Chapter 13 #2
That drew a small laugh from the corner. A young man with a bandaged arm sat on a stool, watching. “We thought ye would be like the Laird,” he admitted. “Grim and sharp. All orders.”
Emma refreshed another cloth. “Disappointing for you, I am sure.”
“It is a cruel world,” the woman said, smiling at the ceiling, “when a fearsome pirate marries someone so gentle.”
Emma laughed with them, feeling the sound loosen something inside her. “You do not know me well enough to call me gentle. Ask my previous suitor.”
“Aye, we heard about him,” the young man said. “Seems he got what he deserved.”
Jenny moved between them with a pot and a spoon, checking tongues and pulses, giving small measures of bitter liquid.
Emma stayed at her task, trading a few quiet words with each patient. She listened attentively and asked them questions that kept them grounded to the present. Where were their families? How long had they been unwell?
The answers varied, but one thing did not. When Logan’s name came up, their voices dropped.
“He kept the raiders away for the last two weeks,” the young man revealed. “We owe him for that.”
“He scares the children half to death,” the woman added softly. “But at least they sleep safe at night.”
Emma laid a fresh cloth on the old man’s wrist and listened. She realized something quite important as she worked: they loved their Laird, but they feared him more.
She folded that knowledge away like a letter to read again later
The light had started to dim by the time she washed the apothecary smoke from her hair and hands. By the time she stepped into the dining hall, candles had been lit along the walls and on the long table. Their glow blurred the edges of the stone and made the room feel smaller, closer.
David stood where he always did, along the wall with his hands clasped behind his back. Guarding the door. Guarding her.
Isobel was already at the table, talking quietly with one of the older women. She brightened when she saw Emma and waved her closer. “Come sit with me, Emma.”
Emma took her place and let a maid set a plate in front of her. Toast, a bit of meat, and mashed potatoes. Her stomach churned, but she forced herself to tear a piece of toast and chew.
She glanced toward the wall. David’s gaze was on the door. Always the door. When he did look her way, it was quick and assessing, as if checking that she had not vanished.
On impulse, Emma held up the slice of toast. “Would you like some?”
David blinked. “Nay, me Lady. I am on duty.”
“Even soldiers eat,” she pointed out. “Or do you fear bread might weaken you?”
The corner of his mouth quirked up, before a short laugh escaped. “I will manage, me Lady.”
Isobel looked between them, her amusement growing. “He needs his strength for the next time he takes a lady dancing,” she said dryly. “The hall is still talking about his fine steps.”
Color rose up David’s neck. “Please, me Lady, ye shame me.”
Emma smiled into her cup. For a moment, the air around the table felt easier. Less like sitting in the shadow of someone who had left without a word.
The feeling, however, did not last. It never did.
“How long will he be gone?” Emma asked. She kept her voice level, but the question landed with more weight than the casual way she set down her fork.
Isobel’s smile faded as she reached for a cup of water. “It depends,” she said. “On the weather and on what he finds when he reaches the ports. It is hard to say.”
“A week?” Emma pressed. “A month?”
“Could be weeks,” Isobel admitted. “Could be more. He isnae careless, but the sea doesnae care for plans.”
Emma looked at David. “Do you know?”
“Nay, me Lady,” he answered. “The Laird doesnae share dates with men who stay on land.”
Uncertainty settled over her shoulders like a cloak that did not fit. Not knowing when her husband would be back was worse than knowing he would be gone for a long time. There was no expectation to work with. All she had was absence.
She took another bite of toast and forced herself to swallow. “You said this morning that he was not always welcome here,” she said to Isobel. “Logan.”
Isobel shifted in her seat. “Aye.”
“What did you mean?” Emma asked. “If I am to live here, it would help to know who my husband has been to these people.”
Isobel ran a finger along the rim of her cup. “Our father had… strong ideas about blood,” she began. “Logan’s birth isnae the sort the old man liked to parade. He is illegitimate. He learned pretty early on that the best way to have a place was to carve it himself.”
“Ah, I see,” Emma whispered.
“I daenae ken much about it because I was a child back then. I only ken what me braither told me before he died. And by the time I understood, Logan was already gone more than he was home.”
Emma listened in silence.
Rejection, then. And from the way Isobel spoke, it was clear that it didn’t happen in a single scene, but in small cuts that taught a man like him that his presence was a problem.
She pictured him walking through these halls with people measuring him and finding reasons not to bend.
“Did anyone ever welcome him when he returned?” she asked.
Isobel’s mouth softened. “I did. Eventually. He didnae make it easy.”
“I cannot imagine he did,” Emma murmured.
Isobel gave her a look that mixed apology and loyalty. “He came back different,” she said quietly. “The sea will do that. He saved us, Emma. He is saving us still. They love him for what he does. But loving him is hard work.”
Emma thought of the sick villagers on their cots, their hands clutching the cloths she had laid on their brows. Their voices were low when they spoke Logan’s name.
She picked at the crust of her toast, then let it fall to the plate. Her gaze slid back to where David stood with that rigid patience, eyes on the door, always watching. Loyal to orders. Loyal to the man who had given them.
Waiting for Logan to come back a different man would be foolish. The sea had taught him one way to be useful, and the clan seemed to have rewarded him for it. He would not change because his wife sat in a castle and wished for it.
Emma thought of the apothecary. Of Jenny’s steady hands. Of the villagers who warmed up to her because she knelt beside them. Fear masked as respect, respect masking fear. A laird who had made himself a shield and, in the same motion, a wall.
Isobel spoke again, pulling her out of her thoughts. “He will return, Emma. You must believe that. He always does.”
“I am sure,” Emma said, and her voice surprised her. It sounded quiet.
She lifted her chin and met David’s gaze across the hall. He looked away at once, as if being caught watching her was an offense.
She saw the dynamic clearly now. Logan out at sea, David on land, Herself somewhere in between, expected to wait, to be kept, to be safe.
No.
She set her napkin down and straightened in her chair. “This will not do,” she said, mostly to herself.
Isobel frowned. “What willnae?”
“This,” Emma emphasized. “Him there. Me here. I know we are meant to live separate lives, but I simply cannot continue living like this.”
Isobel’s eyebrows rose in surprise at her boldness. “What would ye have instead?”
Emma looked toward the window, though night had already obscured the view. In her mind, she saw the shore Logan had ridden toward. The ship that would carry him. She knew that sitting still would suffocate her.
As quietly and as firmly as she could, she let the words settle between them. “I will bring him back.”