What?
Logan couldn’t believe that offer. He certainly didn’t trust it.
“I didna ask for that,” he said, “and I dinna want it. No one’s ever given me anything. I’ve worked for everything I’ve ever had.”
“I know. And you’re going to work for this. Perhaps it doesn’t seem equal if you look at it in terms of money or land. But to me, it will be an even trade. Your dream for mine.”
He didn’t know what to say. “You’re certain?”
“I’m certain. Well, and there’s one other thing.” She bit her lip. “I’d need those letters back, too.”
“Right,” he said. “The letters. Of course.”
That might be a wrinkle in this plan of hers, but Logan decided he would swim that loch when he came to it. He’d just make certain she signed her side of the papers before he handed his over to her.
She laced her arms around his neck, lightly swaying to and fro in a flirtatious manner. “And perhaps, if we’re not playing this will-we-or-won’t-we-consummate game any longer, we can enjoy a few lesser carnal pleasures.”
Now she had his attention.
“You did say men are more creative than lobsters.”
“Aye, lass. That we are.”
“And you also said that I’m curious. Maybe you were right about that, too. Especially after last night.”
Her hands flattened against his chest, soft and warm. Exploring. Enticing.
This plan of hers . . . well, it sounded nigh on perfect. Too perfect, he worried. Or at least it might have been if there hadn’t still been one significant hurdle to clear.
He had just promised to take a lady to a ball—one hosted by a bloody earl, at which beetles would be the main topic of conversation—and make her a success.
And he didn’t have the damnedest idea how.
Perhaps he could find something in a book.
Chapter Sixteen
When Maddie prepared for bed behind her screen that night, she emerged to find the most terrible sight yet.
“Oh, really, Logan. That just isn’t fair.”
He looked up from his reclined pose in her bedroom chaise longue, his face partly hidden behind a book bound in dark green leather. “What?”
“You’re reading Pride and Prejudice?”
He shrugged. “I found it on your bookshelf.”
Seeing him read any book was bad enough. But her favorite book? This was sheer torture.
“Just promise me something, please,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“Promise me that I’m not going to come out from around this screen one night and find you holding a baby.” That seemed the only possibility more devastating to her self-control.
He chuckled. “It doesna seem likely.”
“Good.”
“While we’re on the topic of books . . .” Logan rose from the chair and tossed the book to the side. “I have a question for you. If these are the kinds of stories you prefer, why did you invent a Scottish officer for your imaginary suitor? You could have created a Mr. Darcy type.”
“Because Scotland is far away, and I needed you to be someone who’d never come around.”
He gave her a half smile. “How did that work out?”
“Not quite as I’d planned. More’s the pity.” At the dressing table, she finished plaiting her hair and tied the ends with a bit of plaid. “Any further questions?”
“Aye. I have one.”
She turned around and found him staring at her with unabashed desire.
“Why did you never send me a drawing of yourself?”
She paused, surprised. “I don’t know. I suppose the idea never occurred to me. But are you saying the idea occurred to you?”
“Of course it did. I’m a man, amn’t I?”
Yes. He most definitely was a man. And his manliness was on full display as he undid the cuffs of his shirt, exposing his bronzed, muscled forearms.
“Every time they delivered one of your letters,” he said, “I’d have this swell of anticipation. Maybe . . . just maybe . . . this time there’d be a sketch of a woman in there.” He pulled his shirt over his head and hung it over the back of the chair. “No such luck. All I got was moths and snails.”
Maddie barely heard the last part of his speech. Aside from the usual stupor that accompanied the sight of him shirtless, her mind had seized on a word toward the beginning of his statement. The one that had sounded like . . . anticipation.