“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
“Madling?” 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.