“She is building her place, Logan,” she continued. “With or without ye. Ye cannae lock her in a castle and then call it disobedience when she finds her own way to belong.”
“She is buildingwithoutasking,” he protested.
“Did anyone ever ask ye?” she shot back. “When the pirates took ye. When they put a blade in yer hand. When ye came back, and the council looked at ye like a stranger. Did anyone ask ye where ye wanted to belong?”
The room felt smaller, and the maps on the desk blurred at the edges.
“That is different,” he grumbled.
“Aye,” she said. “It is worse. Ye are angry because she is doing what ye never got the chance to do:choosing.”
He rose to his feet before he realized it. His chair scraped across the flagstones.
“I am nae having this argument with ye. I am the Laird here.”
Isobel did not back away. “Then act like it,” she said quietly. “A laird protects what he brings under his roof. He doesnae ride off and leave a wife with gossip and half a promise.”
His jaw clenched so hard it hurt. “Trust isnae part of this. We daenae need it. She kens what she gains from this marriage. I ken what I gain. That is enough.”
Isobel looked at him for a long moment. Whatever anger she had been holding cooled. What was left in its place was worse.
“Well, I may be young, but I ken this much,” she said. “Arrangements daenae stop hearts from breaking.”
He had no answer for that. For once, his tongue was tied.
She gave a small, tired nod and then turned toward the door. He swallowed and watched her walk away from him.
She paused a few paces from the door, skirt brushing against the rug, hands loose at her sides. She looked tired in a way he did not like. He could handle her temper because she had none. This defeated look on her face, however, unsettled him more.
She shifted, as if to turn. “Ye leave in two days if ye must. Just daenae act surprised if the home ye come back to belongs to more than ye.”
His tongue sat heavy in his mouth. Before he could force out an answer, a dull thud sounded from the hallway.
Isobel’s head snapped toward the doorway, and Logan frowned. The sound came again, louder this time. It sounded like the stone floors meeting something hard and uneven.
He knew that rhythm from yards and decks and rocky paths.
Hooves.
He immediately rose to his feet.
Nay.
The door flew wider before he reached it, and a goat shot into the study like someone had hurled it in. It skidded across the rushesnear the threshold, scrabbled, then found its balance. With its head up and its eyes bright, it stood in the middle of the room and took a breath like it owned the air.
Logan stared at it. Of all the things he had expected to face tonight, a goat in his study had not made the list.
Isobel made a small sound in the back of her throat that sounded almost like a snicker. “Oh.”
The animal turned its head toward the desk. Something in its beady stare said it had found an enemy.
“Stop,” Logan muttered.
The goat lowered its head and drove its skull into the front leg of the desk with acrackthat vibrated through the wood. Papers flew off the surface and fell on the floor. One of the candles wobbled, wax slopping onto the side of the brass holder.
Logan was moving before the goat could try again. He snatched a chair and jammed it between the creature and the desk, legs braced, teeth clenched.
Isobel’s laugh filled the study now, stoking his irritation.
