“If there was a problem, I would have said so,” Logan answered.
He reached for the shirt on the nearby chair and pulled it over his head, the motions precise and controlled, the way he bound a cut in a storm.
“Aye,” David said. “I only meant to check. It is the morning of yer wedding, after all.”
Logan tied the laces and nodded once. “Thank ye. Yer checking in is well noted.”
David cocked his head. “Shall I fill the bath now? The lads have kept the copper hot.”
“Do it,” Logan ordered. “I want it to be a long one.”
“Done,” David said. He lingered for a moment, seeming to weigh something. “Training or maps later? Ye want the arm ready or the head settled?”
“Nay,” Logan answered at once. “Neither.”
“Understood. I will have the hall decorated as Lady Isobel asked.” David tapped the frame with two fingers, a gesture that conveyed both respect and farewell. “Congratulations all the same.”
He left without turning back, then pulled the door closed with a clean click.
Silence returned, and the room breathed again.
Logan lay back and stared at the ceiling. The light had grown a shade brighter, enough to cast a pale line on the stone floors. He tried not to think of anything else, but there was nothing else to think about on the morning of his wedding but his bride.
He closed his eyes and saw her anyway, the shape of her mouth, the tilt of her chin when she had told him freedom was participation and not absence, the way she had stepped close without care because courage was muscle memory for her.
He had told himself for years that a man like him stayed in shape by keeping free of ties that dragged. He could tie himself to a ship and cut the knot when the wind turned. He could tie himself to a fight and step away when the wall held. He had not expected to tie himself to a woman and then wake up with the tie tugging from inside his chest.
He rolled and set his feet on the floor. The stone floor took his weight, and he gave a faint sigh. He sat for a moment, elbows on his knees, and scrubbed a hand over his face. The smell of the banked fire reached him, smoke and old oak. He could hear early movement in the hallway. Life at the castle went on as it always did.
It had gone on during battle, and yet it had not affected him the way it did today.
He rose, stripped, checked the stitches along his ribs with two fingers, then reached for the fresh bandages on the chest. Theskin around the cut looked clean, but the ache sat under it like a lesson he deserved. At least he had something to keep his mind grounded.
He wrapped and tied the bandages, then pulled on a clean shirt. The linen caught against the knot, but he quickly adjusted it.
On the windowsill, condensation had pooled from the cold night. He dipped two fingernails in it and drew a line. Then he looked at the door and thought about the day. He would submit to the ceremony because he had called for it.
He went to the jug and poured water into the basin. The cold hit his hands and sharpened his focus. He splashed his face, wiped it with a linen that smelled of lye and sun, and tried to set the morning in order.
The knock had dispelled his desire before he could finish, but he knew very well that the ache had not vanished so much as gone to ground. It would be back the next time his thoughts had the space to wander. Toher.
He released a short, sharp breath and looked up at the morning sky through his window.
“Great,” he said to the empty room, voice low. “Just great.” He put both hands on the sill and kept his eyes on the light brightening by inches. “What are ye doing to me, Emma?”
Emma watched as Jenny set the kettle on the table and checked the copper with the back of her hand. A while later, steam lifted in steady curls. She sat on the edge of the bed and watched the water without seeing it.
“Is everything well, me Lady?” Jenny asked, her voice careful.
“I am fine,” Emma replied.
Jenny nodded, though her gaze remained assessing. She folded a towel, then another.
Emma looked up. “Tell me, Jenny, what do you do when you are not rescuing me from my own nerves?”
Jenny blinked, surprised into a small smile. “I mend and clean like the rest of the maids. And I am training as a healer when there is time. Lady Isobel lets me study with the woman who heads the apothecary.”
Emma stood up at once. “Then let us go. Show me. The bath can wait.”
