“Good morning.”
Startled for the second time in as many minutes, Maddie jumped and wheeled.
Apparently if you were Logan MacKenzie, you washed yourself now.
He stood in the doorway to a side chamber, bared to the waist and dripping. He propped one shoulder against the doorway and clutched his kilt before him with his free hand. His pose was a classic contrapposto. He looked like a renaissance David, sculpted not from cool, stoic marble but from impatient flesh.
A thin trail of dark hair drew her gaze lower.
“You’re awake early,” she said.
“Not really. I rose shortly after you did.” He looked her up and down. One eyebrow rose in interrogation. “Are you looking for something, mo chridhe?”
“Oh. Yes. I was looking for something.” She twisted the corner of her apron and said the only thing she could. “I was looking for you.”
“Me.”
She nodded.
His mouth quirked with pure male arrogance. “Well, then. I’m at your ser-vice. What did you want with me?”
What indeed. Maddie swallowed hard. She wanted so many things, and most of them were ridiculous. She wanted to reach up and push an errant lock of hair from his brow. To put a shirt on him before he took a chill.
If he could read her mind, he would have a good laugh.
Somehow she had to find a way to calm all these fussy, caretaking impulses. Or channel them into some other activity.
Drat. Why were there never any underfed, shivering puppies about when a girl needed them most?
“I . . . merely wanted to bid you a good journey. I assumed you’d be going to Ross--shire today.”
“I’m not going to Ross--shire today.”
“But you promised Grant.”
“I promise Grant the same thing at least six times a day. We were there months ago, and he doesna recall it. As far as he knows, we’re always going to Ross--shire tomorrow.”
“Oh. Well, then. If you’re not busy doing anything else this morning,” she said, “perhaps we could . . . That is, I hoped the two of us might . . .”
He stared at her, expecting her to complete that sentence, and Maddie had no idea what to say. Braid each other’s hair? Play hide--and--seek? Search the loch for sea monsters? What activity could the two of them possibly share? Other than the bed--related activities that were obviously on his mind—-and entirely out of the question.
As she stood there dithering, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. He looked toward the corner where she’d dropped the opened knapsack.
She hopped to the side, blocking his view and giving the knapsack a discreet nudge backward with her foot.
“I thought we could visit the tenants,” she said. “Together.”
“Tenants?”
“There are a small group of crofters up in the valley. You’re the new laird of the castle, so to speak. They will want to make your acquaintance.”
To her relief, the suspicion fled his eyes. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’d like to make their acquaintance, too. That’s a fine idea.”
He found a fresh shirt in his bag and pulled it over his head, punching his arms through the sleeves. As he did, she made note of the bag—-a black--painted canvas knapsack.
The letters had to be in there. Now that she knew, Maddie could be patient. He couldn’t hover over the thing every moment of the day.
“Then it’s settled,” she said. “We’ll walk up along the creek together. I can take them a basket of . . . something.”
Maddie started to warm to the idea. Perhaps visiting the crofters was the outlet she needed. She could play with the children. There might be a new baby she could hold.
Perhaps they would even have puppies.
As soon as they came within view of the baile, a trio of terriers came running to greet them.
The dogs yipped at Madeline’s skirts as they approached a cluster of some dozen thatched--roof stone cottages set along the river’s edge. High on the ridge, boys watching the sheep turned and looked down to watch them instead.
From one of the distant blackhouses rose the high, thin wail of an infant.
As they neared the baile, Logan drew Maddie to his side. “Listen to me. The -people here will likely be frightened when they see us.”
“Frightened of you?”
“No, of you.”
“Me?” she asked. “But I’m just an Englishwoman, and not a very big one at that.”
“That’s precisely why they’ll be terrified,” he said. “Have you never heard of the Countess of Sutherland?”
“Of course I’ve heard of her. One can’t fail to hear of her. She’s a fixture in London society. An accomplished painter, too. Quite elegant.”
“Oh, yes. So accomplished and elegant that she’s become the most ruthless landowner in all the Highlands.”
“I don’t believe that.”