The Untamed Bride Plus Black Cobra 02-03 and Special Excerpt (86 page)

Which had resulted in her instinctive, and it seemed perfectly gauged, deflection.

She glanced at him, saw him still brooding, and inwardly grimaced. Felt a touch guilty.

But at least she’d had time to slow her heartbeat. He’d evoked a moment of uncharacteristic panic, but she was over that now. No matter how much he might suspect, no matter how much he might hint, he couldn’t actually know—not,
for certain. Unless she told him, or in some way gave herself away, he couldn’t be sure he truly had made her sob and moan last night.

They entered the house in the girls’ wake. When they paused to hang up their cloaks in the hall, she glanced at him again.

He was still looking inward, his expression shuttered.

She grasped the moment to look—to study him again, and let her senses inform her mind of all they could detect.

What she saw made her shiver.

Abruptly turning, she led the way to the parlor.

He, whoever he was, was too much—too large, too strong, too powerful, too virile, altogether too commanding. And while there was, undeniably, a challenge in the prospect of engaging in a wild liaison with such a man, a wise woman would keep her distance.

She could, when so moved, be very, very wise.

  
Three
  

W
ith the exception of the other men, who were continuing with their duties about the estate, the household gathered about the dining table for afternoon tea—for scones, raspberrry jam, and clotted cream.

“I know I like scones and jam,” Logan said in reply to Muriel’s query, “but for some reason …” After a moment, he grimaced. “I don’t think I’ve had any for a considerable time.”

“Well, have another.” Buttons passed him the tray. “There’s plenty.”

Linnet watched as he helped himself to two more, yet while the children chatted and Buttons and Muriel swapped local gossip, once again, although physically present, Logan became so still that he seemed no longer there.

He was wrestling with his memory again. She longed to tell him that no good would come of it, that bludgeoning his brain wasn’t going to help.

She hadn’t helped with her comment about children.

She studied his face. His color was good, his eyes clear. She would have liked to check the wound in his side, but didn’t want to lift the dressings yet—tomorrow, maybe. Meanwhile … his physical condition had improved considerably,
and he’d shown no sign of developing a fever. Perhaps it was time to risk prodding his memory.

Rising, she went into the parlor, to the drawer in the sideboard where she’d placed the three items he’d had on him when they’d found him. Her hand hovered over the saber, but in the end she picked up the dirk and carried it back to the table.

Logan blinked back to the world when Linnet appeared by his side and placed a dirk on the white cloth before him.

“You had this when we found you—you were clutching it so tightly I had to pry your fingers from the hilt. Presumably it’s important to you.”

She said nothing more, simply slipped into her chair at the head of the table to his left.

He picked up the dirk.

He knew it was a dirk. Knew it was his. Holding it in his left hand, he stroked the fingers of his right over the ornately wrought hilt, over the polished stone embedded in it.…

And remembered.

He closed his eyes as the years flooded back.

His childhood. Glenluce. The little cottage above the town. His mother, sweet-faced and gentle. His uncle, her brother, who had raised him, taught him, counseled him so wisely. His father … oh, yes, his father.

“Monteith.” Opening his eyes, he met Linnet’s. “My name is Logan Monteith.” The chatter about the table ceased. Into the ensuing silence, he recited the bare facts—that he’d been born and raised in Glenluce, in Galloway, a small country town on the river, The Water of Luce, just above where it ran into Luce Bay.

He remembered much more—the light slanting off the water, the wind in his hair. His first pony, the first time he’d gone with his uncle sailing and fishing in Luce Bay. The scent of heather on the moors, the smell of fish by the wharves. The cries of the gulls wheeling high above.

And his father—above all, his father.

He glossed over the fact that his father hadn’t lived with,
his mother, had appeared only irregularly in that little cottage above the town. Omitted to mention that his father hadn’t married his mother, and even on her deathbed, his mother hadn’t cared. But he, Logan, had.

Even when he’d been young, too young to truly comprehend the situation, he’d cared enough for them both.

“Later, I went to Hexham Grammar School.” Those memories were vivid—the chill of the stone buildings, the small fires, the echoes of dozens of feet pounding along corridors. The shouts of boys, the roughhousing, the camaraderie. The masters in their black gowns. “I remember my years there. I was a passable student.” Scholastically, he’d done well enough, a sharp eye, native wit, and a ready tongue enough to get him over all the hurdles. “I remember it all, to the last year. When I returned home, I …”

Abruptly, the memories ended. He frowned. Try as he might, he couldn’t see further, couldn’t push further; it was as if he’d reached a black stone wall. He stared unseeing across the table. “I can’t remember anything more.”

Linnet exchanged a swift look with Muriel. “Don’t worry—the fog will clear if you give it time.” She glanced at the dirk, still in his large hands. “Who gave you the dagger?”

He looked down, turned it in his hands. “My father.” After a moment, he went on, “It’s been in his family for centuries.”

“An heirloom, then,” Muriel said.

Slowly, his gaze still on the blade, Logan nodded.

Gently, Linnet asked, “Your mother, your father. Are they alive?”

Logan lifted his head, met her eyes. “Waiting for me to come home?” When she nodded, he stared at her, then frowned. “I don’t think—
feel
—that they are, but …” After a moment, he shook his head. “I can’t be sure. I can’t
remember
. They were alive, both of them, when I finished at Hexham.”

Linnet resisted the impulse to tell him to let the matter rest, let his mind rest after the sudden influx of memories, let,
it catch its breath, at it were. “Now you’ve started remembering, the rest will surely come.”

“Indeed.” Muriel briskly nodded. “It often comes back like that—in fits and starts.”

The children had been commendably silent, listening and watching, but Brandon couldn’t hold back any longer. “What sort of boat did you sail with your uncle?”

The question pulled Logan from his absorption. Linnet mentally blessed Brandon as Logan, clearly thinking back, answered.

That was the signal for the others to put their questions, peppering him with queries on pets—numerous, siblings—none, and for details of Glenluce and Scottish ways.

The distraction gave Linnet a chance to refine her view of Logan in light of what he’d recalled. Even in Guernsey, they knew of Hexham Grammar School. As Winchester Grammar School was to the south of England, Hexham was to the far north. The boys who attended were gentry, overwhelmingly of the higher orders—the aristocracy and even the nobility. Many noble houses of the Border regions sent their sons to Hexham.

Logan’s ingrained manners, his air of command, and his protectiveness toward those he considered weaker, combined with his having attended such a school, painted a picture of a gentleman very much Linnet’s equal—born to good family, gentry at least, brought up in the country, by the sea.

The children’s questions faded. Logan fell silent, a frown once again knitting his black brows.

Finally, he let the dirk he still held between his hands fall the few inches to the table. Folding his hands atop it, he looked at Linnet. Lips thin, he shook his head. “I still can’t remember anything more.” Frustration etched his face, darkened his eyes. “What did I do next? What did I become?”

She dropped her gaze to his hands, then on impulse reached out and took them in hers.

Memory of a different sort struck.

She nearly jerked at the jolt of remembered sensation.

Of excitement—pure, unadulterated, lancing-sharp—that flashed across her senses. Heat, sensual and potent, unfurled in its wake … mentally gritting her teeth, locking her gaze on his fingers, his palms, she ignored it. Ignored the unprecedented
thump-thump
of her heart, and focused.

Examined.

Managed to draw enough breath to say, in a level, passably unaffected tone, “You don’t have the right calluses to be a sailor.” She released his hands, resisting the urge to run her fingertips over the calluses that were there.

To her relief, when she glanced up, he was staring at his hands. “I do have calluses, though.”

“Yes, but you didn’t get them sailing.”

He nodded, accepting. “Something else repetitive. Reins?” He looked at her. “Perhaps I was a driver?”

“Or a rider.” She thought of the saber in the sideboard drawer.

She was about to rise and fetch it when he dropped his head in his hands, for an instant gripped, held still, then started massaging his temples. Linnet hesitated, then looked down the table at Muriel.

Concern in her eyes, Muriel shook her head.

Looking back at Logan just as he scrubbed his hands over his face, then rubbed the back of his neck, Linnet had to agree. He might be physically strong, but he looked mentally exhausted. Pushing too hard all at once might not help.

Turning to Will, she asked, “Which way did you go on your ride?”

Later, after dinner, Logan followed the children into the parlor and, sprawling with them on the floor before the fire, taught them a card game he’d remembered from his childhood.

The children were quickly enthralled, calling out, laughing, and crowing triumphantly as they swapped cards and won tricks.

It was a game he could play without thinking—he’d,
spent many long winters’ evenings playing with his mother and uncle. The activity gave him time and mental space to review all he’d recalled. His own childhood, the memories he hadn’t shared.

He understood, now, why he felt so much at home here, amid the warmth and joy of a house full of children, a large house of comfort, of quiet, unadorned elegance, and a vital, almost tangible, sense of family. This was the antithesis of his own childhood—one of a lone child, the bastard son of a distant earl living quietly estranged from all family with his unwed mother on the earl’s pension. His uncle had been his only anchor, the only member of his mother’s well-connected English family who had not cut all ties.

With an easy smile fixed on his lips, he watched the children play, helped little Gilly select her cards, and inwardly acknowledged that the reason he felt so wonderfully at peace here at Mon Coeur was not because it was in any way like his home but because this large house encapsulated and embodied the childhood home of his dreams.

This was all he’d ever wanted—even better than, as child or man, he’d been able to imagine. Mon Coeur had it all, everything a lonely soul could want: lots of children, adult women of both the necessary generations—mother and grandmother—needed for complete care, for that all-embracing feminine nurturing. It even had older men to provide the essential male influence; Edgar and John had joined the household about the table, then followed them into the parlor. The two sat in what was clearly their usual armchairs, set in one corner back from the hearth, and quietly chatted about this and that. Male talk, discussions Will and Brandon, and even sometimes Chester, paused to listen to and take in.

Mentally sitting back, seeing it all, absorbing it, Logan was tempted to tell Will, Brandon, Chester, Jen, and Gilly just how lucky they were. But they wouldn’t understand—wouldn’t be able to see as he could, through eyes that had always, until now, looked on this world from the outside.

It was human nature not to value what one had until one no longer had it. He hoped for their sakes it would never come to that, not for them.

He glanced at Linnet, felt oddly reassured. She would never allow any of them to lose this, to lose Mon Coeur.

Mon Coeur
. A name he now understood.