Chapter 29
The road back to the castle felt different. Perhaps it was because they were on different horses, this time around.
Emma rode a little ahead of the others, close to Logan’s knee. The horse she sat on had found its pace with Logan’s hours ago. When his horse slowed, hers did. When his horse shifted away from a rut, hers followed. It made it hard to pretend she was not near him on purpose.
She watched the hills rolling back toward the castle. The sky had that flat, dull look right before evening fell, light thinning slowly rather than dropping all at once. Her fingers were stiff around the reins. She flexed them, trying to loosen them, and found her mind running the same loop.
The crowd.
The shouting.
The rope pulled tight between pirates and villagers.
She still did not know what had possessed her to shout. It had left her throat raw and her heart hammering. Her father would have said she had been spoiling for a quarrel since birth and that she needed to keep her voice inside her head if she wanted to live long in a man’s world.
Yet it had worked. Thanks to her, there were no bodies on the ground or fresh blood to lie awake over.
The thought sat warm in her chest, all thanks to the silence.
They had not ridden far when Logan broke the silence.
“The way ye handled that little mess was… interesting,” he said.
She looked over at him quickly. His eyes were on the road, but his tone was flat enough that she could have taken it as criticism if she wished.
“Interesting,” she repeated. “Is that how lairds give compliments?”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “Innovative, then,” he allowed. “I have seen men settle quarrels in many ways, lass. Screaming. Drinking. Bleeding. I havenae once seen them settle it by making fools of themselves with a rope in the mud.”
“They were already making fools of themselves with their mouths,” Emma scoffed. “At least the rope kept their hands busy.”
He huffed a sound that might have been a laugh, and she felt it more than heard it. For some reason, it made a tight spot between her ribs loosen.
“Well, thanks to yer invented solution, the men would live to see another day.”
“I did not invent it,” she said, before the opening could close. “My father did.”
Logan gave her a sidelong look. The wind pulled hair from his tie and slapped it across his cheek. He did not seem to notice. “Did he now?”
“Yes.” Emma shifted in the saddle, drawing her cloak tighter. “Whenever my brother and I argued, and he grew tired of hearing us, he would propose a game. Whoever won won the point. No shouting allowed. If we shouted, we lost.”
“A just man,” Logan said dryly. “Or a man with a sore head.”
“Both,” she answered. The memory made her mouth curve. “He would line up stones, and we would take turns knocking them over with a ball. Or he would tie a ribbon in a tree, and whoever touched it first without climbing would win. William always complained it was unfair because I was taller.”
Logan’s eyebrow rose. “Ye said he was younger.”
“He was younger,” she confirmed. “But not helpless. And I was not about to let him win simply because he had smaller legs.”
That got him.
He laughed properly, a low, rough sound that seemed to come from deep in his chest. It shocked her more than the screams at the rope.
It surprised her that a picture of her as a girl chasing ribbons with her brother could make him laugh this much.
She looked away quickly, back at the hills, because the sound did something strange to her heart.
Her fingers tightened around the leather again.
It felt like a hand had reached inside to remind her that something lived there.
“I can see ye,” he chuckled. “Little English terror, knocking yer poor braither into the dirt so ye can claim a ribbon for justice.”
“He knocked me into the dirt just as often,” Emma said. “Do not let the age difference fool you. William could be vicious when he chose.”
“Aye,” Logan murmured. “Braithers can.”
The warmth in his voice thinned on the last word, and Emma noticed it. The change was small, like a shift in wind that only a sailor would notice, but it was there.
When she turned her head this time, the line of his mouth had flattened.
She hesitated. Curiosity sat at the back of her tongue, pressing forward. It had spent weeks knocking against her teeth and only now found her soft enough to escape.
“What about your father?” she asked. “Did he ever set up games for you and your brother?”
Logan did not answer at once. Instead, his hand shifted on the reins, and his gaze stayed ahead. His horse took another twenty steps, then thirty, then long enough that she almost thought he had not heard her.
Then he exhaled. “Nay.”
For some reason, the word felt heavier than it should.
“No? Then what did he do?” she tried again, gentler.
He drew in a slow breath through his nose. She saw it. His shoulders rose and fell. The ease vanished. There was a new stiffness there, as if the weight he carried in his mind had become visible.
“Definitely nae games.” His voice no longer held any trace of that rough amusement. “Ye see, me faither had a cleaner way of dealing with problems.”
Emma waited for him to elaborate. It was clearer than anything that he had more to say.
His jaw worked once, and he kept his eyes on the road. When he spoke again, the words came out flat and blunt, cut to the bone.
“He set me up to die, so me braither didnae have competition.”
Emma blinked, and the world seemed to tilt.
What?
For a moment, she was not aware of the horse under her or the hills or the men behind them. There was only that sentence ringing in her skull, plain and terrible.
Her breath caught in her throat. The words kept replaying in her head. He set me up to die, so me braither didnae have competition.
She looked at Logan’s profile. The hard line of his jaw.
The scar near his ear that she had never asked about.
His mouth was set as if he had just given her the price of grain for the season or something just as mundane.
There was no flash of anger or pain. She didn’t know if that should worry her more than it already did.
“Logan,” she said quietly.
“Aye.” He did not look at her.
“Do you want to talk about it?” The words came out as steady as she could make them.
“Nay.” His tone stayed calm. “It is done.”
She could have let it drop. The sensible part of her told her to.
There was already enough past in this marriage for both of them.
But the picture would not leave her. A boy with dark hair and serious eyes, perhaps no older than William had been when he first held a practice sword, sent toward a fate chosen by his own father.
“I do not see how that can ever be all right,” she said. “Even if it was a long time ago.”
He gave a short sound that might have been a mirthless laugh. “Och, lassie. Ye would be surprised what a man can make peace with when he has nay choice.”
“Peace,” she repeated. “Is that what you call it?”
“Call it what ye like.” His voice had gone flatter. “Everyone lies. That is what I learned. Men, faithers, priests, captains. They all say what suits them and expect ye to live with it.”
“Not everyone,” she insisted.
“Aye,” he said quietly. “Everyone. So I learned me lesson. I daenae trust. Nae anymore.”
The road widened a little. Ahead, she could see the faint rise where the land began to tilt toward the sea and the castle hill. The air had cooled by now, and her fingers no longer burned around the reins.
He was not done.
“I suppose I should have ken something was wrong when me faither offered to take me to the beach,” he added.
There it is.
Emma blinked. “So he lied?”
“Oh well, I think he just did what he had to do. I was growing stronger than me braither, but he—he would always be more legitimate than I. So he lured me to the beach and let the pirates take me.”
Emma swallowed thickly, her voice failing her. When she spoke again, it was low and rough. “And that was how you became one.”
He nodded.
From the way he returned his gaze to the path ahead, something told her he did not want to speak about it anymore. It was clearer than anything.
The castle’s highest tower was visible now in the distance, a dark building against the dark sky. She swallowed again, and her throat felt dry.
“I am so sorry you had to go through that as a child.”
He shrugged. “‘Tis nae an issue. It just taught me to never be too trusting.”
“Will you ever trust me?” she asked. “At all?”
His answer came quicker than she had expected.
“Why?”
She stared at him. “Because I am your wife.”
He turned his head and finally looked at her. There was no softness in his eyes, only a weary patience, as if she were asking him to explain why rain fell down rather than up.
“And?” he prompted.
“And we will spend our lives together. We will share a home. We will share a bed. If we are fortunate, we will raise children.”
“Aye,” he said. “We might.”
“Then trust should matter.”
He shook his head once. “I daenae need trust for that.”
“You do not?”
“I believe ye will be a good maither. I believe ye will keep a home that doesnae crumble around our heads, and I believe ye willnae poison me food. That is enough.”
The words should have warmed her, but to her, they felt like scraps tossed from a table.
“Enough for you,” she pointed out.
“Aye.” He nodded toward the dark shape of the castle ahead. “I am nae made for more. Whatever soft bits folks are meant to have, they were torn out between the day I left this place and the day I came back. The sea took the rest.”
“The sea?” she asked, watching him. “Or what men did to you on it?”
“Does it matter?” His voice sharpened. “It is gone either way.”
“It matters to me,” she insisted. “Your father made choices, and the pirates did too. If you put all the blame on the sea, then no one around you has to answer for anything.”
He glanced at her again, eyes darker now. “Ye think I need to forgive and forget?”
“No,” she said. “I think you should stop taking out your mistrust on the wrong people.”
They rode another stretch in silence.
The castle walls grew taller. She could see movement now, figures at the gate and a cart rolling toward the side entrance.
He exhaled. “It doesnae change what I have to give. Or what I daenae.”
She felt the last of that small, fragile hope from the road curl in on itself. “I see,” she muttered. “It must be very convenient to declare yourself incapable and be done with it.”
He frowned. “That is nae what I said.”
“No?” she said mildly. “You say you cannot trust. You say you cannot give more. You say it is finished. That sounds a great deal like a man closing a door and blaming the hinges.”
“Emma,” he warned.
She drew her cloak tighter around herself. The torches at the gate burned brighter as they drew nearer, yellow light licking at the stone.
“It is quite all right,” she said. “I understand what you are offering. Children, a home, and the opportunity to warm your bed. Nothing more.”
“That is nae nothing.”
It is not enough.
She did not say that, though. Instead, she straightened her back and exhaled. “Very well.”
They passed under the arch as the men at the gate dipped their heads, and stable boys moved forward to take the horses. Emma kept her face turned slightly away from him as they slowed, her mouth curved in something that might look like a faint, satisfied smile.
“I will see ye at the festival tomorrow,” she said, her tone light.
She swung down from the horse before he could answer, letting the groom’s steady hands guide her. Not once did she turn to look at him. Not until she walked through the big front doors.
She had had a glimpse into Logan’s soul. Their relationship has progressed to that level, and yet it wasn’t enough.
No. She had to do more.
This time, she would not coax his trust like a skittish animal. Instead, she would ask for it, plain and direct, and see if there was anything left in him that could still understand that not everyone was out to get him.
“I will bring the human out of you, Logan,” she whispered to herself as she headed to her chambers.