Logan blinked. It was a small thing. A half beat too long before he looked away. But it was enough.
“Aha!” Pete cried.
“There is nayaha,” Logan grunted.
“There is always anaha,” Pete insisted. “Daenae tell me ye stayed on land because of a lass. I will have to rethink everything I ken about ye, and that will take time that I daenae have.”
“She is me wife,” Logan said, more sharply than he meant.
“And there it is,” Pete said. “I have sailed with ye for years, and heard ye talk more kindly about rotten rope than about any woman. Now ye sound like a man who has a claim he isnae willing to share.”
Logan swallowed. The ale had left a warmth in his throat. It made it harder to ignore the images his mind conjured of Emma standing in the study, chin lifted, eyes bright with fury and fear she tried to hide.
He saw her mouth when she dared him. Heard the way her voice shook at the edges even as she refused to back away. Felt her hands on his chest and heard her confess that she could not survive another wedding where the groom did not come.
“She isnae an ordinary woman,” he started, then stopped.
The words felt too raw in his mouth, too close to something he did not want to show.
Pete’s grin widened. “Listen to ye. Do ye hear yerself?”
Logan cut him off before he could say more. “Is there more ale?”
“Of course, there is more ale.” Pete lifted the cask to check the weight, then shook his head. “But this is for the crew. Ye get one more, and then I leave ye to yer deep thoughts,Captain Laird.”
Logan narrowed his eyes. “It isnae that serious.”
Pete stood up, stretched, and rolled his shoulders. “I can sleep easily now. The sea didnae lose ye to a castle. It lost ye to a clever lass. There is some justice in that.”
“Get out,” Logan said, but there was no bite in it.
Pete laughed, clapped his shoulder once, then ducked through the door and was gone, his boots thudding up the narrow steps toward the deck.
The cabin felt smaller at once as the lantern swung in a lazy arc, taking the shadows with it. Logan had always come here to clear his head. The sea had been the one place where the noise inside him disappeared, and the only things that mattered were the wind, the sail, and the men who trusted him to keep them alive.
Now, with the ship steady and the danger past, his thoughts did not settle. They circled back to his castle.Back toher.
He could smell her if he let himself think too hard. Some English soap, something floral, softened by the smoke from the castle’s fires.
The sea was supposed to be freedom. No walls or eyes watching him. He couldn’t take another breath without thinking about her and wondering what she was doing.
He placed his hand on the table and exhaled, trying as hard as he could to stop his mind from wandering too far.
“Good God,” he muttered as realization dawned on him.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her.No matter how hard he tried.
17
The stables had become the only place in the castle where Emma could be herself without thinking too hard about it.
She walked in late that morning with her head held high, the air smelling of hay and animals and soft leather. While she couldn’t exactly do anything about the silence in the Great Hall, here, she could help it.
Her little group of animals greeted her in their own way. The cat lifted its head from a hay bale and narrowed its eyes, as if judging how interesting she was going to be today. The goat stamped once, its tether tight around the stump. The calf, which was still her favorite, let out a soft, uncertain sound. Even the dog thumped its tail once on the floor.
“Well,” Emma said, “if we are all to live together, this is simply not going to do. We need some order.” She started walking the length of the building, gesturing as she went. “Pens there.A proper gate here. Space for the calf to move without being trampled. Somewhere to keep that one from mounting another rebellion,” she added, nodding at the goat.
Two stable hands who were watching her from the minute she had walked in paused with forks in their hands. A guard on inside duty straightened, hand going to his sword as if she had ordered an attack.
