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distracting his cousin from a subject that was far too personal as far as
Logan was concerned!
'Go ahead,' he invited affectionately. 'Which one is she?' he asked
interestedly.
'She's disappeared for the moment, but—ah, a Mona Lisa with red hair...'
Brice murmured before setting off determinedly across the crowded room.
Logan shook his head as he gazed indulgently after his cousin. If he was the
practical, predictable one of the family, then Brice was the artistic,
unpredictable one. Fergus came somewhere in between. Which was
probably why the three of them always got along so well together—
A Mona Lisa with red hair...?
There was only one woman Logan could think of who could possibly fit that
description. Darcy...!
Wasn't he bowled over himself every time she gave that enigmatic smile?
Wasn't it a smile he had hungered for the last ten days...?
There were too many people in this room, he decided impatiently as he
easily located Brice standing on the far side of the room, but couldn't see the
woman his cousin was now in conversation with, Brice's dark head bent
solicitously towards her much shorter height.
It had to be Darcy!
She was here, after all. He could hardly wait to—
'Logan, isn't it?' enquired a breathlessly female voice.
He turned sharply, scowling his irritation at being stopped from joining
Brice and the woman he was sure now had to be Darcy. A tall blonde his
mother had introduced him to earlier now stood at his side, smiling at him
engagingly.
At any other time, under any other circumstances, Logan knew he would
have responded to the invitation in the actress's smile. But not now. Now
when he was sure Darcy was even at this moment being charmed by his
oh-so- lethally fascinating cousin.
'Fiona, isn't it?' he acknowledged tersely, his attention still across the room
as he tried to catch a glimpse of the woman Brice was talking to.
'Francesca Darwin,' the actress corrected, obviously not too put out that he
hadn't remembered her name correctly. 'I play the part of Meg's sister in the
television series we're filming at the moment,' she supplied helpfully.
Logan's brows rose. Considering this woman was only aged in her mid-to
late-twenties, Make-up must be doing a wonderful job on his mother to
make the two women look like sisters!
'Of course,' he replied politely—having had no idea until this moment that
his mother's role even involved a sister!
'She's wonderful, isn't she?' Francesca looked admiringly across the room to
where Meg was smiling lovingly at her new fiance as the two of them talked
softly together.
The statement didn't actually require an answer—and, in all honesty, Logan
didn't have one! He didn't particularly want to be having this conversation at
all—would much rather join Brice and Darcy!—let alone hear that this
beautiful young woman seemed to have nothing but admiration for his
mother.
Daniel Simon, a decent and honourable man, plainly loved Meg. Darcy,
straightforward and honest, had come to like her, too. And Francesca, this
young woman, who worked with her on a daily basis, had nothing but
admiration for her. Could they all be wrong about Meg, and he was right? Or
was he the one who was wrong...?
However, it wasn't something he had the time to deal with just now. 'I'm
sorry, Miss Darwin—'
'Francesca,' she prompted warmly. 'This castle is something else, isn't it?'
she added with an admiring look round, seeming unaware that Logan was
trying to make his excuses.
Something else just about described it. Logan had spent his teenage years
growing up here, still considered it home, but he easily acknowledged that
its splendour was magnificent.
His grandfather, as much as he was able—and with the modern central
heating cunningly disguised behind other fixtures!—had filled the thirty or
so rooms that comprised this sixteenth century castle with genuine antiques,
armour and swords from the Scottish-English wars, huge tapestries
adorning the mellow stone walls. The grounds were no less impressive, the
deer his grandfather farmed taking up acres of the land, the rest given over
to dense forests and streams. There was even a trout lake half a mile or so
away.
'It is,' Logan agreed. 'But I really do have to—'
'Logan, I've brought someone over to say hello,' Brice cut in lightly.
Logan didn't even need to turn to know that it was Darcy; even if his senses
hadn't already alerted him to the fact, he could smell the perfume he always
associated with her.
She looked wonderful! A knee-length shimmering grey dress, the exact
colour of her enigmatic eyes, clung lovingly to the perfection of her body,
her hair a soft red curtain down to her shoulders, her eyes huge and
luminous, soft colour in her cheeks, a scarlet gloss on her lips. She looked
