What if he hadn’t come for her today? Helen would likely be dead. Elspeth would have been next. She couldn’t help but think about what would have happened to them if Mr. Cameron hadn’t shown up. And why had he shown up anyway?
Because she was his now. How had she become the property of the man she ha—. But where was that flame of her hatred that had burned so brightly for the last six years? Did a handsome face and a lithesome body turn her head? Did a kind heart?
She had found herself fighting to remember who he was. Her new master. Her Cameron master.
She entered the house and was greeted by Helen.
“So, what about Mr. Cameron?” Helen asked her.
“What about him?”
“Is he friend or foe?”
Elspeth turned to look at the door. Did her hesitation to answer confirm that she had gone mad? “I dinna know.”
Chapter Twelve
Sitting on awind-strewn perch high on the wall of Ben Nevis, Logan looked toward the glen with today’s breakfast and supper strung to his hip. He was alone, abandoned for the lass Elspeth had brought home last night.
He wasn’t happy to admit that Miss Woodburn had not followed him around everywhere for any reason other than the one she’d told him. She had not wanted to be alone.
Now that she had a new friend with her, she barely noticed that he’d left. It stung.
Still, he watched her with his hood whipping around his face, unable and unwilling to look away while she hung wet clothes on the thin rope she and her friend had tied between the two houses. She enjoyed doing laundry, it seemed. Today it was the bed linens, his included.
He’d been told by Helen, whom he’d met returning from the outdoor privy just before the sun came up, that Miss Woodburn had refused his bed and told her to sleep in it.
Elspeth didn’t want to sleep in his bed after she’d kept him alive by laying with him to keep him warm. He’d remembered her slender arms around him; her warm body pressed to his. And then, like a fool, he’d pulled her into his embrace last eve.
She had pulled away.I lost everything because of ye. I canna ferget. I willna ferget.
He watched her stretch to pin the linens to the drying line and then bend to gather more. She turned at something Helen said. He saw no one but her.
Around her head she wore a red snood, tied into a bow in the front. Tufts of uneven, pale hair stuck out in various places.
Mesmerizing.
She looked light enough to blow away at the next gust of wind. She was braw and resilient, capable and altogether lovely.
She wanted to get away from him first chance she could. Late last eve, he’d sent his cousins to Tor and told them to say nothing about his guest. She would stay with him for the time being.
When she finished hanging another linen, she walked out from between the houses and searched the glen and the surrounding area, shielding her eyes from the sun.
She wouldn’t be able to see him from where she was.
Was she looking for him?
He almost rose up to go to her. He smiled instead and then scowled for being so ridiculously happy that she might be looking for him. Mayhap, it wasn’t just anyone whose company she sought, but truly his. He knew she didn’t hate him as much as she claimed. She had the perfect opportunity to kill him whilst he’d lain poisoned by mushrooms he had foolishly added to his breakfast.
What had changed for her? One day she had tried to kill him three different ways, and hours later she let him hold her in a pile of blankets beneath the shelter of Ben Nevis.
When she pulled her tattered arisaid around her shoulders and returned to her friend, Logan stood up and made his way down the mountain. Should he let her prepare their food today? Did he trust her? Surely, she would not poison her new friend. If he was going to stay here with her for a wee bit, he should be able to trust her.
He remembered handing her his dirk to quit talking about killing him and doing it. She had snatched the weapon up and brought it down on him! She came upon him like a stealthy feline, and if he had been a bit slower, she would have struck him. She’d poisoned his food and killed the fish that ate it.
She’d dragged all his blankets to him and prepared a makeshift bed, using her own body to provide warmth. He owed her his life, and the return of his arm.
She made him feel lightheaded when he looked at her. Whatever her effect on him, he didn’t mind it.
