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, windswept, and so beautifully complete little corner of the world-Linnet’s corner, her domain-shook him.

“I need to leave.” He met Linnet’s eyes as she turned from setting a washcloth aside. “They might follow me here.”

“Nonsense.” She frowned at him. “You heard the old seadogs-if they didn’t wash up in our coves, then they almost certainly perished.”

He frowned, shifted as she dabbed along his damp side with a towel. “Others might have been waiting ahead and now be searching-they might hear there was a survivor and come looking here.”

Linnet blew out a dismissive breath. “If they’re waiting ahead, then they’re either somewhere in England, or somewhere even farther away-we assumed your ship was heading north, but it might just as well have been going the other way.” Opening a pot of salve, she dabbed two fingers in, then-trying not to notice whose chest she was tending, or indeed anything about that chest at all-she smeared Muriel’s potent cream down the still red, but healing, wound.

“And,” she continued, doggedly stroking, “no one other than locals knows you’re here. How could anyone-especially off-island-learn you’re here?”

She glanced up, saw his jaw clench. Setting aside the salve, she reached for the roll of clean bandage she’d left ready.

“Matt and Young Henry went to the market with the cabbages the second day I was here-they would have mentioned it to someone.”

“No, they wouldn’t. Trust me-they know better than to gossip about something like that.” As she shifted around him, bandaging his chest again, she looked into his face, saw his disbelief. “If you need more reassuring on that point, both lads are ex-buccaneer brats. They know to keep their mouths shut about anything that washes in from the sea.”

Logan gave up arguing. He didn’t have enough facts to win, or even to make sense of his burgeoning fear. His pursuers were people any wise commander would fear-of that much he was now sure. And in that vein, the fear he felt wasn’t personal. All his fear was for her and hers.

He didn’t know why-couldn’t formulate a rational argument-but he knew what he felt.

Later, standing before the sideboard in the parlor and turning the wooden cylinder over and over in his hands, he still couldn’t say why he felt so strongly, but the premonition of danger, of impending threat, was impossible to deny.

After dinner, he sat on the parlor floor with the children and taught them another card game.

Linnet sat in her armchair and watched, not the children but him.

She could almost see the connections forming, the intangible links. Brandon and Chester he’d held in the palm of his hand from the moment he’d opened his eyes, but Willard-Will-was both older and more wary. Although friendly, Will had initially held back, hesitated to commit to the near hero-worship the younger boys had so enthusiastically embraced. But Will was now a convert, too.

All three asked questions-about this, that, male-type questions-all of which Logan either answered or used to gently steer their thoughts in a more appropriate direction.

The girls, too, Jen and Gilly, enjoyed his company, and while they didn’t take the same advantage of his presence, they, too, were benefiting simply from having a large, strong, adult male about with whom they could interact freely, and trust implicitly to care and watch over them.

Children knew. Her children-her wards-certainly knew. She, Muriel, and Buttons hadn’t raised them to be anything but quick and bright. Enough to be wary of strangers, ready to be suspicious, ready to react to any even minor detail that wasn’t quite right.

All of them had looked at Logan, looked at him and seen, and known he was trustworthy.

And in that they were correct. He was good with them, instinctively knowing when to be firm, when to laugh and tease. When to be kind. He was good with them in ways neither Edgar nor John, both of whom were fond of the children, could emulate. Where the older men struggled to find the ways, Logan simply knew.