When a Scot Ties the Knot

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.”