He turned a page with one hand, hooking it with his thumb and dragging it from right to left while keeping his other arm tucked securely under his head.
The deft, practiced nature of it stirred her suspicion. She eyed the well-creased spine of the volume. The book’s pages showed the wear of being thumbed from right to left, again and again, all the way to the end.
He only read to fall asleep, he claimed? Oh, yes. And falcons only took wing out of boredom.
A terrible sense of affinity swamped her. For all her life, making the acquaintance of another book lover had felt like . . . well, rather like meeting with someone from her own country when traveling overseas. Or how she imagined that would feel if she ever traveled overseas.
The love of books was an instant connection, and a true boon for a girl who tended toward shyness, because it was a source of endless conversation. A hundred questions sprang up in her mind, jostling with each other to reach the front of the queue. Did he prefer essays, dramas, novels, poems? How many books had he read, and in which languages? Which ones had he read again and again?
Which ones had felt as though they’d been written just for him?
He turned another page, less than a minute after turning the last.
“You,” she accused, “are a reader. Be honest.”
It made perfect sense, too. After all, who else would read and reread the rambling, silly letters of a sixteen-year-old ninny?
A devoted reader, that’s who. One stuck with nothing else for reading material.
“Fine,” he said. “So I read. It’s difficult to attend university without some practice in the habit.”
“You went to university, too?”
“Only for a few months.”
She lifted the coverlet and climbed into her side of the bed. “When you spoke about not having a home, I assumed you had grown up without the advantages of education.”
“I was born with no advantages at all.”
“Then how did you attend university?”
“When I was ten or so, the local vicar brought me into his household. He fed and clothed me, and gave me the same education as his own sons.”
“That was generous and kind of him.”
His lips gave a wry quirk. “Generous, perhaps. But kindness had nothing to do with it. He had a plan in mind. He called me ‘son’ just long and convincingly enough that when every family was compelled to send a son to war, he could send me. So that his own sons—the real sons—would be safe.”
“Oh.” She winced. “Well, that’s not so kind. It’s rather terrible, actually. I’m sorry.”
His gaze darted to his arm.
It was only then that Maddie realized she’d reached out to touch it.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, withdrawing the touch.
He shrugged. The sort of gruff, diffident shrug boys and men made when they want to say, I don’t care at all about it.
The sort of shrug that had fooled no woman, ever.
“I got a bed, my meals, and an education from it. Considering what my life would have been otherwise, I canna complain.” He closed the book and set his spectacles aside.
No, he wouldn’t complain. But he was hurt, and it showed. He’d been given all the material benefits of a family, but none of the affection.
None of the love.
Oh, Lord. Now he was not only an impoverished orphan but an impoverished, unloved orphan with a passion for books. Her every feminine impulse jumped to attention. She was vibrating with the worst possible desires. The instinct to soothe, to comfort, to nurture, to hold.
“That pitying look you’re giving me,” he said. “I dinna think I like it.”
“I don’t like it, either.”
“Then stop making it.”
“I can’t.” She fluttered her hands. “Quickly, say something unfeeling. Mock my letters. Threaten my beetles. Just do something, anything reprehensible.”
Tension mounted as he stared at her.
“As you like.”
In an instant, he had her flipped on her back. His fingers went to the buttons of her nightrail.
And Maddie had absolutely no will to resist.
He gave her a wolfish look. “I trust this will do.”
She heard herself say, “Yes.”
Logan made short work of those tiny buttons guarding the front of her shift. He worked with brusque, ruthless motions. There was nothing of seduction in his intent.
This was her penalty for kindness. She had to learn that her sweet-tempered curiosity came with a cost. He would teach her to lay soft touches to his arm. To look straight into his soul with those searching dark eyes and have the temerity to care.