She ignored the niggling fact that he’d already shown a certain sensitivity over not stepping on her toes, that he might be intelligent enough to see and accept the need for compromise on the who-was-leader front. If he stayed they’d have to make their relationship formal, and that was where the intractable problems lay. This was her place; she would never leave it, but his home was in Scotland. And then there were the issues of gentility and expectations of ladylike behavior. He was a gentleman, an officer, yet while she’d been born a lady, certainly qualified as gently bred, she had neither the inclination nor the training to play the role of lady-wife.
And she certainly didn’t have the temperament.
With one last, dark glance at Logan’s black head, she pushed back from the table, rose, and followed Muriel into the kitchen.
She felt Logan’s dark gaze on her back, but he remained at the table, chatting with the other men while Buttons gathered the children preparatory to herding them upstairs for a full day of lessons.
Mrs. Pennyweather, Molly, and Prue were busy in the scullery. Muriel, a cup of strong tea in her hand, stood at the window looking out over the kitchen garden. Pouring herself a cup of the fragrant black brew from the pot in the middle of the big table, Linnet sipped, then went to join her aunt.
Her gaze on the garden, Muriel murmured, “I’m not going to ask, and you’re not going to tell, but … you’re fond of Logan.”
Looking out on the brown beds, Linnet sipped. Took the instant to consider her words. “Fond is as fond might be, but regardless, once he remembers the rest—the missing, pieces—he’ll leave.” She hestitated, then added, “I’d rather that was sooner than later.”
So she could limit the hurt, the disappointment that she, and the children, too, would feel.
Muriel nodded. “Yes, that’s wise. Not a pleasant prospect, but inevitable.”
Linnet said nothing, simply sipped and fought to keep that looming prospect from dragging her spirits down.
“Smell.”
Linnet glanced at Muriel, saw her aunt frowning in concentration.
“I heard somewhere that smell is the most potent trigger for memory.”
Before Linnet could respond, heavy footfalls had her turning.
Logan halted in the doorway. “The others suggested we check in L’Eree to see if anyone or anything from the wreck turned up there.”
In terms of finding something to jog his memory, it was a reasonable suggestion, but of course he’d need her to introduce him to the locals, and ask the questions, too. She didn’t want to spend more time alone with him, but the sooner he remembered and left … the sooner this—her restless, chafing, disaffected mood—would end.
Setting down her cup, she nodded. “Very well—let’s go.”
Muriel stood at the window and watched Linnet and Logan, cloaks flapping, stride toward the stables. Behind her, Mrs. Pennyweather came out of the scullery, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Pennyweather,” Muriel said, her gaze still on the figures walking to the stable yard, “what spices do you have in your pantry?”
Alongside Linnet, Logan rode back into the Mon Coeur stable yard in the early afternoon. The ride had been refreshing, exhilarating in parts, but their hours in L’Eree had been disappointing. In more ways than one.
No one in the small town had even realized there’d been a wreck, so they’d made no advance of any kind on that front.
A drizzling rain had settled in during the long ride back. After leaving their mounts with Matt and Young Henry, he and Linnet strode swiftly, heads down, to the house.
In the small hallway inside the back door, he shrugged off her father’s cloak, hung it on a peg, then reached for hers. As he lifted the cloak, heavy with damp, from her shoulders, she shot him a sharp, irritated glance, then stiffly inclined her head. “Thank you.”
He swallowed a snort. Her politeness was so thick he could whittle it.
That was the way it had been between them all day, a battle of sorts in which neither would yield. As far as he could manage, he’d seized every opportunity to underscore—to make plain to her—his view of her vis-à-vis him, and she’d been just as relentless in holding firm to politeness and her “arrangement,” depressing his pretensions with haughty distance.
He followed her into the parlor as determined as she to prevail, equally irritated and, he suspected, a touch more grumpy. The rest of the household were already gathered, passing around delicate cups and mugs of tea and a plate of—he sniffed—some sort of spiced biscuit.
Eschewing the armchairs, he joined the children on the floor before the hearth. Buttons handed him a mug of tea, which he accepted with thanks, along with the plate of biscuits Muriel handed him. He set the plate down before the hungry children. “So what did you learn today?”
Accepting a cup of tea from Buttons, Linnet sat in her usual armchair and doggedly kept her gaze from the large male sprawled a few feet away. Their recent interactions reminded her forcibly of a battering ram thudding on a pair of castle doors—unrelenting force meeting unbending resistance.
From the moment they’d left the house, his attention had, been constant. His gaze had rarely left her, his awareness of her had never faltered—any more than had hers of him. That hyperawareness irritated, but there seemed nothing she could do; the curse seemed an inescapable outcome of the heated engagements in which they’d indulged.
The sooner he left, the sooner her nerves, her senses—and her foolish, wanton heart—would recover.
Disinclined to make conversation, she found herself listening to the children, to their interaction with Logan.…
Damn! How the devil had he drawn so close to them so quickly?
Shifting, she studied the group, and a chill touched her heart. Not only because of the happy, engaged look in Will’s eyes, and the eager hero-worship on Brandon’s and Chester’s faces, or the settled content in Jen’s—but more than anything because of the outright adoration in Gilly’s innocent eyes.
She was supposed to be their protector. It was unarguably her duty to protect them as best she could from the disappointment, the distress, that would come when Logan left.
Glancing at Buttons, then at Muriel, Edgar, and John, she realized her entire household had, each in their way, fallen under Logan Monteith’s spell.
Throwing a glance at the clock, then the window, she stood. “I’m going for a walk along the cliffs.”
As she’d expected, Logan looked up. “I’ll come with you.”
“As you wish.” As she wanted. Better that only she be devastated by his leaving. Turning, she met Muriel’s surprised eyes. “We’ll check the western coves for any further wreckage—according to the experts, that seems the only place there might be more to find.”
“Be careful if you go down to the rocks,” Edgar said. “Tide’s on its way in.”
Linnet nodded and strode for the door.
Behind her, she heard Muriel ask Logan, “Did you like the biscuits?”
Linnet could feel his gaze already locked on her as he replied, “Yes, thank you, ma’am. They were delicious,” then he followed her.
Muriel watched Linnet and Logan leave, then sighed. She looked at Buttons. “I don’t know. Perhaps not the right spice.”
Rising, Muriel headed for the kitchen. “Pennyweather?”
Linnet stood at the top of the path leading down to the west cove. It was the third and last of the coves on this narrow face of the island, and like the other two, it was devoid of anything but the smallest slivers of debris.
She scanned slowly one last time, then shook her head. “If anything other than you and those two bodies was washed in this direction, the waves battered it to smithereens on the rocks before it had a chance to reach shore.”
Logan stood beside her, his hands in his pockets as he looked out to sea. “I gathered there are submerged rocks out there.” With his chin, he indicated the choppy, broken sea well out from the headlands.
“T
here’s reefs aplenty, and when the waves are high and the troughs between them deep, they stick out like jagged teeth. They’ve ripped the hulls of more ships than anyone will ever know.” Turning away from the surging sea, Linnet started back, electing to take the longer route through the wood southwest of the house.
Logan fell in on her heels, his eyes on her cloak’s hem, his mind retreading their conversations through the day, dissatisfying as they had been. Being subtle wasn’t working. She could too easily deflect any point he tried to make. He needed to be more forceful. More direct.
Silence descended as they walked beneath the first trees. Registering the lack of even bird calls—with the scent of a storm in the air, animals and birds had already sought shelter—Logan looked around, noting the relative stillness after the building ferocity of the wind out on the cliffs.
The trees were old, their branches entwining, with saplings, pushing up wherever they could, filling in the gaps where their fellows had fallen or been harvested for firewood. The tang of the sea was countered by the scent of cypress, of fir. Shadows pooled to either side of the path, at one with the gloomy day.
Linnet strode on, her stride even and sure.
Further along, deep in the wood, a clearing opened to one side of the path. The roughly circular space hosted a pair of flat stones surrounded by splintered wood, now damp.
No one would be coming to chop wood, not today.
He caught Linnet’s arm, halted her. When she faced him, he released her, locked his eyes on hers. “We can play games, circle the subject forever, but it won’t change anything. Won’t achieve anything.”
Comprehension showed clearly in her green eyes, but she wasn’t going to help him. He searched for words, for the right tack forward. “There’s no point in pretending that what is, isn’t.”
She tensed slightly, faintly arched a brow.
Drawing breath, he held her gaze—took the plunge. “To me, you’re a drug, an addictive ambrosia—I’m not giving you up. I might have to leave, to deliver that wooden cylinder to whoever or wherever it’s supposed to go, but I will be back.” He paused, let every ounce of his determination color the statement “I’ll come back for you.”
Green flashed as her eyes narrowed. “You can’t know that—you can’t say that. You absolutely cannot promise that.”
He felt his jaw clench, felt temper stir. “I know what I want—you. I know what I’ll do to get you.”
“Do you, indeed?” Her tone was sharp, incisive, and as hard as her darkening eyes. “If you think you’ll return here, to me, to us, after you recall what you haven’t yet and go back to continue your life in England, then you know yourself less well than I do.”
He opened his mouth, but she held up a hand. “Don’t argue! You’re the type of man who makes commitments and sees them through. Am I right in that, or not?”
Lips compressed, he could do nothing but nod.
“Exactly.” Looking down, she folded her arms, took one step off the path, then turned and paced back, crossing before him. “What do you think it would take to make you walk away from a commitment made, a vow solemnly sworn?”
He gave no answer.
Swinging around, she inclined her head; his silence was answer enough. “You won’t break a vow, an undertaking. That would run counter to everything you are.” Halting before him, she looked up into his face. “So how can you swear you’ll come back when you have no idea what commitments you already have on your plate?” She gestured. “Back in England, or wherever you’ve been?”
She met his gaze, his determination, toe to toe. “You already know you’re on some sort of mission—you’re a courier for someone, taking that cylinder somewhere, doubtless for some excellent and very likely important reason. And once back to your previous life, who knows what other commitments you’ll discover you already have? Commitments that take precedence over any you can make here and now.”
Holding his gaze, she drew in a deep breath, her breasts swelling above her folded arms. “So don’t tell me you’ll be back, don’t swear, don’t you dare make me—or the children—promises you have no idea if you can keep.”
Inwardly railing, he met her irate gaze. He wanted to sweep the past aside, to declare that she and here took precedence, regardless, over anything that had gone before … but he couldn’t.
She wouldn’t believe him even if he did.
His jaw was locked so tight, he was grinding his teeth. “So … what? We go on as we have been, and wait and see?”
“No. We go on as I stipulated at the outset. In return for my material aid, you teach me what I want to know.” She tipped up her chin, looked him in the eye. “That’s all that exists between us—a barter. That’s all it was supposed to be—all it can be.” Her eyes flashed. “That’s all I’m offering you.”
Violent reaction surged. Fists clenching, he quelled it. Searched her eyes, saw that she meant every word. He forced himself to nod. Once. “Very well. If that’s all you’ll allow … I’ll take it.”
Before she could move, he seized her elbows, pulled her to him. Bent his head and kissed her. Dipped his head, forced her lips wide and tasted her.
Backed her as he did.
When her spine met the bole of a tall tree, she pulled back on a gasp, eyes wide. “What?” She glanced to either side, then met his eyes as he released her arms, grasped her waist, and stepped closer.
“Another lesson. Alfresco.” He wedged one thigh between hers.
Her hands gripped his shoulders, whether to hold him back, or to her, she didn’t seem sure. “Here?”
“Right here.” Locking his eyes on hers, he pushed her cloak wide, reached down, and drew up her skirts. “Right now.”
“But …” She licked her lips, stared into his eyes.
Lifting her skirt and shift out of his way, he reached beneath, slid his hand under the hem of her chemise, and found her curls. Reached past, and found her.
He watched her lips part, heard her breath hitch, felt her tense as he cupped, stroked, and stoked her passion. Watched her gaze grow unfocused as her all but instant response coated his fingers in slick heat.
With his other hand he undid his breeches, then withdrew his fingers from between her thighs, pushed aside her clothes, and reached beneath to close his hands about her bottom and lift her.
To just the right height.
Linnet gasped, braced her hands on his shoulders, eyes wide as she looked down into his eyes, at the hot blue flames flaring in their depths. She struggled to breathe, to assimilate the sensation of the hard head of his erection poised at her entrance.
To assimilate just how ready, how wantonly willing her, body was, how eager to receive him. To have him fill her and stretch her, pound into her and pleasure her.
His eyes held hers; she couldn’t look way. His hands kneaded, his grip shifted, tilting her hips. She surrendered to impulse, raised one leg and curled it around his hip.
Brazenly, she licked her lips, looked at his.
Wordlessly dared.
His lips twisted, half grimace, half acknowledging smile. “This won’t be slow, and it won’t be short. You can scream as much as you like—no one’s going to hear.” He shifted his hips, teasing her with the promise of the rigid rod riding at her entrance; anticipation shivered through her, sharp as any knife. He repeated the movement and her eyes closed; her breath caught. Her fingers slid over his shoulders and dug in.
Logan leaned closer, angling his head to whisper as he pressed into her just a little way, “I’m going to take you thoroughly, and I guarantee you’ll scream.”
Opening her eyes, she looked into his. “All right. Show me.” She arched her brows. “It’s the least you can do.”
He shut her up. Filled her mouth with his tongue and silenced her.
Ravished and took, knowing it was precisely what she wanted. That she would revel in the heat, in the passion and the hunger.
He thrust deep and filled her, and simply let go—let a
ll he was free to engage, unfettered, unleashed, with her. It was what she wanted—and after her little lecture on him and commitment, it was what he needed.
He needed to imprint himself on her soul.
Linnet clung and let his passion take her. Felt her own rise to meet it, to taunt and challenge and boldly mate, to give and take in a storm of sensations.
Felt heat and desire surge and merge in a fiery wash of grasping, greedy need.
Hungry need.
Frenzied greed.
Their lips clung, mouths mating as thoroughly and completely, as their bodies. She held him to her, moved against him as they raced for the distant peak.
As he’d promised, it wasn’t a short ride.
But it was fast. Hard, powerful, exhilarating.
He took her breath and gave it back. She arched against him, demanding more.
Commanding more. Whipping him on, driving herself as much as he drove her.
Pulling back from the kiss, she tipped her head back, gasping, struggling to find enough air to breathe. Fighting to expand her senses to take it all in.
To fully appreciate the heavy bucking thrust of his hips between her thighs, the forceful repetitive surges that rocked her against the tree. Pinned her there as he filled her, and took his fill of her.
The tempo built, and built. She caught his nape and locked her lips on his—and gave. Gave.
Felt the rush as they reached the last stretch, the surging power as they raced up the rise.
Higher and higher, faster and harder.
She flung back her head and breathlessly screamed.
In the indescribable moment of brain-scrambling glory as together they crested and flung themselves high—over the precipice and into the void.
Linnet knew the engagement had been at least partially fueled by anger—his that she hadn’t believed him, perhaps that she hadn’t begged him to return, hers because he was all she’d ever wanted and yet knew she could never have. She didn’t care.