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.
“Logan!” Gilly tugged his sleeve. “Pay ’tention. Which card should I put down?”
He focused on the five cards she held tightly in both hands. Pointed. “That one.”
“All right.”
He watched as she whipped it out and laid it down.
The others looked, and groaned.
“Did I win?”
Logan laughed, lightly tousled her bright head. “Yes, poppet. You did.”
From the other side of the parlor, Muriel watched Gilly beam and bounce on her knees, watched Logan gather the cards and reshuffle them. Saw the interest in the other children’s eyes, the boys’ eyes especially, as they watched and learned.
Much of her earlier wariness toward Linnet’s latest stray had dissipated. Yet looking at Linnet as she sat in an armchair and watched the group before the fire, Muriel wondered if her niece had ever before looked at any man as she was looking at Logan Monteith. Certainly not that Muriel knew.
There was interest, clear as day, in Linnet’s green eyes-not a calculating interest, but a fascinated one. An intrigued attraction.
Then Linnet stirred. Uncrossing her legs, she rose. “That’ll have to be the last game tonight.”
The children and Logan looked up; the children all waited-looking hopefully from Logan to Linnet-but Logan merely inclined his head and turned back to deal the cards. “Last hand.”
The children pulled faces, but no one moaned.
Turning, Linnet walked to where Muriel sat, Buttons beside her.
Viewing the subtle smile curving her niece’s lips, Muriel felt compelled to ask, as Linnet reached her, “What about the sleeping arrangements?”
Logan might be a gentleman born and bred, nevertheless…
Linnet didn’t pretend not to understand. She grimaced lightly. “Logan will have to continue in my bed-his head’s still causing him considerable pain, and there’s nowhere else he’d be comfortable. I doubt the cot in the box room would support his weight, but it’ll do for me, at least for a few nights.”
Muriel nodded, her gaze going to Logan. “I suspect that’s the best arrangement in the circumstances. The better rested he is, the more likely he is to regain his memory.” Rising, she said, “I’ll have Pennyweather bring in the tea.”
Linnet remained where she was, her gaze returning to Logan-skating over his shoulders, the long, strong legs stretched out before him, the clean, harsh planes of his face, his firm lips.
She let her gaze drink him in-and thought of the small cot in the box room.
As usual, Linnet was the last to go upstairs. Once everyone else had retired, she did her rounds; in the calming stillness, the soft, enfolding shadows, she walked the ground-floor rooms of her home, checking every window, securing every door. Mon Coeur might stand in a sparsely populated neighborhood, yet by that very fact the house was isolated, far removed from the communal safety of town or village, and was within a few hundred yards of the coast-a coast that in the past had been an occasional haunt of pirates, and was also frequently raked by ferocious and unpredictable storms.
There was, she considered, sufficient reason for vigilance.
Once all was secure, she climbed to the attics, looked in on all the children. Tucked Chester’s blankets in again, then did the same for Gilly in the room she shared with Jen.
Finally assured that all was as it should be, she descended to the first floor. The lighted candle she carried casting a warm glow on the polished wood of floor and paneled walls, she walked to the closed door of her room.
There, she hesitated, for the first time that evening not quite sure of herself.
The feeling, the realization, irritated. Squaring her shoulders, she reminded herself of her resolution to be wise, then raised a hand and tapped on the door. She waited, then, hearing nothing, reached for the knob, turned it, opened the door, and looked in.