogical way, he'd been a fixture in her life since she was sixteen years old. And despite all her best attempts not to, she'd come to care for him—­the
real
, imperfect Logan. The man who set her body aflame with incendiary kisses and infuriated her with his arrogant presumptions and pushed her to emerge from her icy, frozen cocoon.

She'd fallen in love with him.

“I suppose it doesna matter,” he said. “All you have to do is go tell him we're not marrying.”

Maddie swallowed hard. “I'm not certain I can do that.”

She wasn't certain she
wanted
to do that.

He glanced over her shoulder at the ballroom. “I think they're going into supper. It isna so crowded anymore.”

“It's not the crowds. Logan, please. Let's just go home.”

“Then we'll just go out there and find this Mr. Dorning ourselves,” he said. “To the devil with Varleigh. You needn't be afraid of him. I'll tell everyone the truth.”

“Just take me home,” she said. “It doesn't matter anymore.”

“No. I'm not going to let you hide behind me again.”

“What if I'm not hiding behind you?” She put her hand in his. “What if I'm choosing you instead?”

He stared down at her. “Maddie, I—­”

Tap-­tap.

Tap-­tap-­tap.

They turned, seeking the origin of the frantic tapping noise. A familiar face was pressed to the library windowpane.

“Rabbie?” she said in disbelief.

He nodded and mouthed a word:
Open
.

And then another:
Hurry.

Logan cursed and hurried to the window, pushing it open and extending a hand to help Rabbie through.

Once inside, Rabbie straightened and plucked bits of greenery from his sleeves. “There you two are.”

“What the devil are you doing?”

“They wouldna let me in the front. I've been peeking in every window, looking for you. Narrowly escaped a thrashing from a pair of footmen.”

“What's happened?” Logan demanded. “Is it Grant?”

“No, no. Grant's fine. It's the lobster.”

Maddie gasped. “She's molting?”

Rabbie pulled a face. “Och, no. Well, I canna be certain. Not exactly.”

Logan knew that look on his soldier's face. It didn't bode well.

“Tell us at once,” he said. “The full truth.”

“The lobster's gone missing. She escaped.”

 

Chapter Twenty

T
hey left the ball at once.

Logan offered to go ahead home on his own. “You needn't leave with me,” he told her. “You should stay and meet Mr. Dorning. Rabbie can see you back to Lannair afterward.”

Maddie wouldn't hear of it. “I can't do this without you. And if Fluffy's missing, I have to help search. She's more than just an assignment. You know that. She's a pet.”

Logan led the way outside, ordering their carriage with a brisk command. Since Rabbie's horse was spent, he would have to ride with them. In the coach, the journey would take . . . Logan did a few mental calculations . . . four hours to return to Lannair. If they were lucky.

Which meant Logan had four hours to pass before he could be of any practical use in easing the worried look on Madeline's face.

And he was going to spend every minute of them scolding Rabbie.

While the coach was brought around, Logan grabbed him by the coat front. “You had
one
task.”

Rabbie swallowed hard. “I know.”

“Watch the lobster.” Logan gave Rabbie a little shake. “That was the only duty I gave you. How could you manage to muck that up?”

“Well, you see. I was watching her in the studio. But 'tis a mite uncanny up there, ye ken?”

Yes, Logan knew. The place made his skin crawl too, but that was no excuse.

“So I put her in a bucket and brought ‘er downstairs while the lads and I played cards. Someone must have kicked it over. Next I looked, she was gone.”

The sheer idiocy of the entire scenario left Logan speechless. Their coach was brought around, and he helped Maddie in first before joining her.

“Not to worry,” Rabbie said, climbing in. “By the time we get back, the other lads will have already found her. How far can a lobster travel under her own power, anyway?”

“I dinna know,” Logan gritted out. “That is a question a
dutiful
soldier would never need to ask.”

As they started home, Maddie was quiet. And pale and distressed.

Logan wanted to punch a hole through the carriage top. It was a hard top, which meant he would have bloodied his knuckles in the effort—­but he was certain his rage would have made it happen.

He turned to her. “How long can a lobster live without being in water?”

“A few days if she's inside the castle, where it's cool and damp. But if she found her way outside to the loch?” She shook her head. “The freshwater would kill her.”

“We'll find her. Dinna worry. We'll search all night if need be.”

She rested her head against the side of the coach and said quietly, “It doesn't matter anymore.”

“Like the devil it doesna matter.”

“This is all my fault. It was wrong of me to trap her in that tank. No wonder she leapt at her first chance to escape. If she wanted to mate with Rex, she would have done it by now. Perhaps he's all wrong for her. Perhaps he's a brutish lout of a lobster with poor hygiene, and she wants nothing to do with him.”

“What about your life-­cycle drawings?”

She only shrugged. “Apparently I'm a woman with no future prospects in illustration.”

Right.

Logan kept his calm for the remainder of the journey. Barely.

When they arrived back at Lannair Castle, the men had not yet found the lobster on their own. Damn.

Logan gathered the men in the kitchen. He sketched out a plan on the slate the cook used for the day's menus.

“Here's the layout of the ground floor,” he said. “Entrances and exits are here and here. The first thing we do is set up a perimeter. Make certain no lobsters go in, no lobsters go out. Munro, you're on the front entrance. Grant stays with you. The rest of us will search.”

“Try this.” Rabbie whistled a trilling, birdlike song and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Here, Fluffy, Fluffy, Fluffy! Here, girl!”

Logan blinked at him. “I'm highly doubtful that method is going to work.”

Rabbie shrugged. “We'll see then, won't we?”

Logan drew a cross through the castle schematic, dividing it into quadrants. He assigned three of the four to Rabbie, Callum, and Fyfe.

“I'll take this one,” he said, marking the spot with the chalk. “Take a torch. Search every possible nook and crack in the exposed rock. Before it's cooked, a lobster's blue, not red, so she'll be difficult to spy at night. Take care where you step. If you find her, bring her here to the kitchen straightaway. We'll rendezvous in two hours, regardless. And whatever you do, keep her away from freshwater. Any questions?”

Fyfe raised his hand. “Does the one what finds her get to eat her?”

“
No.”
Logan put his hands on the kitchen table and addressed the gathered men. “This lobster is of great importance to Madeline. Which means it's of great importance to me.”

The words were the truth. He wasn't sure when it had happened, but he cared now. About Madeline and about her illustrations. This was more than a lobster. It was her
dream
. No one was going to take that from her—­not Varleigh, not Rabbie, and not Logan.

“I need you to move swiftly and surely, lads. In all our years together on campaign, we never once left a soldier behind to die. We're not leaving this lobster, either.”

Just before leaving the room, he pulled Maddie aside. “Dinna worry. You have my word. We'll find her in no time at all.”

Hours passed.

Nothing.

While the men continued their search, Maddie went upstairs to change out of her gown. She would be of more help in practical clothing.

As she went, she scanned every niche and pocket in the stone. It seemed highly unlikely that a lobster would have managed to climb stairs, but she kept her eyes open anyway.

She went into her bedchamber and set about undoing the closures of her green silk, when her eye fell on something that caught and held her attention.

Not Fluffy.

Logan's black canvas knapsack.

He'd worn a small dress sporran to the ball tonight. But there on a hook hung his military-­issue satchel for coins, spectacles, gloves . . . and, presumably, several years' worth of Maddie's embarrassing letters.

She abandoned her plan to undress and hurried to seize it in her hands. Those letters had to be in here. They just had to be. She'd searched everywhere else.

Her fingers trembled as she loosened the buckle holding the strap.

And then she paused.

What would she do with them if they were inside? She'd been planning to destroy them at first opportunity, but now she wondered. Would she truly be able to throw them in the fire?

Maddie didn't know. So much had changed.

She took a deep breath, opened the knapsack, and peeked inside.

Nothing.

Well, not nothing. There were the usual odds and ends inside, but no packet of letters. Drat.

“What are you looking for?”

Logan's voice.

She wheeled to face him. “Oh. Nothing. Well, I'm looking for Fluffy, of course. The knapsack was lying open, and I thought she might have crawled inside. It's . . . a little known fact that lobsters love the smell of canvas.”

In a lifetime of telling stupid lies, Maddie knew she had just told her stupidest.

But Logan looked too fatigued to question her, or perhaps simply too weary to care. His eyes were red with exhaustion, and his jaw had grown over with stubble again.

Her heart softened. He'd been working so hard for her.

“No luck on your end, either?” she asked.

He shook his head. “But we're not giving up. Not if it takes all night and into morning.”

“You should rest. It's just a lobster.”

“She's not just a lobster. She's your dream, and that was our bargain. Your dream for mine.”

“It's over, Logan. It's over. You saw the way Lord Varleigh treated me tonight. Even if he had introduced me to Mr. Dorning, it would have been for nothing. I'm a woman. That's already a strike against me in most ­people's eyes. And if I'm newly married? They'd never hire me for a long project. They'd assume I'll get pregnant at any moment and abandon the work.”

“Why are you speaking as though we're married?”

“Because maybe we should be.” She forced herself to meet his gaze.

“You don't want that.”

“Don't I?”

“No. You don't.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Aside from the fact that you've been telling me so, in no uncertain terms, ever since I arrived?” Heavy footsteps carried him closer. “The letters
, mo chridhe
. You'd spun a tale of a Scottish officer and a home in the Highlands. But that was just a story. Your true dream was in the margins. All those moths and flowers and snails. I'm not letting you give that up just because Lord Varleigh is a bastard and one lobster crawled away. It means something to you.”

Perhaps it did. But it meant
everything
to her that he understood.

“Maybe we could mean something to each other.”

“Maddie . . .”

She reached to touch him, grasping the lapels of his coat to draw him close. Her heart was pounding in her chest, but she told herself to be brave.

He was ragged and weary, but she was weary, too. Exhausted from holding back this tide of affection and tenderness inside her. She couldn't control her emotions for another moment.

She wanted to hold him. She wanted him to hold her.

“Don't you see?” She slid her hands inside his coat, skimming over the rippled surface of his abdomen and reaching to encircle him in her arms. “If we could have a marriage that was real . . . one that
meant
something . . . Lord Varleigh and Fluffy and the encyclopedia wouldn't matter. Nothing else would matter.”

“Don't.” His voice was hoarse. “Don't talk like this. We still have a great deal of castle to search.”

“Let the men search. Stay here with me.”

She sensed his will to resist weakening. His breathing grew ragged. She found the spot where his open collar gaped. She kissed the dark notch at the base of his throat.

“Stay with me, Logan.” Stretching onto her toes, she kissed his jaw, then his cheek. “Make love to me.”

She kissed him.

And any feeble, insincere protests Logan might have made were lost, washed away in the sweetness.

“Stay with me.” She pulled him toward the bed, and he followed. “It's time to make this real.”

Together they fell onto the mattress. At last, she was under him. Soft and warm and welcoming. Spreading her thighs to make a cradle for his hips and tugging at the hem of his shirt.

Belowstairs, he could still hear the men thundering from one room to the next, shouting directions to each other in their lobster search.

“You're . . .” When her hand slipped inside his shirt, he moaned against her mouth, “You're certain you want this now?”

“Yes. Now. Always.” Her whispered words warmed his skin and inflamed his desire. “Make me feel like you did earlier, on the dressing table. Let me do the same for you.” She pushed up the fabric of his shirt and ran her hands over his bared chest. “Logan, I want you.”

Holy God. The words were like sparks dropped into whisky. In an instant, he was afire for her. Primed to explode.

She was a grown woman, he reminded himself. She understood what this meant, and she was making her own choice.

All he had to do was seize his prize.

She held him tighter, running her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. The edge of pleasure was keen. He clutched her to him, sinking into the kiss.

“Just do it,” she urged, reaching between them to pull up her skirts. “Hurry. Make me yours before I can . . .”

Her voice trailed off.

But she didn't need to complete that statement. He knew what she'd almost said.

Make me yours before I can change my mind.

A whisper of guilt moved through him. He ignored it. Running headlong toward the fear, just as he'd always told his men to do in battle.

For a glorious moment, he believed he could conquer it.

And then . . .

In an instant, it simply became too much. There was no thought in his decision. No desire or conscious intent. Just the instinct: Pull away.

The flash of hurt in her eyes was immediate. And eviscerating.

He felt like he'd glimpsed paradise by peering between the bars just as the gates were closed on him forever.

“Before you can change your mind,” he finished for her. “That's what you almost said, isn't it? You want me to take you here and now, before you come to your senses.” He rolled onto one elbow, breathing hard. “I dinna like the sound of that.”

She flung her arms overhead and sighed. The gesture did incredible things for her breasts. “Now you're suddenly full of scruples?”

“I don't know. Maybe I am.”

“Logan. This is what you wanted. What you demanded and threatened to ruin me to get.”

“You're only upset right now because of what happened back there. I know you're disappointed,
mo chridhe.
”

She reached for him. “Then make it better. It would be no sacrifice to give up my work if this were a real marriage in every sense. One with love. A family. We could have that together, Logan.”

Jesus. So now he had to promise he could be worth giving up everything for? He couldn't do that. He didn't know how to replace her career, a family, a community of colleagues and friends. It was impossible.

He wouldn't be enough. She'd grow to resent him.

And then she'd leave.

“We don't have to lie to anyone. We could make this all the truth. Tonight. Don't you care for me at all?”

Of course he cared for her, and more than a bit. The truth was, he cared for her too much. He just couldn't take her dreams away. Not like this.