He expected the nod of a person who understood weight and return. What met him was hurt that she did not bother to hide.
“And when exactly were you hoping to tell me this?” she asked.
“Ye arenae me wife yet, lassie,” he reminded her. The line came out flat, a fact he had never thought to address. “Ye spoke of freedom. I thought ye would enjoy the same. A quiet home and yer own time.”
“Freedomisparticipation,” she argued, voice clear. “Not simply being left alone whenever you choose.”
The words landed in a place he did not let many words reach. He held her gaze and let nothing show that would read as retreat. He gave her half a smile, the sort that ended matters.
“I will keep it in mind for when I return.”
Her mouth tightened, and she looked past him at the slice of moon over the wall then back. The mismatch between them was as clean as a cut. She wanted a partner in a room. He wanted the honor of having a wife without shouldering the responsibilities.
It was too late to back out now. Someone would need to succumb to the needs of the other, and if it had to be her, then so be it.
“Good night, my Lord,” she muttered, formal as a bow at Court.
“Laird.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What?”
“Me Laird.”
A nervous laugh escaped her lips. “Right. Goodnight,my Laird.”
She turned and walked back down the path she had come from. She was so deep in thought that she did not notice the path ahead was not?—
“Wrong way, lassie,” he warned, his voice pulling her out of her reverie.
She stopped, veered left, and came back to the track that ran along the edge of the woods. Logan waited until she reached him, then set an even pace toward the gate.
The ground was firm, and the night held the scent of smoke and pine. Her shawl brushed her sleeve with a small sigh in time with her steps.
Logan was amused by the heat she carried into the dark. Few people spoke to him like that and meant every word. It pleased him in a way he did care to admit, and yet unsettled him more to find that she expected to be told before he acted, as if marriage were a council and not a post.
As they walked, he thought of the voyage the way he always did—in parts he could count. He thought of his adventures at sea and how hard it would be to replicate them on land.He thought of his men.
The same men who took his orders in a blow would take them again, then bring the hold home heavy. He would stand on the deck and feel in the best shape, the one that had kept him alive and fed, the one that had laced itself through his bones long before this castle had become his.
He looked at Emma out of the corner of his eye and saw that her jaw had set in resolve. She matched his pace without effort anddid not lag behind. She also did not speak to fill the quiet, which he respected.
He wondered what rule she was writing for herself right now, what new line would greet him in the morning.
They reached the open ground and crossed it with their shadows stretching thin across the grass. He noticed the way the gate lamp threw a narrow strip of light that caught in her hair and made it look ethereal.
At the door, he put a hand on the wood and held it open for her. She slipped through, her shawl brushing his wrist for a moment, then turned into the corridor to the stairs. He followed anyway, almost like there was an unspoken agreement between them.
In the shadow of the stairs, she paused, as if listening to the castle breathe. He felt the urge to say more at that moment, but he let it pass. Words he did not mean had no place between them. Words hedidmean, on the other hand, would not change tonight.
“Sleep,” he said. “It will be a hard day tomorrow.”
“It will.”
She faced him fully and looked as if she had set something down where he could not reach it. Then she turned to the steps. He watched her climb until the turn took her out of sight.
He stood a moment longer with his hand on the rail, then went the opposite way, toward the lower passage and the work he had left there.
The matter was closed. He convinced himself that she would understand once she married him. All the expectations she had of him would disappear, and he wouldn’t need to deal with her any longer. When he left, she would see the good his absence would bring
