One of the younger guards coughed into his fist, shoulders shaking once. The other pressed his lips together, eyes darting between Logan and the goat.
Isobel shot them both a warning look.
“Ye daenae need to insult everything she has done,” she hissed. “This is more than just smell and straw to her.”
“It ismestudy,” he gritted out. “It ismehall.Mecorridors. I wake to goats and chickens and some mutt nosing at me boots.”
A bark rang out somewhere down the corridor, as if to prove his point. A moment later came a frantic squawk and the slap of wings against stone.
Logan pinched the bridge of his nose with ink-stained fingers. Behind his eyelids, he saw the deck of his ship, clean lines, clear orders, men who knew their place and did not answer him with wool and feathers. He dropped his hand and straightened.
“Move,” he ordered the guards. “Ye.” He jerked his chin towards the stable boy. “I want ye to take a rope, get hold of its horns, andlead it out. If it knocks over so much as one more candle, I will have it for supper.”
The boy paled again but obeyed, edging around with the caution of a man approaching a loaded cannon. One of the guards distracted the goat from the front, clapping and muttering, while the boy slid the rope around its neck and pulled. The goat fought at first, legs braced, but gave in later with a resentful jerk. It bleated loudly on its way out, voice echoing across the hallway.
“Check every corridor,” Logan added, standing in the doorway as they passed. “Every stair. Every room that shouldnae have hooves in it. I want them all in the yard before sunrise.”
“Aye, me Laird,” the older guard said, then they scattered, boots thudding off into the dark.
The hallway slowly fell quiet.
Logan stepped back into the study. The desk bore fresh scuff marks where the goat had struck, and a few hoof marks had smeared dirt on the floor. The pages he had been reading lay crooked, one corner torn.
Isobel had not moved far from the fireplace. Her arms were folded tight now, expression drawn.
“I hope ye are ready to face the consequences. When she wakes up tomorrow, ye will have her to deal with.”
He shot her a look. “Aye. I am incredibly nervous.”
Even as the words left his mouth, he felt the hollowness in them. Isobel seemed to notice it as well, and her shoulders dropped, some of the fight leaving her.
“If ye say so,” she muttered. “Good night, Logan.”
She did not wait for his dismissal this time. She turned and walked out, leaving the door half shut behind her.
He was alone again.
The study felt oddly bigger after the goat was taken away. The marks on the floor drew his eye, and so did the faint smear of hay under the leg of the desk. He should have felt satisfied. Order had been restored.
Instead, the room felt too still.
He ran a hand over the edge of the desk, fingertips tracing the fresh dent in the wood. The castle had shifted while he had been at sea all those years, and he had thought that assuming the lairdship would pin it in his grip again. Now his own wife was bending it with straw, noise, and ridiculous creatures that children loved.
He straightened, his jaw set. It did not matter anyway. By morning, the halls would be in order, and the passages would be cleared. And in two days, the ship would be ready.
He would leave all of this behind. But until then, he would not let a stubborn Englishwoman turn his castle into a kingdom that did not answer to him.
He simply would not.
21
Emma did not remember falling asleep. If she had, it could not have lasted more than a few minutes. Every time her eyes closed, she would see Logan’s lips on hers and would hear that one quiet sentence that had refused to leave her mind.
One last trip. In two days.
Her skin had still been warm from his touch, and her thoughts had gone completely flat.Abandoned again, her mind kept saying. She lay on her back beneath the blanket and stared at the faint strip of light along the edge of the shutters.
She caught herself counting couples she had seen who did not live like this. Melody and Calum, always close enough to touch at meals. Husbands in London who checked the weather so they could be home by dusk. Men who made every effort to stay.
