Chapter 20
Later that evening, Logan sat behind his desk. The only light in the study came from the weak fire in the grate, but he wasn’t bothered about it anyway. He liked the dim lighting. It did not let him confront his thoughts more than he would like.
His eyes flicked to the map that lay across his desk. One showed the familiar line of the horizon, and another bore marked routes. A list of supplies sat beside them, his own handwriting tight and spare.
He tried to fix his mind on the list and even tried to picture the ship. He tried to imagine the feel of wet boards under his boots and the clean pull of the oars.
Every time he reached for it, he saw Emma instead.
He saw her smile. The pleasant one she had plastered on when she told him she would be the perfect wife. No trouble. No chaos. He could still see the way her mouth had curved. It had felt like being shut out of his own study.
Something about it felt rather off.
He set the quill down harder than he meant to, ink dripping from the nib. He folded the supply list and set it aside. If he stained it, he did not care.
A knock sounded at the door in that moment, pulling him back to the present.
“Come in,” he called.
Isobel did not bother waiting for the word to fully leave his mouth.
She pushed the door open and slipped inside, already scanning the room as if searching for smoke.
The door stayed ajar behind her. He had told the servants to leave it that way since his return.
Being locked in a room, even if it was his own, was the last thing he needed right after his voyage.
Isobel’s gaze landed on him. She took in his loose collar, his rolled sleeves, his tense shoulders. Her lips thinned.
“For some reason, Braither, ye look like ye are ready to fight the desk,” she remarked.
“I have fought worse things.”
She did not smile. Instead, she crossed the room to the fireplace and nudged a half-burned log with the toe of her shoe, as if checking whether the fire meant to die out.
“I heard ye sent for more powder. And extra sailcloth. Those willnae get here until tomorrow evening, I hope ye ken that.”
“Aye,” he said. “We leave in two days.”
“Truly?” she asked, her tone careful.
He leaned back in his chair. “I daenae repeat meself for pleasure, Isobel. Aye, I am leaving.”
Her face tightened. “I thought…” she began, then stopped and shook her head. “It doesnae matter what I thought.”
“What did ye think?” he pressed.
“That ye might wait. At least long enough to ken the shape of yer marriage before ye leave it behind.”
Logan let out a short breath through his nose.
“This marriage is a contract. Ye helped arrange it, for the love of Christ. It is standing, and the clan has witnessed it. I daenae ken what else ye want me to do. For now, I am just trying to focus on the lines in this map. I am trying to make sense of it.”
She looked down at the floor, her eyes narrowed. “And Emma?” she asked. “Is she a line on a map, too?”
He did not answer. Instead, he picked up one of the folded letters and straightened the edge against the desk.
Isobel turned away from the fireplace. “Ye are truly leaving the day after tomorrow?” she said again.
“Aye.” This time, he gave her nothing else. He had already spent too many words in this room tonight.
She stepped closer to the desk as the shutter to the right rattled once in the wind. Her full attention was focused on him now. Logan swallowed and stared back at her.
“Ye ken she thinks ye might vanish again,” she said. “That is why she followed ye into the woods. She told me.”
Logan kept his expression blank. “She told ye about the woods.”
“She told me enough. I am nae blind.”
He could not argue that.
Isobel drew in a breath. “The castle is different with her here,” she added. “Have ye noticed?”
“‘Tis hard nae to notice the noise,” he said. “Or the straw in the yard. Or the smell.”
“The smell,” she repeated flatly.
“Good God,” he groaned. “Why has nay one spoken about it anyway? ‘Tis a castle, for the love of God, nae a barn.”
“Well, this barn has maids and guards laughing in it again,” Isobel pointed out.
“I am certain that is hard for ye to imagine, but I want ye to picture it. Servants smiling. There hasnae been so much talk in the kitchens in years that wasnae about fear of me faither or of ye. Now, all they talk about is her. They talk about how whimsical she is and how odd a choice she is for ye. Do ye nae see the picture I am trying to paint here?”
His mind flashed to the moment he had stepped into the hall earlier that afternoon. He remembered Emma’s face in the middle of it, cheeks flushed, hair coming half loose, eyes bright.
“It is still chaos,” he insisted.
“And so is life,” Isobel retorted, quick as a slap.
“She is lonely, Logan. She has nay faither here. Nay braither. She crossed England to make sure ye held up yer end of the bargain. She is making a place for herself. What did ye expect her to do? Sit quietly in a corner and count the stones on the walls?”
The words landed hard. The way Isobel said them knocked at an old bruise. His fingers curled around the arm of his chair.
“She is me wife,” he said. “That means she follows me rules. That is how this works.”
Isobel eyed him, head tilted a little. “Is that what ye think marriage is? Rules and obedience?”
“It isnae a treaty, I ken that much,” he snapped. “We had an agreement. She needed a husband. I needed a wife. I didnae sign up for a menagerie in the Great Hall.”
Isobel folded her arms. “Ye did sign up for another soul in this castle,” she argued. “Ye brought her here. Ye put a ring on her finger. Ye can call it an arrangement all ye like, but hearts daenae stop beating just because of yer choice of words. Ye married a wife, nae a doll.”
He hated it when she spoke like that. Calm, steady, like she was laying out a set of facts on a table he could not overturn.
“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 building without asking,” 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 rushes near 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 a crack that 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.
“I am glad one of us thinks this is hilarious, Isobel.”
The goat backed up a step, shook its head, and eyed the new obstacle.
Logan raised his voice as the goat shifted its weight. “Guards!”
His voice carried into the hallway and along the stone like a bell. Isobel had moved to stand near the fireplace, one hand covering her mouth. Her eyes were wide, but there was a spark there that made him want to send her out with the beast.
The goat lunged at the chair again, and the impact shoved the wood back toward his shins. He rode it out and shoved it forward again.
“I said stop! Ye animal!”