It had forgiven her for a sin she had not committed. Either that, or he was mad.
“Verra well,” he said softly, “allow me to try to earn it.”
When she gave his suggestion a stunned look, his smile grew. The sight of her made him feel dizzy, overcome with unsteadiness and—
“Are ye ill, Mr. Cameron?”
“Aye,” he answered, taking an unsteady step forward. “I think…did ye…poison…?”
Nae! He felt himself going down. As a soldier, he knew there was nothing worse than falling before the enemy. Would she cut off his head? Slice open his throat? He had a dozen…nae, a hundred things he wanted to say to her. Things like he never meant for any of this to happen. He was sorry.
As he toppled forward, he saw her hold out her arms to him. She’d never be able to—
They both went down. Her body beneath his broke his fall. He tried to lift his head to make certain she was still breathing. He couldn’t move. Even his thoughts were fading fast. How could she do it? When had she done it? The last thought he had before darkness overtook him was that he wasn’t angry with the wildcat for doing what wildcats did. He was angry with himself for trusting her.
Over the course of a long night, he approached the edge of wakefulness a half dozen times. And each time, he imagined he saw Miss Woodburn crouching over him. He dreamed that she didn’t appear happy about his condition but concerned over it.
Why was his room so cold? The ground was hard and cold when he fell. Nae. He had fallen on her body. She was soft. Soft and warm. Like his bed. Were those…stars over his head?
Thankfully, he sank deeper again—away from the years of learning how to live with a useless arm, away from the beauty who tempted him to madness for the second time.
Was he dead? he thought, coming closer to the edge of reason a little later. He must be dead. How else would he be able to purge the contents of his belly so violently that it made him pass out again? Until he woke up a little more, sometime later when he was being dragged by the ankles.
“Fool.” He heard her voice over his head—out of breath while she pulled him. “Ye would think ye knew the difference between poison—”
Poison? She was talking about poison. What did she say? Was he dreaming? He tried to hold on as the sun ascended over the hills. He failed and fell asleep from the poison for the last time.
He came awake the next morning as he was being hefted over the shoulder of Steafan, with Ewen and Jamie close behind. He remembered another time when his cousins carried him away from a place…the dungeon of Dunley Keep. Was he back there? Where was Miss Woodburn that night? His cousins never stopped to kill her family. They did not stop until they got him home to his family and the physicians at Tor Castle. If they would have paused to kill anyone, he would have died.
He grew confused now when they reached his house and brought him inside. “Where…?”
“We havena seen her, Logan,” Steafan let him know.
“Put me doun,” Logan demanded. He cast his burly cousin a black look when he was dumped on his bed. “I meant where was I? But I see ye have brought me to my room. My new question is, where have I been?”
“In the glen,” Jamie told him. “Just inside the tree line. We found ye after returnin’ to the house this mornin’. Ye were covered in yer blankets, unresponsive until Steafan lifted ye up.”
“I was alone?” he asked hollowly. Then, her concern was, in fact, a dream.
“When we found ye, ye were, but someone had tried to keep ye warm.”
Why would she after poisoning him? She had told him she had, hadn’t she?
“What happened to ye, Logan?” Ewen asked him. “Did the lass poison ye?”
Logan began to nod his head—but why hadn’t she let him die then? “Why would she stay with me and keep me warm enough to live?”
“Mayhap she changed her mind,” Jamie reasoned, then glanced at the other two. “I told ye both she fancied Logan.”
“She hates me, Jamie,” Logan corrected him. “Truly. She believes she must fer her kin’s sake.”
“Many of us believe the same way, Logan,” Ewen reminded him.
“Aye.” Logan didn’t need reminding. He knew most Highlanders believed in avenging one’s kin. But she did not even give him a chance to be forgiven. She tried to kill him twice in one day!
He closed his eyes and covered his forehead with his hand. His left hand.
At first, no one noticed. Not even Logan. Then Jamie pointed to him.
