“Does that mean ye like it?” Mr. Cameron leaned in to ask her.
She blushed and nodded. “’Tis verra good, but I meant what I said. Let me help next time.”
He nodded, gracing her with another smile, and continued eating.
When they were all done, she cleaned the bowls in the stream while Mr. Cameron stood watch nearby.
He offered to help, but she flatly refused. “I will do my part here.”
“Yer part is to rest after six years of servitude,” he answered.
She turned to give him an incredulous look. “Will ye never quit being kind to me?”
He shook his head. “Why would I?”
“I am not accustomed to it. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“After a while, it will nae longer make ye feel that way.”
When she continued to stare at him, wondering how long he meant when he said after a while, he smiled.
She finished up quickly and accepted his help carrying the bowls back to the house.
After that, she joined Helen when she left to forage for herbs, but while Elspeth was with her, she thought about Mr. Cameron.
He was practicing using both arms to chop wood when she left him. It was an exhausting exercise, but one he insisted on doing alone. She smiled, liking his determination-if only he was not going to fight against Covenanters when he was fully recovered. What if she could change his mind about Covenanters? She’d had enough Royalist masters to know the differences between the two groups.
But…was she not going to kill him? She spotted some wild garlic growing next to deadly Mandrake. She didn’t take any, not because Helen might see her. Logan Cameron was changing her mind. How could it be? It’s what she promised herself and her family for half a dozen years. If she ever met him again, she would kill him.
But och, she didn’t want to kill him anymore. She was almost certain she didn’t hate him anymore. She thought more about the warmth of his smile than about putting a knife in his heart.
And last night, when he told her he wanted her to stay, she actually thought of…kissing him.
Thinking about her budding desire for him, she bent to pluck the Mandrake berries and shoved them into the pouch beneath her skirts.
Chapter Fourteen
Logan set downhis axe and squinted in the sun at the riders approaching. He wondered why his cousins were arriving so late in the day, but then he saw his youngest brother Ealar’s raven mane beneath his hood and he understood. They’d likely waited for Ealar, who was never on time for anything.
He knew exactly why his brother was here. It riled Logan up to think of his parents sending Ealar to check on him. Was Logan a child? Or the youngest instead of the eldest?
He wiped his face and neck on a small cloth tucked in his belt and waited for the riders to reach him.
When Ealar’s mount grew close enough, he leaped from the saddle with the limberness of a lad of ten and eight.
“Brother,” he greeted stoically, coming forward in his belted plaid and bare knees. “’Tis good to see ye choppin’ wood. Jamie told me ye were usin’ yer left arm, but Logan, choppin’ wood?” He pushed out a slight, short laugh that very few witnessed. It was a good thing since it made him appear even more resplendent than he already was.
Logan didn’t know what had made his little brother so void of emotions, especially happiness. He rarely smiled, and when he did, it was usually as cold as his icy gray-blue gaze.
Ealar was an excellent reader from an early age and was often found reading, writing, and reciting morbid poetry. Oddly, he was the only one of Ismay’s bairns without a trace of red in his hair. The only one with skin as fair as fine porcelain.
“What are ye doin’ here, Ealar?” Logan already knew, but he wanted to hear it from Ealar and make him squirm a wee bit.
He should have known better than to try. Ealar didn’t squirm. “Would ye rather our mother had come?”
Stepping around Logan, he spread his gaze over the house and then around the glen. “Jamie told me aboot yer guest. Where is she?”
Before Logan answered him, he aimed his darkest glare on Jamie. His cousin properly cringed in his saddle.
