Page 82 of Because You're Mine
Gently Madeline touched her husband’s stiff shoulder. “Was—is—he a strong swimmer? Perhaps he managed to reach shore—”
“No, he couldn’t swim well,” Logan said, his voice hoarse. “He was probably too damned drunk to even try.”
Her hand settled on the nape of his neck. “Logan, I’m sorry—”
He jerked away from her, his breath hissing between his teeth. “Don’t.” A visible tremor ran along his back. “I want to be alone.”
Every impulse in her body prompted her to stay, to comfort him, but Logan didn’t want her. He was shutting her out of his grief. It was the worst hell imaginable to love someone who didn’t want it. If he did have feelings for her, he fought them at every turn. Madeline stared at his dark head and couldn’t stop herself from touching his hair. “Logan, what can I do?” she whispered.
“Just leave.”
Madeline’s hand fell away, and she left the room without looking back.
For the rest of that day, and most of the next, Logan closed himself in his room and drank. The only time he spoke to Madeline was to tell her to notify the Capital that he wouldn’t be coming to work. His understudy would take his place in the performance the following evening.
“When will you return?” Madeline asked, staring into his set face and liquor-glazed eyes. She was met with a stony silence in reply, and he shut himself away in his room once more. He didn’t want her company, nor anyone else’s. In spite of Madeline’s pleas and the trays of food she sent upstairs, he refused to eat.
Worriedly Madeline asked Mrs. Beecham if Logan had ever behaved like this before, and the housekeeper hesitated before replying. “Only when you left him, Mrs. Scott.”
Madeline colored with guilt and remorse. “How long did it last?”
“It took one week for him to drink himself insensible, and another before he would begin to eat properly again.” Mrs. Beecham shook her head in sincere puzzlement. “ThatI could understand, as we all knew how he felt about you…but this…I wouldn’t have guessed that he cared so much about Lord Drake. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but the man was a ne’er-do-well, may he rest in peace.”
“It must be because they grew up together. For some reason Logan felt responsible for him.”
The housekeeper shrugged. “Whatever the cause, the master has taken his passing very hard.” Her sympathetic gaze touched on Madeline’s strained face. “He’ll put himself to rights eventually. Don’t distress yourself, Mrs. Scott. It’s not good for a woman in your condition to worry.”
That, of course, was easier said than done. How could she not worry when her husband seemed determined to drink himself to death? Late in the evening of the second day, Madeline gathered her nerve and went to his door, turning the heavy brass knob and discovering that it was locked. “Logan?” she asked, knocking quietly. As she had expected, there was no reply. She knocked a little harder and heard a muffled snarl from within.
“Stop scratching at the damn door and leave me in peace.” His voice was filled with ugly undertones that raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
“Unlock it, please,” Madeline said, trying to sound composed, “or I’ll get a key from Mrs. Beecham.”
“Then I’ll wring your neck like a Christmas goose,” he returned, sounding as if he would relish the process.
“I’m going to wait here until I see you. I’ll stand here all night if necessary.” When there was no reply, she added in a moment of inspiration, “And if something happens to the baby, let it be on your conscience!”
Madeline braced herself as she heard his heavy footsteps. All of a sudden the door was unlocked, and she was snatched into the room with a violent jerk.
“There’s nothing left of my conscience,” Logan said, slamming the door, closing her inside the shadowed bedroom with him. He loomed over her, huge and dark, his hair rumpled, his breath rank with liquor. He wore a pair of astonishingly wrinkled trousers; his feet were bare, and his muscular chest and shoulders, naked. Madeline couldn’t help shrinking back, alarmed by his appearance. He seemed capable of almost anything. His mouth twisted with a sneer and there was a wild, desperate gleam in his bloodshot eyes.
“You want to play the dutiful wife,” Logan said thickly, “and pat my shoulder while whispering platitudes in my ear. Well, I don’t want comfort from you. I don’t need it. All I need isthis.” His hand caught in her bodice, his fingers delving into the hollow of her cleavage, and he pulled her hard against him. His hot mouth, surrounded by wiry bristle, scoured the tender skin of her throat.
Madeline sensed that he expected her to protest his crude fondling, but she slid her arms around his neck and relaxed against him. The gentle yielding seemed to be Logan’s undoing. “Damn you,” he groaned. “Don’t you have the sense to be afraid of me?”
“No,” she said, her face pressed against his hot, smooth shoulder.
Abruptly he let go of her, breathing in unsteady gulps.
“Logan,” she said softly, “you’re behaving as if you’re somehow to blame for your friend’s death. I don’t understand why.”
“You don’t need to.”
“I do, when you seem bent on destroying yourself. There are many people who need you…and I happen to be one of them.”
His anger seemed to drain away, and he suddenly appeared weary and full of self-hatred. “Andrew needed me,” he muttered. “I failed him.”
Her gaze searched his ravaged face. “Is that what this is about?”
