A few men near him chuckled.
Logan turned his head slowly. The pirate who had spoken froze. A scar cut through his eyebrow, one Logan remembered from a boarding years ago.
Good fighter. Bad timing.
“Soft,” he repeated, voice low. He stepped forward just enough that the space between them shrank. “If I had stayed the man ye kent from the deck, there would be three bodies lying where that rope sits. The lass. The lad. And maybe ye, if ye had opened yer mouth the same way.”
Silence fell over the men nearby.
“I am nae softer,” he grunted. “I am only choosing where to spill blood. Do ye understand the difference, or do ye need it taught into ye?”
The pirate dropped his gaze. “Nay, me Laird,” he muttered.
“Good,” Logan said. “Then hold yer tongue. Ye will need it for the festival.”
He let that sink in for a second, then turned away, taking his place again at the center.
The villagers began to disperse first, some pulling their daughters close and casting last glares at the pirates. The young couple stayed where they were until the crowd grew thinner, then slipped off together. The pirates, on the other hand, broke apart in looser knots, a few of them stealing glances at Emma, speculative looks in their eyes.
Logan knew that look, and he knew the exact question it asked.
But he would do everything he could to protect his wife before anyone could even think of doing anything.
29
The road back to the castle felt different. Perhaps it was because they were on different horses, this time around.
Emma rode a little ahead of the others, close to Logan’s knee. The horse she sat on had found its pace with Logan’s hours ago. When his horse slowed, hers did. When his horse shifted away from a rut, hers followed. It made it hard to pretend she was not near him on purpose.
She watched the hills rolling back toward the castle. The sky had that flat, dull look right before evening fell, light thinning slowly rather than dropping all at once. Her fingers were stiff around the reins. She flexed them, trying to loosen them, and found her mind running the same loop.
The crowd.
The shouting.
The rope pulled tight between pirates and villagers.
She still did not know what had possessed her to shout. It had left her throat raw and her heart hammering. Her father would have said she had been spoiling for a quarrel since birth and that she needed to keep her voice inside her head if she wanted to live long in a man’s world.
Yet it had worked. Thanks to her, there were no bodies on the ground or fresh blood to lie awake over.
The thought sat warm in her chest, all thanks to the silence.
They had not ridden far when Logan broke the silence.
“The way ye handled that little mess was… interesting,” he said.
She looked over at him quickly. His eyes were on the road, but his tone was flat enough that she could have taken it as criticism if she wished.
“Interesting,” she repeated. “Is that how lairds give compliments?”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “Innovative, then,” he allowed. “I have seen men settle quarrels in many ways, lass. Screaming. Drinking. Bleeding. I havenae once seen them settle it by making fools of themselves with a rope in the mud.”
“They were already making fools of themselves with their mouths,” Emma scoffed. “At least the rope kept their hands busy.”
He huffed a sound that might have been a laugh, and she felt it more than heard it. For some reason, it made a tight spot between her ribs loosen.
“Well, thanks to yer invented solution, the men would live to see another day.”
