When a Scot Ties the Knot (19 page)

“We'll find another way,” he said.

It was the wrong thing to say.

“We've been through this, Logan. Or did you forget? You have rejected every one of my ideas. Including this one, mortifyingly enough.” She rose to a sitting position and buried her face in her hands. “I feel like such a fool.”

“I just can't give you what you're asking,” he said. “I've told you that from the start. Love and romance . . . it's just not in me.”

“I refuse to believe that. I know that's not true.” Her dark eyes flashed with anger. “You're the most caring, loyal man I've ever known. I see it in the way you treat your men, the tenants. Even my aunt. I'm the only one who can't seem to inspire your devotion.”

“That's not fair. And you know it's untrue. I would protect you with my life.”

“But I'll never have your heart. Will I?”

He didn't know how to answer her.

She rose from the bed and went to the dressing table. “I'm done with this. I'm done dreaming of you.” She yanked at the tartan sash draped across her torso, pulling open the luckenbooth brooch and holding it in her outstretched palm. “I want the truth. Who was she, this A.D.?”

“I've told you. It's not important.”

“It's important to me! I've been wearing this day in, day out. A heart-­shaped lie on my chest for everyone to see. I accepted it as my due. A mark of shame that I'd brought on myself by deceiving everyone. But now I want to know the truth. Did you love her?”

“Maddie . . .”

“It's a simple question, Logan. No explanations necessary. Just one word will suffice. Yes or no. Did you love her?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“A great deal?”

“As much as I knew how. It wasn't enough.”

“So she left you.”

He nodded.

“Clever woman.”

Logan winced. “Perhaps she was. I was holding her back.”

And he would be holding back Maddie, too. She had far more than sketches to offer the world. She had a gentle heart and abundant love. The wish to raise a family. All of these were things he couldn't bring himself to accept.

She would be wasted on him.

“So even though she left you, and even after all this time,” she said, “you've never been able to forget her.”

He shook his head in honest answer. “No.”

She tossed the luckenbooth toward him, and it landed on the rumpled quilt. “Take it back. I don't want to wear it anymore. I'm leaving.”

“Wait.” He pushed to his feet. “It's scarcely a week until Beltane. Whatever arrangement we work out between us, I need you to be there that night.”

“You just
rejected
me. What makes you think I have any interest in striking some kind of agreement with you?”

“Do I need to remind you about the letters?”

“Those stupid letters.” She choked on a wild laugh. “They don't even matter anymore. Go ahead, send them to the scandal sheets. What do I have left to lose? I've no employment prospects to protect. No romantic prospects, either. I'm accustomed to public humiliation. Loneliness, too. I can't be any more isolated than I have been living here.”

She flung open her closet and reached for an empty valise on the top shelf. It tumbled down on her, glancing off her head as it fell to the floor.

Ouch.
Logan winced in sympathy.

“Just what this moment needed,” she said numbly. “One more humiliation.”

She opened the valise and placed it on the bed, then began pulling handfuls of linen and stockings from the closet and shoving them inside.

Logan grabbed the valise by one handle. “You canna leave. Not yet.”

She took the other handle and tugged back. “I can. And I will. You can't stop me.”

“What will you live on?”

“Anger, for the present. It feels as though I have enough to fuel me for some time.”

Her eyes were as determined and brave as he'd ever seen them. This was just the fire he'd been wanting to see from her. The strength he knew she'd possessed all along.

And of course, it
would
come just as she'd resolved to leave him.

He pushed a hand through his hair. “Forget about me.”

“Oh, believe me. I intend to.”

“None of this has been for me. My men need a home, and you know that. I know you care about them, too. Think of Callum, Rabbie, Munro, Fyfe. Think of Grant.”

“I will miss them all. Especially Grant.” She paused, a clutch of striped woolen stockings in one hand. She pressed the stockings to her heart. “Grant is my favorite person. Do you know why? He made me feel beautiful on my wedding day. No matter how many times we're introduced, he's always impressed. He makes me laugh.” She stuffed the stockings into her valise. “He thinks you're a lucky bastard to have me. What a poor, addled fool.”

“Grant might be addled, but he's no kind of fool. And neither is he the only one who found you beautiful on our wedding day.” He took her in his arms. “I canna let you leave.”

“Why should I stay?”

“Because I . . .”

Logan knew what she wanted to hear. But somehow he just couldn't force the words. He didn't believe in those words. Not coming from anyone else, and not from his own lips, either. Sooner or later, they were always a lie.

She gave him a sad smile. “That's what I thought.”

“Maddie.”

A shrill, high-­pitched scream propelled them two steps apart.

His protective instincts kicked into a gallop. But before he could gather his wits to investigate, Rabbie's head appeared in the doorway.

“Found her!” the breathless, red-­faced soldier reported. “Or rather, she found Fyfe's finger. One lobster, alive and well.”

“Excellent. Thank you so much, Rabbie.” Maddie gave him a smile that faded just as soon as he'd left the room. To Logan, she added, “Just in time. Now she can leave with me.”

“You'll finish your drawings elsewhere?”

“No. I'm going to do Fluffy the favor I should have done myself. I'm going to set her free.”

 

Chapter Twenty-one

“M
adling?” Aunt Thea poked her turbaned head through the door. “Becky told me you're packing your trunks. Is everything all right?”

“Aunt Thea, do sit down. We need to talk.”

She steeled her nerves. It was time. Long past time.

This bog of lies had sucked her in further and further over the years. She had landed in it up to her neck, and this time she wasn't going to have any assistance from Logan.

It was up to Maddie to get herself free.

First rule of bogs: Dinna panic.

“What is it, Madling?” Aunt Thea asked.

Breathe,
she told herself.

“I . . . I'm going to have a great deal to say. May I ask you to bear with me until I've said all of it?”

“Of course.”

“When I was sixteen years old and came home from Brighton, I told you I'd met a Scottish officer by the seaside.” Maddie swallowed hard. “I lied.”

There it was. The grand confession, in two syllables. Why they'd been so impossible to say aloud for so long, she could not fathom.

But now that she'd said them once, it seemed no trouble to say them again.

“I lied,” she repeated. “I never met any gentleman. I spent the entire holiday alone. When I came home, everyone was expecting me to go to Town for my season. I felt panicked at the thought of society, so I invented this wild falsehood about a Captain MacKenzie. And then I just kept telling it. For years.”

“But . . . unless I'm going demented in my old age, there is a man in this castle. One whose name is Captain MacKenzie. He looks quite real to me.”

“He is real. But I'd never met him before.” Maddie put her head down on her crossed arms. “I'm so sorry. I've been ashamed, and afraid of you learning the truth. I wanted to tell you years ago, but you were so fond of the idea of him . . . and I'm so fond of you.”

“Oh, my Madling.” Aunt Thea rubbed her back in soothing circles. The way she'd done when Maddie was a young girl. “I know.”

“You know that I'm sorry? You can forgive me?”

“Not only that. I know everything. The lies, the letters. That your Captain MacKenzie was merely whimsy and imagination. I've always known.”

Stunned, Maddie lifted her head. “
What
?”

“Please do not take offense at this, dear—­but it wasn't a terribly plausible tale. In fact, it was rather preposterous, and you're not especially talented at deceit. Without me vouching for you, I don't think the story would have lasted a month with your father.”

“I don't understand what you're telling me. Do you mean that you never believed me? All this time, you've known that my Captain MacKenzie was a complete fabrication, and you never said a word?”

“Well, we agreed that you seemed to need time.”

“We? Who is ‘we' in that sentence?”

“Lynforth and I, of course.”

“My godfather knew I invented a suitor, too?” Maddie buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Lord. This is so embarrassing.”

Embarrassing, but also oddly freeing. If this was true, at least she did not need to feel she'd inherited this castle under false pretenses.

“Naturally he did. And he understood. Because, my darling Madling, the two of us were close.”

“Close.”

“Lovers for twenty years, on and off. And he knew I'd once lied to avoid marrying, too.”

Maddie thought her brain would twist from all these revelations. “You weren't debauched by the Comte de Montclair and ruined for all other men?”

“Oh, I went to
bed
with him. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't magical, either. And no, that night did not ruin me for other men. To the contrary, it made me realize that I was far too young to shackle myself to one man for the rest of my life simply because my parents deemed him suitable, only to learn on the wedding night that he might or might not possess an erotic obsession with feathers.”

“Feathers?”

“We needn't dwell on that. My point is, the importance of compatibility in the bedchamber cannot be overstated. Anyhow, I loudly proclaimed my ruination as an excuse to avoid marriage. I was able to take lovers when and how I pleased, but for his last two decades or so, I was rather devoted to Lynforth. His passing was quite the blow. It's why I so gladly came north with you. I was in mourning, too.”

“Yes, but your mourning was real.” Maddie edged closer. “Oh, Aunt Thea. I'm so sorry.”

Her aunt dabbed at her eyes. “We knew it was coming. But one is never truly prepared. Nevertheless, life changes. We discover new passions. While you've spent your time drawing beetles, I've penned a torrid novel in my tower upstairs.”

“You, a novelist? But that's . . . Well, that's perfect.”

When she thought about it, Aunt Thea had been writing melodrama for years, with Maddie in the starring role.

“It's more of a memoir, really. Or as the French call it, a
roman à clef
. Nearly everything in the events is true to life, but the names have been changed to protect the wicked.”

Maddie shook her head. “Why didn't you tell me? Why have we been lying to each
other
all this time?”

She clasped Maddie's hands in her own. “I didn't know we were, dear. For years, I rather thought it was all mutually understood. Sometimes a woman doesn't quite fit in with her expected role. We do what we can to make our own way, carve out a space for ourselves. I thought you were happy here in Scotland, and I encouraged your father to leave you be. But then that enormous, glorious man appeared . . .”

Maddie laughed wryly. “Did he ever.”

“And then I didn't know what to think. Perhaps you'd been telling the truth all along. I devised a test or two for him. The poem, the dancing lesson. I tried to make myself available should you need to confide in me. But mostly, I decided . . . you are a woman now. A strong, intelligent woman whom I admire. It wasn't my place to interfere.”

Maddie picked at the crocheted edge of her handkerchief. “He's a complete stranger. Can you believe it? My letters were delivered to him somehow, and he knew everything about me. About our family. But I'd never met him before he arrived in the parlor. And now . . .”

“And now you love him. Don't you?”

“I'm afraid I might.” Her eyes stung at the corners, and she blinked hard. “But he doesn't love me. Or perhaps he could, but he won't let himself. I don't know what to do. We quarreled terribly after the ball last night. I gave him back the engagement brooch.”

“A mere lovers' quarrel, perhaps.”

“Is it? I don't know if we're lovers at all. I want to be loved so desperately, I'm afraid I'm just imagining he could love me in return. I'll end up stuck in another lie of my own creation.”

Aunt Thea smiled. “After what I put him through in preparation for that ball, he must genuinely care for you. At least a little.”

“He's a loyal man. But I . . . I think I've wounded him somehow. Deeply. Perhaps my lies didn't hurt you or the family, but they hurt Logan. I don't understand how or why the silly letters of a sixteen-­year-­old could have such an effect. But I wish I knew how to make it right.”

Even offering her love hadn't been enough. What more could she give him than that?

She stared at the table. “I just feel so twisted up inside, and hopeless.”

“I have just the remedy for that condition.”

Maddie cringed. There was nothing to ruin a heartfelt moment like one of her aunt's remedies. “Oh, Aunt Thea. In the interests of honesty, I must say . . . I don't know if I can choke down one more of—­”

“Don't be silly. It's just this.”

Her aunt leaned forward and caught her in a warm, tight hug. It was a hug that smelled like a cosmetics counter, but so welcome nonetheless. They held each other, rocking back and forth.

By the time they pulled apart, Maddie had tears in her eyes.

Aunt Thea cupped her cheeks. “You
are
loved, my precious Madling. You always have been. Once you know and believe that in your heart, everything else will be clear.”

Logan kept his distance from Maddie for the next several days. It wasn't easy staying away, but he didn't see that there was anything to be gained from approaching her. She was already on the brink of leaving, and he didn't have anything new to say.

He could only hope that time—­or perhaps the lingering threat of those letters—­changed her mind.

That seemed even less likely when on the afternoon of Beltane, he found her in the dining hall amid dozens of crates and boxes.

The table was covered with china, silver, glassware, linens, pewter candlesticks. And humbler items, too: pots and kettles, fireplace pokers, candles and small jars of spice.

He asked, “Are you having a tea party?”

“No,” Maddie said. “This isn't a tea party. I'm building the men's trousseaux.”

“Trousseaux?”

Her brow wrinkled. “
Can
men have trousseaux? I don't rightly know. It doesn't matter. When they move into the new cottages, they will need to set up house. They'll be in need of these items.”

“Isn't the castle in need of these items?”

“Not anymore.” She packed a pewter jug in straw. “I'm going home to my family. Someone ought to make use of these things.”

Logan set his jaw. It rankled him, the calm, matter-­of-­fact way she spoke of leaving. Not only leaving the castle but leaving him as well.

He followed her as she moved to the other end of the table, counting out equal piles of spoons.

“Do I get a parting gift, too?” he said, no doubt sounding more petulant and transparent than he would have liked. “Perhaps a side table and a pair of candlesticks?”

“Actually, I have something else in mind for you.”

“Oh really? What's that?”

Her dark eyes met his. “I want you to have this.”

“What, a spoon?”

“No, this.” She tilted her head to glance at the vaulted ceiling. “The land. This castle. All of it.”

Logan stared at her. What was she saying? “Maddie, you can't mean to—­”

“It's already done.” She reached toward the center of the table and plucked an envelope from atop a pile of folded tablecloths. “I drew up the papers by copying the documents that transferred the property to me. Becky and Callum signed as witnesses. The news will have spread through the castle by now. By this evening, everyone will know.” She handed the envelope to him. “Lannair is yours.”

He took the envelope in his hand. He couldn't do anything but stare at it.

“But that bargain you suggested . . . I didna hold up my end.”

“The truth is, Logan, it just doesn't belong to me. It never did. I didn't work for it. I have no attachment to the land. This place belongs to the Highlands. To the ­people who've lived here for generations. To those whose ancestors piled the stones of this castle with their bare hands. And I can't imagine a better person to watch over it.”

“I want no charity from you or anyone. I've worked for everything I've ever had.”

“Oh, I know that. I know well that accepting this will make you uncomfortable, and that's part of my fun. I'm taking great pleasure in watching you squirm. For me, it's a victory of sorts.”

And victory looked well on her.

“So when are you leaving?” he asked.

“Tomorrow. I plan to stay for the feast, of course. And for the bonfire tonight. We've all worked hard on the preparations. Even if I'm no longer the lady of the castle, and even if I won't be your bride . . . I want to be there.”

“I want you there, too.”

I want you here always.

The words hovered on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't speak them. It was too late. Too useless. In giving him this castle, she'd taken away his last bargaining chip. He didn't have any worldly possessions or influence she hadn't already refused.

Another man might have offered her something from within himself. His heart, perhaps. A certain warmth of emotion. Maybe even a dream. But Logan had forgotten how to dream, if he ever had known how.

And when he looked inside himself, he saw nothing but emptiness and cold.

He lifted the envelope. “Thank you for this.”

She nodded. “It's been an honor to know you, Logan. I do hope you'll understand if I don't write.”