Page 54 of To Wed a Wild Scot
“You can’t know that.” Neither of them could. The thought should have terrified him, but instead some unexpected emotion swelled in his chest. He couldn’t name it, precisely, but it felt like…hope.
She drew a deep breath, tossed the flower aside and met his gaze. “I don’t think you came looking for me today to take me for a walk in the garden, Mr. Blair. I think you brought me here to tell me you won’t marry me. I suppose you’d better get on with it.”
Logan went still. She thought he was going torefuseher? Was that what had put the shadows in her eyes? It had never occurred to him she’d think so, but now, looking back over the past few days he realized she couldn’t have believed anything else.
Being near Juliana muddled his thoughts. He’d been avoiding her so he could untangle them, but she didn’t know that. All this time he’d been sorting himself out, she’d been giving way to despair.
He placed two fingers under her chin and tipped her face up to his. “I didn’t ask you to walk with me today so I could refuse you, Juliana.”
She swallowed. “You didn’t?”
“No. I came looking for you to tell you…to ask you to be my wife.”
For a moment she seemed not even to breathe, but then a soft sob escaped her lips. “I don’t…I don’t know what to say.”
He smiled, but his heart was threatening to leap from his chest. “Say yes, lass.”
But she didn’t say yes. Not at first. She didn’t say a word. She gazed at him for a moment, and then…
Then she did something he didn’t expect.
She reached up and laid her palms against his cheeks.
Logan stared down at her. Her hands were soft and warm. A shiver ran through him at her touch, but it was nothing compared to what he felt when she rose to her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his. It was the briefest brush of her lips, so soft he might have thought he’d imagined her kiss if it hadn’t echoed inside him, setting fire to everything it touched.
Jesus, his knees went weak. “Juliana?”
She looked down, took his hand, and closed it tightly between her small ones. When she raised her gaze to his again, her green eyes were filled with tears. “Yes, I’ll be your wife. Thank you, Logan. Thank you.”
Chapter Fourteen
Stokes stood in front of the horse the stable boy had saddled for Juliana, his arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t like it, my lady.”
Juliana sighed. No, Stokes wouldn’t like it, would he? Between her disappearance the night she’d followed Logan to Castle Kinross and the Robertson farm debacle the next day, Stokes had taken to muttering darkly every time Logan crossed his path. “I see that, Stokes, but I can assure you despite appearances to the contrary, Mr. Blair is perfectly trustworthy.”
“He doesn’t look trustworthy. He looks like a scoundrel.”
“Hush, will you?” Juliana peered around the stable door into the yard. Logan was waiting for her, ready to escort her to the Sassy Lassie to retrieve whatever letters might be waiting there. “He’ll hear you.”
“Don’t care if he does hear me. I don’t like the way he looks at you.”
Juliana bit her lip, but she couldn’t help herself. “How does he look at me?”
Stokes scowled. “Like a thief looks at a silk purse.”
Did he, indeed? Juliana suppressed a shiver. “Nonsense. You’re being ridiculous. Mr. Blair is a perfect gentleman.”
Perhaps that was just atinyexaggeration, but Juliana wouldn’t admit that to Stokes. He wouldn’t hesitate to kick up a dreadful fuss if he thought she was putting herself into a rake’s hands. Logan wasn’t a rake, of course, but that’s how Stokes would see it, especially if he knew about that kiss.
“I can fetch your letters just as easily as you can, my lady.” Stokes’s lips were pressed into a stubborn line.
“Yes, yes, of course you can, Stokes, but…”
But I’m going to marry the man, so there’s no sense in drawing the line at riding to Inverness with him.
She hadn’t mentioned the betrothal to Stokes yet. Not that she washidingit from him, of course. No, nothing so devious as that. She’d tell him soon. Just as soon as…
As soon as she and Logan were wed, and it was too late for Stokes to object.
