“You’ve been avoiding me.”
Fiona considered this. “No.”
“No?”
“No. But it would be fair to say that I haven’t been seeking you out.”
“Are you still angry at me for Nairna’s death?”
Fiona considered this also. “No.”
“I’m glad.”
There was a silence. Fiona finally mangled the leaf into a satisfying pulp. Logan leaned against the doorframe.
“A long time ago,” he said softly, “we used to have conversations.”
“True.”
“Perhaps we could have one now?”
“What about?”
“Whatever you like.”
Fiona looked up at him again. Goodness, but he was as handsome as ever. He really did have the most classically perfect nose she had ever seen—like the bold prow of a ship. And how had he managed to have just one lock of his black hair lying across his forehead in that dashing way? Had he done it on purpose, or was it one of those lucky accidents in life?
“Very well,” she said. “I’ll begin. Why are you still here, Logan?”
“I have a reason for staying.”
“I see. Don’t you have an estate to run at home? Fields, a house, servants, and so on?”
“I don’t think you do see, in fact. And yes, I have an estate, but I also have a bailiff, who spares me the boredom of having to think about—or, worse, deal with—sheep and farmers and crops. And I have a mother and a sister to manage my house and my servants.”
“What on earth do you do with yourself all day?”
“A gentleman can always find ways to keep himself occupied.”
“If you say so.”
“Trust me.” He smiled, and there it was—the fetching little dimple in his left cheek.
She had always found that dimple incredibly charming. The very first time she’d met Logan, when she was eighteen, he had smiled at her—in just the way he was right now—and she had badly wanted to touch her tongue to that intriguing hollow. And immediately had turned as red as a strawberry, and made an inane, awkward remark about the weather, expecting him to turn on his heel and walk away in disgust at her maladroit manner.
But he hadn’t. He had agreed that the weather was fine. And stayed. And she’d been lost.
“So,” she now said, “what is your reason for staying on?”
“You.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re the reason I’m still here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I want us to start over again.”
Fiona pushed away the mortar and pestle. Already the house-leek pulp was losing its potency; she’d have to grind some more as soon as this absurd exchange was over. Because it was absurd.
Wasn’t it?
“My, my,” she said in an even tone. “Moving rather quickly, aren’t you?”
He took a step toward her. “If life has taught me anything, Fiona, it’s that anything can happen at any time. The past is gone. Right here, right now, is a second chance for us. We cared for each other once.”
“Yes, but you jilted me for Nairna, as you’ll recall.”
He took another step closer.
“I liked you. I liked you very much.” His voice, his eyes, everything about Logan was eager earnestness. “But—I had debts, Fiona, large debts from foolish gambling while at university.”
“And Nairna had a much bigger dowry.”
“I’ll not deny there was, in part, a mercenary incentive. I was desperate, in danger of losing my estate. I don’t gamble anymore —at least not beyond my means. And I was a good husband to Nairna—you know I was.”
“Yes. You made her very happy.”
“So now let’s look to the future, Fiona, you and I.”
If he had touched her, she would have shoved past him and left the stillroom, poor Isobel’s remedy be damned. But he simply stood there, so very tall, so very big. And whether he knew it or not, he was saying all the right things to a woman with a broken heart. The past is gone. Start over again. Second chances. The future.
Fiona said:
“Just so we’re clear. Are you saying that you want to marry me?”
“Yes, my darling, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
She let this sink in. Such marriages were far from uncommon among the pragmatic Douglass clan; no one would bat an eye. But more important, what would Nairna have said?
It was an easy question.
Fiona could almost hear her sweetest, kindest, most loving of sisters saying, Of course! Marry him with my blessing. Take good care of him, won’t you?
“Well,” Fiona said to Logan, “if you’re looking to make money from marrying me, you’d better think again, because you never know with Father and his vagaries.”