“No, they wouldn’t. Trust me—they know better than to gossip about something like that.” As she shifted around him, bandaging his chest again, she looked into his face, saw his disbelief. “If you need more reassuring on that point, both lads are ex-buccaneer brats. They know to keep their mouths shut about anything that washes in from the sea.”
Logan gave up arguing. He didn’t have enough facts to win, or even to make sense of his burgeoning fear. His pursuers were people any wise commander would fear—of that much he was now sure. And in that vein, the fear he felt wasn’t personal. All his fear was for her and hers.
He didn’t know why—couldn’t formulate a rational argument—but he knew what he felt.
Later, standing before the sideboard in the parlor and turning the wooden cylinder over and over in his hands, he still couldn’t say why he felt so strongly, but the premonition of danger, of impending threat, was impossible to deny.
After dinner, he sat on the parlor floor with the children and taught them another card game.
Linnet sat in her armchair and watched, not the children but him.
She could almost see the connections forming, the intangible links. Brandon and Chester he’d held in the palm of his hand from the moment he’d opened his eyes, but Willard—Will—was both older and more wary. Although friendly, Will had initially held back, hesitated to commit to the near hero-worship the younger boys had so enthusiastically embraced. But Will was now a convert, too.
All three asked questions—about this, that, male-type questions—all of which Logan either answered or used to gently steer their thoughts in a more appropriate direction.
The girls, too, Jen and Gilly, enjoyed his company, and while they didn’t take the same advantage of his presence, they, too, were benefiting simply from having a large, strong, adult male about with whom they could interact freely, and trust implicitly to care and watch over them.
Children knew. Her children—her wards—certainly knew. She, Muriel, and Buttons hadn’t raised them to be anything but quick and bright. Enough to be wary of strangers, ready to be suspicious, ready to react to any even minor detail that wasn’t quite right.
All of them had looked at Logan, looked at him and seen, and known he was trustworthy.
And in that they were correct. He was good with them, instinctively knowing when to be firm, when to laugh and tease. When to be kind. He was good with them in ways neither Edgar nor John, both of whom were fond of the children, could emulate. Where the older men struggled to find the ways, Logan simply knew.
She doubted he was even aware of it; his reactions to the children were immediate, innate. It occurred to her that while he might still be wrestling with what sort of man he was, she and her brood could fill in many traits—all the important ones, certainly.
He was good, kind, considerate without being overwhelming. He was commanding, yes, but only in spheres in which he was experienced. He was trustworthy, caring, strong, able, and, after his response to his latest recollection, she could throw loyal and protective—highly protective—into the mix.
She also suspected he could be recklessly brave.
And on that note, she decided she would stop—she was making him sound like a saint, and he was definitely not that.
Underneath his protectiveness and caring lay a dictatorial possessiveness she recognized all too well; she carried the same trait. That was one reason he and she would never be compatible beyond a certain point. For a few days, even a few weeks, they could brush along well enough, but eventually the inevitable clash would come—and she would win. She always did, and then he’d leave—if he hadn’t remembered and left already.
“Time for bed.” Pushing out of the armchair, she rose, let her skirts fall straight as she fixed the children with a direct look that slew their protests before they uttered them.
Edgar and John had already retired. Buttons was struggling to stifle her yawns. Muriel looked up from her knitting and smiled over the top of her spectacles. “Indeed. It’s grown late.”
Within minutes, Linnet was alone with Logan in the parlor, with only a single candle burning and the sound of footsteps retreating up the stairs. She arched a brow at him, wordlessly asking why he’d remained.
“I recall last night you said something about ‘doing the rounds.’ “
She might have known. “I check all the doors and windows on the ground floor—a habit my father instilled in me.” Shielding the candle flame, she started for the back door, smiling wryly when Logan fell in behind her. “At one time, pirates, then later buccaneers, used to lurk in the southern reaches of Roquaine Bay.”
“I’d always heard that folk from the Isles were descended from pirates.”
“You heard aright—we are.”
“Are there any pirates—or, for that matter, buccaneers—remaining in these parts?”
She smiled. “Nearer than you might suppose. But they’re no threat to you, much less to this household.”
Reaching the back door, she slid the twin bolts home; as she led the way on, she pretended not to notice that he checked, then tried, the door.
Her “rounds” done, she parted from him on the first floor and headed upstairs to check on her wards. Logan watched her go, imagined her bending over the small beds, tucking hands beneath covers, dropping kisses on foreheads.
Doing all the little caring things women—mothers—did, even though she wasn’t their mother.
He still wasn’t sure what to think of this household, but the longer he spent within it the more he realized that for all its unconventionality, it worked. It provided those who lived there with all they needed for a full, happy, and contented life.
A safe life, too, as far as Linnet could guarantee.
Reaching her room, he went in. Closing the door, he crossed to the window, and as he’d done the night before, stood looking out. He’d thought, last night, that he’d been drawn to the view because that way lay England, but in reality, it was the sense of peace, even in the face of the strafing winds and beneath the roiling skies, that drew him. Held him.
Outside the window, nature ruled over a raw, rough, elemental landscape, yet people had lived there for centuries—possibly longer than they’d lived in England. The rawness, the roughness, reminded him of Glenluce, yet here the elements were harbingers of excitement, adventure, and exhilaration, lacking the bleakness, the grayness, that characterized Scotland.
This was home yet not, familiar yet different, and somehow more welcoming. Perhaps that was why he felt so intensely about protecting it, defending it, from any threat.
Such a depth of innate protectiveness wasn’t something he’d felt before—not anywhere, not for anyone. His memory might still have holes, but he was indisputably sure of that.
Just as he knew that Linnet herself would deny he had any right to feel so. There was no logic or rationale behind his, unbending conviction that he was, somehow, protector and defender of these innocents, of this small realm. As if he’d fallen under some spell—the house’s or hers. Perhaps both.
Regardless, Mon Coeur increasingly felt like the lock his key fitted.
The door opened. He turned his head as Linnet came in.
Locating him, she set the candlestick on the tallboy and walked deliberately, with certain intent, toward him. She was wearing another of her fine woollen gowns, a plain, modest creation in smoky green, yet the sleeves outlined the graceful lines of her arms, the scooped neckline drew his eye to the swells of her breasts, while the clinging skirts flirting about her long legs teased his senses.
Fixing his gaze on her face, he steeled himself to hear her push to continue their “arrangement,” with him repaying his obligation to her by educating her, tutoring her, in the ways of the flesh.
Her flesh, and his.
He didn’t want that—didn’t want to, couldn’t bring himself to, treat her like that, to view her and her body as part of some bartered exchange. He, body, mind, and soul, would be delighted
to make love to her if she wanted him—if, freely, she wanted to lie with him, to explore that side of paradise with him without any hint of obligation or coercion.
He wanted to deal with her on a different plane—man to woman, gentleman to lady, lover to lover. He wanted nothing, no other consideration, tainting what they shared, coloring it, corrupting it.
As she halted before him and looked into his eyes, he wanted to tell her, to find the words and rescript their relationship, nudging it onto the simple, direct, conventional path, one he’d followed with no other woman but wanted to follow with her.
He knew what he needed to say, but he didn’t have the words.
Regardless, he couldn’t speak them. Uncertainty, lack of memory, forced him to silence.
He didn’t yet know his recent past—didn’t know if he had a wife waiting for him. He didn’t think he had, yet the possibility was there.
Making love to Linnet at her instigation, more, at her insistence, was one thing—something his honor didn’t approve of but could live with given he had no real choice. That she would leave him no choice. But to speak, and lead her to believe there could be more between them when he didn’t know if that were so, would be the action of a cad.
He looked into her eyes, lucent in the moonlight, and knew he wasn’t going to like where she would lead him. Yet until he knew all about Logan Monteith, the man he was now, the commitments he’d made and had yet to fulfill, he was helpless to, on her own turf, take the reins from her.
Linnet studied his eyes, examined what she could see in his face, in the chiseled angles and planes. “You’re thinking too much.” He was thinking of ways to argue, to discuss their situation. She trapped his dark gaze. “Stop resisting. You know there’s no point. Your obligation to me is mounting, so how are you planning to balance the account?”
She felt utterly brazen—and just a touch guilty—holding to such a line, compelling him in a way she knew he didn’t like, yet that way would keep her firmly in control, dictating their relationship.
Ensuring it remained superficial.
Ensuring she did nothing to encourage him to think it might be more. Could be more. That she might ever wish for more.
His eyes narrowed on hers. “What do you want of me? What lesson am I supposed to teach you tonight?”
His voice had lowered; she hid a smile. He was, it seemed, going to fall into line. “I want to learn more—I want you to show me more beyond what we’ve already shared.”
His lips thinned. “You’ll need to be more specific.”
Her own eyes narrowed. Perhaps she’d been too quick to assume his capitulation. How could she be specific if she, didn’t know? … she smiled. Smugly. “I want you to treat me as you would a slave—a pleasure slave.”
His eyes widened.
She let her smile deepen. “As a female given to you to do with as you wish—specifically for you to indulge your most potent desires.” Boldly, utterly brazenly, she arched a brow. “Is that specific enough?”
His lips tightened to a grim line. His eyes were deepest midnight. “You don’t know what you’re asking for. Try again—you don’t want that.”
She raised her brows higher, haughty and assured. “I know what I want—your desires unfettered. I want to know—to experience—what meeting those desires means. What fulfilling your most potent desires feels like.”
Logan stared into her witchy green eyes, took in her prideful, arrogant expression—and felt everything within him quake.
He felt like a predator about to pounce. To be offered such a sexual feast, to have it forced on him … but he shouldn’t. She shouldn’t. Desperately he sought some way to deny her.
She tilted her chin and stared back at him, stubbornness in every line of her face, of her body. “Tonight,” she stated, her tone a ringing challenge, “that’s my price.” Her gaze held his. “And I believe you’re obligated to pay.”
He struggled not to react. All but shook with the impulse to seize her and devour. How had he got into this? Every time he thought he’d be able to control her, she took another step into deeper waters—and effortlessly dragged him with her.
If he did as she asked…
You don’t know what you’re asking for.
Truer words he’d never spoken—he knew to his bones she had no idea. Compared to him, she was an innocent. Why she was pushing him in that particular direction he didn’t know, but given said innocence, if he complied, even half complied … perhaps she wouldn’t push him again. At least not along such a dangerous path.
The last thing he wanted was to see fear in her eyes, yet just a lick, a suggestion, would with luck have her shying from any further dangerous games—not with him or anyone else.
God forbid she tried this with anyone else.
That thought sealed his fate. Better him than any other. If he wanted to protect the damned witch, then picking up the gauntlet she’d just flung at his feet was the right course.
To make sure she never flung it again.
“All right.” He nodded. “You’re my pleasure slave for the night. You don’t speak unless asked a question, and you obey every order I give instantly—without hesitation.”
Her lips curved in subtle triumph as she inclined her head.
“Fetch the candlestick.”
She turned and walked back to the tallboy. He flung himself into the armchair angled before the wide window. She returned, candlestick in hand.
“Put it on the table by the bed.”
She did, then looked at him.
He pointed to a spot a yard before his feet. Obediently, she crossed to stand there. Cloud-veiled moonlight and starlight washed through the window, combining with the candle glow to illuminate her while leaving him largely in shadow.
He met her gaze. “Take off your clothes.”
Her lips curved, and she obliged. She patently understood enough of her role to do so without haste, yet without unnecessary hesitation.
He watched as she revealed herself, the long lines of her limbs, her delectable curves, all encased in alabaster-white. He debated, but didn’t instruct her to let down her hair; the rippling mass would conceal too much of her body, and he was leaving her no modesty tonight.
That was part of his plan. As he watched, he worked out more.
When she tossed her chemise aside and it floated down to join the rest of her clothes scattered to one side on the floor, he openly examined her, ran his gaze slowly over the white curves and hollows, over the full peaks of her breasts, the indentation of her waist, the flare of her hips, the thatch of red-gold curls at the apex of her thighs. Long, sleekly muscled thighs, sculpted knees, svelte calves and delicate feet.
Slowly, still blatantly assessing, he ran his gaze back up, to her face. “Put your hands on your breasts. Cup them.”
She blinked, but obeyed, supporting the white mounds in her hands.
“Fondle them.” He gave her directions, watched as she complied—watched the arrested expression in her eyes. He debated how far he might take that tack, but the activity wasn’t making his life any easier.
His gaze on her breasts as they overflowed her hands, he reached up and unknotted the kerchief about his neck, slowly pulled it free, knowing she’d noticed and was watching.
Slowly, he stood, then walked toward her. “Keep fondling.” Unhurriedly he circled her, then halted behind her, with less than a foot between her back and his chest.
He draped the kerchief over her shoulder, clearly intending to use it later. For what, he left her imagination to supply, for now.
Then he curved his palms about the ends of her shoulders and began.
Linnet fought to stay upright, to keep her spine rigid while his hard hands and long, strong fingers commanded her senses and suborned her will.
His hands roved her body and possession seared her skin.
Until her nerve endings sparked, until every inch of her skin came alive, delicately flushed, heating.
Abru
ptly he pushed his hands under hers, still loosely cupping her breasts.
“Leave yours on top of mine.”
The rough command fell by her ear, then he closed his hands and kneaded, much more firmly, more devastatingly knowingly, than she had. His fingers found her nipples and, squeezed, squeezed until she came up on her toes, head tipping back as her spine bowed and she gasped for her next breath.
He drew his hands away, pressed hers to the now swollen and aching mounds. “Like that.”
An order, one she bit her lip and tried to obey.
As his hands slid down to her waist, then back and over her hips.
To caress her bottom. To explore, flagrantly possessive, to examine.
The night air turned cool as her skin fevered and dewed.
Without warning, he clamped one hand about her hip, with the other reached beneath the globes of her bottom and touched her—stroked once, long and sure—then he thrust one finger into her, penetrating deep into her sheath.
Her lungs locked; she couldn’t breathe. She closed her eyes—and felt her own hands on her breasts, felt her awareness heighten, felt sensation streak like lightning through her.
She closed her hands, sucked in a tight breath as he eased his hand back, but only to push a second finger in alongside the first.
He stroked, deep, hard, the pressure nothing less than an intimate invasion.
Her heart raced. Desperate, she trapped her nipples and squeezed as he worked his fingers relentlessly within her, his fist flexing beneath her bottom, pushing her on.
The tension built, soared. Head back, she gasped. His iron grip on her hip guided her as she helplessly rode his invading fingers.
As release drew closer, brighter, as her nerves tightened and coiled. His fingers slowed, then left her.
Eyes snapping open, lips parted and dry, she fought to stand steady as her senses reeled.
He walked around to face her. His face a mask carved in stone, he met her gaze. “Pleasure slaves have to earn their, pleasure.” His gaze fell to her hands, still locked about her breasts. “Hold out your hands, wrists together.”