Chapter 20 #2
Isobel opened her mouth to speak, but before any words could come out, two guards appeared in the doorway, their hair tousled from interrupted sleep.
“Both of ye. Get in here!” Logan snapped. “Can someone tell me why there is a goat in me study?”
They hesitated for only a second, then rushed in, trying to flank the animal. The goat turned sharply and presented them with its horns.
A stable boy skidded into the room, panting. He took one look at Logan, then at the goat, and went pale.
“Well,” Logan gritted out. “Explain.”
The boy swallowed. “Apologies, me Laird. It… escaped from the pen.”
“The pen,” Logan repeated.
“The, ah, farm,” the boy corrected, voice thinning. “Lady MacLellan’s pens in the yard.”
Logan felt heat rise behind his eyes. “Lady MacLellan’s what?”
“Oh, ye havenae seen the new home she made for the animals?” Isobel drawled.
Logan shot her a look. “Isobel.”
She raised her hands in mock surrender, and he returned his gaze to the stable boy.
“The animals, me Laird,” the boy stammered. “They were meant to stay put, but this one keeps making a run for it.”
The goat chose that moment to butt the chair again. The rear desk leg scraped across the floor, and the bottles on the surface rattled. A rolled map slid toward the edge.
Isobel spoke up then, stepping forward as if she might shield the animal with her body. “It isnae hurting anyone. It is just frightened. They are her friends, Logan.”
He turned his head just enough to look at her. “Friends,” he echoed.
The goat snorted, as if answering him, and tried to chew the corner of a dropped paper.
“Very moving,” Logan said. “Get it out.” He fixed his gaze on the stable boy. “Listen to me carefully. I want all the animals removed from the hall tonight. I daenae care where ye take them, I want them all out and returned to their place. Am I understood?”
The boy opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it. He nodded quickly. “Aye, me Laird.”
Isobel frowned at him. “Ye cannae just drive them all out. Emma has worked hard to tame them. They make the castle feel like a home, nae a tomb.”
The goat shifted and sought another angle around the chair. Logan shoved the chair again and pointed at it.
“Home,” he said. “Really?”
The beast chose that instant to ram the leg with more enthusiasm. The candle near the desk shook, and hot wax splashed onto the wood. It caused one of the quills to topple and roll across the papers.
Logan narrowed his eyes. “The ship smelled better than this room. And I had dead men bleed on the deck.”
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 is me study,” he gritted out. “It is me hall. Me corridors. 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, and lead 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.