She wasn’t afraid to go outside after the sun set. She’d had to do it many times when her other masters ordered her to gatherwater from the well or clean the supper bowls or help gather whatever was being harvested—sometimes late into the night.
And why did Mr. Cameron insist on accompanying her? Did he think she would run away? It was as he said, where would she go? How would she get there? Would his horse truly harm her if she tried to mount it? She’d had a horse as a young girl. She remembered how to ride, but she also remembered how intelligent horses are. If they are loyal to one, they will not let anyone else ride them.
She couldn’t run away. Even though she hated Mr. Cameron, being with him was better than being alone.
She watched him smile at something one of his cousins said, and then he turned that smile on her. She thought of the knife tied to her thigh. When he was dead, she would be completely alone.
Chapter Ten
Miss Woodburn thoughtshe could not go traipsing around with feathers in her hair. She was incorrect.
Logan turned from throwing a rock into the stream with his left arm—as per his teacher’s instruction when they set out early this morning. It was his thirteenth rock since Miss Woodburn began washing her clothes. She would not let him help her but gave him orders on exercising his arm.
Now, he let his gaze rove over her. Why did such a statement from her about traipsing and feathers in her hair saturate him with warmth and waves of affection? When he had reached for the feather, she hadn’t jerked away, as he feared she would. She told him to reach for it with his left hand, and he had.
Hell. He fought a shiver going down his spine. What was she doing to him? Look at her there with her hair cut and chopped off, bending to the water.
Fairies traipsed, did they not? Pixie fairies…
“What?”
He heard her voice breaking through his thoughts. She lifted her wet fingers to her head. A droplet of water rolled down her temple and glistened in the sunlight. “Do I look so wretched?”
How was he supposed to put into words that she was the one he had risked it all just to see her one more time? And he would do it all again. He wanted to tell her the only wretched thing was his heart. “Am I lookin’ at ye with disgust or…”
“Or?” she asked when he paused.
Would clenching his teeth keep his words from spilling out like guts on a battlefield? Was there no way to stop it? “Whimsey,” he admitted. “Admiration,” he confessed.
He swallowed. Had he just spoken aloud? If the flames washing across her cheeks and the bridge of her wee nose were indications, then he had. He let his grin wash over her. How was he supposed to stop it? Could he stop his heart and still live?
“Pity,” she added to his list, then went back to scrubbing her clothes against a rock. “I dinna need it.”
“Ye’re willfully prideful,” he said as he turned back to throwing rocks.
“Verra well. I should have said, I dinnawantit.”
“Stubborn, as well.” He reached up for his left shoulder and rubbed it as he readied another rock.
He was surprised when, after another moment, he still hadn’t heard her retort.
He turned in time to reach out instinctively with his right hand and shackle her wrist as it came down on him with a knife clutched in her fingers.
She struggled against him for a moment and then yanked her arm back. He released her, but the instant she was free, she ran.
She was mad! How could she try to stab him? His cousins were still at the house, probably eating everything he had on hand. How did she think to escape alive?
But there was no strength in her would-be strike. She didn’t want to kill him.
He watched her run toward the foot of the mountain. He would not chase her. If she was eaten by a wild animal, so be it. God’s will, mayhap. If she returned, hungry or afraid, he would say nothing but feed her.
He looked at the rocks, where her soaking wet garments waited. He went to them and bent to take her tunic in his hand.
He didn’t need two hands to scrub clothes. He’d been doing it for a few years now—ever since he left Tor Castle to live on his own.
But he used both hands, doing what he knew Miss Woodburn would have told him to do.
After a quarter of an hour without her return, Logan spread her clothes out to dry and then set out to look for her.
