As his hand moved to his kilt, her heart kicked. She knew what came next. She knew what that look meant.
She shoved at his chest, and he froze instantly.
She swallowed and gathered herself, the words feeling like a ridge to climb.“If we are to be united,” she said quietly, “I want to see you the next day too. I do not want this to be something that ends with the morning.”
Saying it out loud cost her.
As pride and fear pressed at her throat, she kept her hands on his chest, feeling his steady heartbeat under her fingers.
He studied her carefully. The heat in his gaze did not vanish, but it shifted from demand to attention. He searched her face like a man reading the weather and found the truth he had asked for.
He nodded once. “I understand, wife. Good night.”
He fixed his clothes and smoothed his shirt where her fingers had mussed it. He then adjusted the line of his cuffs and the lay of his belt, moving without hurry.
He went to the door and put his hand on the knob. The fire made a soft pop as a coal collapsed inward. He opened the door and took one step into the hallway. Then he looked back.
He saw her as she was by the wall, warm and undone and choosing caution over surrender. The door closed with the same final click as earlier, and the room settled around the absence of him.
Emma stood where he had left her. She pressed her hand to her chest and felt her own heartbeat slow. She thought of the morning and did not make plans for it.
She let the night be what it was: the best night of her life.
12
The hall met him again with heat and smoke and the thin echoes of music while Embers glowed in the great fireplace. A piper tried a last tune and let it fade. Laughter still rose in places, but it sounded far away to Logan, like a storm heard from land.
He snatched a cup from a passing tray and drank from it. The taste was rough and practically burning. He drank again.
The noise did not return to him, but the room kept its distance.
Dancers finished a set and made way for talk. He looked at the space where Emma had stood earlier. Empty floor, a ribbon glinting near a table leg, one curl he could still see in his mind where it had slipped free.
The emptiness felt conspicuous, as if the hall had been built around a point that no longer held.
David stood near the edge of the dance floor with two guards from the south wall. He spoke of nothing urgent. He looked at ease, like he had earned it. He did not see Logan at first.
Logan crossed to him. He set the cup on a table with more force than he meant. When he spoke, he kept his voice low, controlled, and dangerous. “Ye put yer hands on me wife.”
David blinked, surprised out of his ease. “Aye, me Laird, during the set.” He kept his voice calm. “Someone had to dance with her, me Laird.”
The words struck harder than Logan had expected. They sounded like instructions in a place where he did not want to be taught.
Heat rose up his spine, and the old lines of command pulled tight.
“Ye cannae do that again.”
David nodded. “Me Laird, it is me opinion that ye let yer wife?—”
“Next time ye tell me yer opinion about me wife, I will cut out yer tongue,” Logan threatened, cutting him off.
He did not raise his voice. He did not need to.
The threat sat in the quiet like a blade laid on a table. The space around them shrank immediately.
David lowered his gaze at once. “Forgive me, I meant nay slight.”
Logan let the words land and did not answer.
