“I wasna there,” she claimed woodenly.
He nodded, not pressing it. He couldn’t remember the angel’s face.
He didn’t think it was Miss Woodburn.
He finished his stew and then carried their bowls to the pot, then curled them under one arm and left the house through the kitchen back door.
When she followed him, he turned to have a look at her. “Do ye have an aversion to bein’ alone, lass?”
She looked away as if she didn’t want to answer, then, “I am unused to being alone, Mr. Cameron. All my masters had numerous servants.”
All her masters. He did not like the sound of it. Even though her father was a Covenanter, he had been a baron—and she was still a nobleman’s daughter. He couldn’t imagine his mother or sister as anyone’s servant if their husband and brother were killed. The woman would hate the man who caused the death of those they loved.
“Ye are no one’s servant here,” he told her, keeping the cold edge in his voice. After all—he glanced down at his arm—he’d still been torturously punished for looking at her. “Ye are free to walk beside me.”
He waited for her to keep up. When she did, he continued. “I canna bring ye home to my kin, but I will find a place fer ye where ye willna be alone any longer.”
She was quiet for the remainder of their trek to the nearby stream. It was not far, but Logan took a moment to admire her delicate profile in the twilight. Her alluring brow and pertinent nose…the bewitching curl of her lips. His belly knotted and flipped…or flipped and knotted. He wasn’t sure which. Both. Here she was, that faerie he remembered, who had taken his breath from his poor body. And still did.
He looked away. They reached the stream. He didn’t spare her a glance while he knelt on a large rock and dipped the supperware into the stream.
“Allow me to do it,” she said, kneeling beside him and reaching for the bowls.
“I am no’ incapable, Miss Woodburn,” he told her, tossing her a smirk. “My cousins never wash their bowls or plates.”
“Why do ye cook fer them then?”
He looked away again, ignoring the fathoms in her bonnie blue-green eyes under the full moon. She didn’t have secrets. She had deep emotions. They often appeared in the snap of her tone, but there was so much more. He guessed there were six years of emotions ready, at any moment, to burst forth.
“They are my kin.” He couldn’t think of any other reason why he cooked for them. “They like my food.”
“They should help.”
“I dinna need help.”
“Ah, I see.”
He looked at her again. “Och? What do ye see?”
“Ye speak with pride. ’Tis not always a good thing.”
He swallowed; sorry he’d returned his gaze to hers. “Am I prideful to say I dinna need help if I have nae trouble completin’ the task? If I failed this one thing but still insisted I didna need help,thatwould be prideful.”
This time, she broke eye contact first to watch him rubbing stones in the pot to loosen the food before soaking it in the running stream.
“Can ye not move yer arm at all?” she asked, breaking the comfortable silence.
He looked down and moved his fingers, then his wrist. He gave his arm all his attention, willing it…to…move.
It rose from his side, and then, slowly lifted. He smiled at the achievement. Aye, mayhap he was prideful. He’d worked hardfor six years to lift it. The castle physician at Tor had said he would never move it again, but Logan would never give up.
“Why are ye no’ using it then to help ye wash?” she asked with a touch of irony staining her tone. “Are ye prideful against yer own arm?”
“It takes much to do this.”
“All the more reason ye should move it every chance ye have. It doesna have to move much, but dinna just leave it dangling there if ye have attained so much already.”
He stared at her, his smile remaining. Did she just insult him or pay him a compliment?
