Propping her head on one hand, she drew soothing caresses over the lines of his shoulders, neck, and back. She made gentle shushing noises. He didn’t wake, but gradually his shivers began to subside. The tension in his muscles uncoiled, and his body relaxed against hers. Skin to skin. The masculine, soapy scent of him filled her senses.
Her heart swelled. Tenderness unfurled in her chest like a wisp of smoke, spreading and permeating her entire body.
I dinna do cuddling, he’d said.
She nuzzled the velvety cropped hairs at the nape of his neck, smiling secretly to herself. Perhaps he didn’t do cuddling, but she did. She was excellent at it, apparently.
Madeline Eloise Gracechurch: Stealth Cuddler.
What Logan didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
But if she wasn’t careful, it just might tear her heart in two.
At the first sign of daylight, she rose and slipped into the adjoining chamber, where she dressed herself in a simple muslin frock. She inched her way down the spiraling steps and arrived in the high hall, which Logan’s men had turned into their temporary camp.
There she stood, blinking, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and willing her heart to stop pounding in her ears.
Come along, then. Where are you?
Her gaze went to the corner, where the men’s belongings had been heaped.
There.
Maddie hugged the perimeter of the room, treading on the balls of her slipper-clad feet until she reached the heap of baggage.
Whether they were in a sporran, a saddlebag, or a knapsack . . . Those incriminating letters had to be here somewhere, and she was going to find them.
She plucked a canvas haversack from the corner and opened it, gingerly poking through the contents. When she found nothing remarkable inside, she moved on to investigate the next. And then to a third.
The contents were humble, and much the same in each. A spare shirt or two, a pair of woolen fingerless gloves, a boar-bristle scrubbing brush, a pair of dice. Nothing much of note.
Until her finger found the sharp end of a needle.
To her credit, Maddie managed not to cry out. But the bag slipped from her grasp, hitting the stone floor with a light thud.
She went absolutely still and turned a wary glance over the hall of snoring Scotsmen. None of them seemed to have heard. The men remained unmoving lumps of plaid huddled under their tartans.
Apparently, the men wore their plaids as kilts by day and then used the same for bedding by night.
She wrinkled her nose. When did they wash the things?
When did they wash themselves?
“Good morning.”
Startled for the second time in as many minutes, Maddie jumped and wheeled.
Apparently if you were Logan MacKenzie, you washed yourself now.
He stood in the doorway to a side chamber, bared to the waist and dripping. He propped one shoulder against the doorway and clutched his kilt before him with his free hand. His pose was a classic contrapposto. He looked like a renaissance David, sculpted not from cool, stoic marble but from impatient flesh.
A thin trail of dark hair drew her gaze lower.
“You’re awake early,” she said.
“Not really. I rose shortly after you did.” He looked her up and down. One eyebrow rose in interrogation. “Are you looking for something, mo chridhe?”
“Oh. Yes. I was looking for something.” She twisted the corner of her apron and said the only thing she could. “I was looking for you.”
“Me.”
She nodded.
His mouth quirked with pure male arrogance. “Well, then. I’m at your service. What did you want with me?”
What indeed. Maddie swallowed hard. She wanted so many things, and most of them were ridiculous. She wanted to reach up and push an errant lock of hair from his brow. To put a shirt on him before he took a chill.
If he could read her mind, he would have a good laugh.
Somehow she had to find a way to calm all these fussy, caretaking impulses. Or channel them into some other activity.
Drat. Why were there never any underfed, shivering puppies about when a girl needed them most?
“I . . . merely wanted to bid you a good journey. I assumed you’d be going to Ross-shire today.”
“I’m not going to Ross-shire today.”
“But you promised Grant.”
“I promise Grant the same thing at least six times a day. We were there months ago, and he doesna recall it. As far as he knows, we’re always going to Ross-shire tomorrow.”
“Oh. Well, then. If you’re not busy doing anything else this morning,” she said, “perhaps we could . . . That is, I hoped the two of us might . . .”