The Brazen Bride

again, firmly in charge.

He pulled his weight, literally. Despite the chill wind and the gray clouds scudding overhead, all the men had stripped off their coats and were working in their shirts, with or without waistcoats. In Logan’s case, without; she watched the way his muscles, visible through the fine cotton of one of her father’s old shirts, bulged and shifted, contracted and released as he lifted a huge post into the last hole.

Immediately he grabbed a shovel and started filling the hole in. Young Henry ran to help; even from a distance Linnet could detect a certain awe in the lad’s expression.

She humphed. All very well, but… was this Logan’s way of balancing the scales with her, rather than obliging her in her bed? In her view, there was no real debt-she would do the same for any man in his situation and expect nothing beyond sincere thanks-but their liaison had been established, more through his doing than hers, and in light of that, her request that he educate her in matters in which he was expert was entirely reasonable. Yet although he wanted to lie with her, neither last night nor this afternoon had he been at all eager to fall in with her script.

Indeed, after today’s exchange, her earlier challenge, he’d insisted on coming out here and building her a deer pen.

Folding her arms, she frowned, as the last section of fence in place and secured, negligently swinging a mallet it would take her two hands just to lift, he walked to where Vincent and Bright were assembling the gate.

The message was clear. He wasn’t going to cease his exertions until the pen was complete.

She narrowed her eyes on his back. She knew the male of the species found her significantly more than passably attractive. Logan was, in that respect, typical of his kind. So why wouldn’t he accept her proposition?

Presumably because he didn’t like the language in which it was couched.

Last night his reticence had sprung from a sense of honor. While she might not agree, that she could respect. And the more he recalled of the man he was-cavalry commander, gentleman-the more his code of honor would become entrenched. However, if she didn’t have the excuse of allowing him to repay her by teaching her of things she, at her age, really ought to know, things she patently wouldn’t be able to learn from, or with, anyone else, then what reason would she have for indulging with him?

What other excuse could she have for wanting to lie with him?

She felt like Queen Elizabeth worrying about Robert Dudley. At least she judged Logan more trustworthy, and less power-hungry, than Dudley had been.

But like Elizabeth, she felt she was grappling with a relationship that was threatening to develop in ways she didn’t want.

Ways that could only lead to heartache.

So no. Logan would have to toe her line, and accept her proposition as it stood; it was safer that way. While their interaction remained on such a footing-a near-commercial exchange-neither she nor he was likely to forget that what happened in her bed had nothing to do with her heart.

And neither would develop any deeper expectations.

The men finally lifted the gate into place and secured it. As a group, they stepped back and looked at it- surveyed the pen, admired their handiwork, then congratulated each other on a job well done.

The lads gathered up the tools. Parting from the other men, Logan bent to retrieve his coat from where he’d tossed it over a log-and Linnet saw the bandage around his torso shift and slide.

Lips thinning, she stepped out from beneath the tree and waited on the path as, shrugging on the coat, he walked toward her.

As he drew near, he arched a brow.

“Thank you for your help. Now come inside and let me check your wound and retie that bandage.”

Spinning on her heel, she stalked ahead of him back to the house.

Lips tightening, Logan followed.

After pausing to wash his hands under the pump near the back door, Logan ambled in Linnet’s wake into the downstairs bathing chamber. Without a word, he shrugged off his coat, drew off his shirt, then sat on the bench beside the sink and let her have at him.

He’d largely worked off his earlier frustration, but was curious as to what was gnawing her. As she shifted back and forth in front of him, unwinding the long bandages, he studied her expression.

When she next went to step past, he caught her about the waist, held her between his knees. He examined her forehead, then lifted one finger and rubbed between her brows.

She jerked her head back, stared at him. “What was that for?”

“There was a furrow forming there.”

The furrow promptly returned. He raised his finger again.

She batted it away. “Stop that.”

“You don’t have any reason to frown, so why are you frowning?”

She met his eyes, hesitated, then said, “You’re making things too complicated. Just…” The last bandage fell free and she scooped it up. “Just sit there and let me check your stitches.”

Linnet shifted his arm, held it back, and focused on the stitches. She breathed in, steeled herself against being this close to him. Just concentrate on the stitches.

She examined, gently prodded. Thought again of how he must have got such a wound. Seized on the distraction. “Some man faced you with a sword-someone who knew how to wield one. Right-handed, like you. He went for a killing stroke, but you pulled back just enough, just in time. You must have been fighting on deck during the storm-you could only have just taken this wound when you went into the water. You lost some blood, but you would have lost a lot more if you hadn’t been immersed in icy water.”

“There were two of them.”

She glanced up to see his gaze fixed in the distance.

“No.” His eyes narrowed. “That’s not right. There were three , but I killed one… after they leapt on me as I came out of the forward companionway. I came up to see what was happening with the storm.”

Carefully straightening, she held her breath. His words were coming slowly, as if he were literally piecing the memory together.

“I didn’t know them… I can’t remember who they were. I’m not even sure I knew at the time. I can’t see their faces.”

When he fell silent, she whispered, “What can you see?”

“Beyond the storm, beyond the flash of blades… nothing.” Suddenly focusing, his gaze shifted to her face. “But I know they were after something I had. That was why they wanted me dead, so they could take…” He paused, then, face and voice hardening, continued, “The only thing of potential value I had on me at the time. They must have been after the wooden cylinder.”

He tensed to stand.

Slapping her hands on his shoulders, she held him down. “No! The cylinder is where we left it. You can get it in a minute, but first I need to finish checking these stitches, then I need to wash, dry, and rebandage. With stitches you can’t go out without a bandage yet.”

The look he bent on her should have withered steel, but she was adamant and gave not an inch.

With a disgusted humph, he settled back on the bench.

Logan let her finish tending his wound while he struggled to make sense of what he’d remembered. The facts were sketchy, disjointed, some visual memories, others just random bits of knowing .

When he added them up… his blood ran cold. He didn’t know who his opponents were, or why they wanted the cylinder, but of their viciousness, their utter disregard for life, their callousness, their unrelenting evil, he had not a shred of doubt.

He might not remember who they were, but he knew what they were.

The thought that such evil might have followed him there, might even now be tracking him to this isolated,