Chapter 8 #2
“She pretends to be.” Rose brushed a crumb from her skirt. “She would stand on the bank and declare the whole thing improper, and then, not two minutes later, she would be in the shallows as well, holding her skirts up and complaining the entire time.”
Logan felt his mouth shift. “And yer parents?”
That changed something in her face. Not enough to darken it. Only soften it.
“My mother would sit beneath a tree with her embroidery in her lap,” Rose said. “At least, that is what it looked like. In truth, she spent more time watching us than sewing. She always knew when one of us had gone too far, even when she pretended she had not noticed.”
“She sounds sharp.”
“She is.” Rose looked down briefly, then out at the water again. “Sharper than most people allow her to be.”
Logan let that rest between them a moment before he asked, more quietly, “And yer father?”
Rose’s fingers stilled over the edge of the blanket.
“He worked too much,” she said after a pause.
“And laughed too seldom.” Her voice had gone softer now, less guarded.
“But he came with us on those afternoons. He would stand a little apart at first, as though he had only meant to stay a moment, and then somehow the whole day would pass.” She smiled then, though it was a sadder thing than before.
“Those were the times he seemed most like himself.”
Logan watched her as she spoke, and it came to him too easily—the picture of it all. He found, to his own irritation, that he wanted to keep her talking.
“And what did ye dae?” he asked. “While yer sisters were drowning themselves and yer mother watched over her needle?”
Rose glanced at him, surprised by the question.
“I gathered berries,” she said. “Or flowers. Or pretended I preferred the shore when in truth I only disliked the feeling of wet hems around my ankles.”
“That sounds very much like preferrin’ the shore. He huffed out a laugh, and her eyes flickered to his at the sound of it.
For a moment, neither of them looked away.
“Were ye happy there?” he asked before he thought better of it.
Rose fell quiet. She looked down at her hands for a moment, then out at the water again.
“At times,” she said. “In moments. I think that is often all childhood truly is.”
She said it without bitterness, almost lightly, and that quietness sat heavier with him than grief would have. Logan looked at her for a beat too long, something in his chest drawing tight before he could push it aside.
Her gaze shifted then, snagging on something beyond him. “Oh.”
She had half-risen before he turned to see what had taken her attention. A cluster of berry bushes grew close along the bank, their fruit dark and small against the leaves.
“We used to gather those,” she said. The expression on her face changed with the memory, softened, brightened, and for one moment he saw someone altogether younger, free. “They would stain our fingers.”
He stood as she did. “Then ye’d best gather some now, before the chance is gone.”
She glanced at him, eyes bright.
Rose moved toward the bank, lifting her skirts lightly with one hand. Logan followed close behind, more from instinct than choice. The ground there was darker, soft with river damp. He saw her pick her steps carefully among the reeds and roots, saw her bend slightly toward the nearest bush.
Then her foot slipped. It happened too quickly to warn her. One moment she was steady, the next the ground gave under the edge of her shoe and her body twisted sharply.
She cried out.
Logan reached her before she hit the ground.
His arm caught around her waist, hard enough to stop the fall and pull her against him. Her body struck his chest with a force that drove a breath from him. For one beat she clutched at his shoulders, her face white, her mouth open with pain rather than fear.
Then he felt her weight shift badly onto one leg.
“Easy,” he said, though the word came rough.
Rose winced. “My ankle.”
He lowered her carefully onto a dry patch of grass, dropping to one knee before her. The hem of her skirt had twisted around her boot. He pushed the fabric aside just enough to see.
The swelling had already begun.
He looked up once, and whatever she saw in his face made her go very still.
“It’s only twisted,” she said quickly. “I think?—”
“Dinnae think,” he muttered. “Let me look.”
He touched the ankle lightly first, then more firmly around the swelling. She sucked in a breath and gripped the grass beside her.
He reached for the knife at his belt, cut a strip from the edge of the blanket where it had frayed loose, and bound the joint as tightly as he dared.
“This will hurt,” he said.
“It already does.”
When he finished, he sat back on his heels. “Can ye stand?”
Rose tried. The moment she put weight on it, her face changed.
“No,” she said, breathless and angry with it. “No, I cannot.”
Before she could argue, he slid one arm behind her knees and the other around her back.
She stared at him. “My laird?—”
But he had already lifted her.
She weighed almost nothing in his arms. Her breath caught against his throat as he carried her back to the horse, and when he set her sideways in the saddle and mounted behind to hold her there, he was acutely aware of the fact that there was no longer any pretense to the closeness between them.
She had to lean into him now. There was no other way back.
His arm locked around her waist and stayed there.
By the time they returned to the stables, Rose hadn’t spoken a single word.
He dismounted first and lifted her down carefully. The moment her good foot touched the ground, she gripped his sleeve.
“Can ye manage?” he asked.
“I can walk.”
“Aye,” he said. “I didnae ask that.”
He put her arm over his shoulder and kept one hand firm at her waist as they started toward the keep.
They had crossed only half the yard when a guard came at a near-run, breathless and pale from haste.
“Me laird.”
Logan did not stop moving, but his body hardened at once. “What?”
“A messenger from the east watch. English riders have been seen along the roads and through the nearby villages. Asking after a runaway English noblewoman.”
Rose went rigid against him. Logan felt it and tightened his hold without thinking.
“How many?”
The guard shook his head. “Nay one kens fer sure. Only that there are enough o’ them tae be noticed, and they’re moving closer.”
“How close?”
“They were seen this morning at the western fork and again near the lower crofts. They’re asking questions, me laird.”
Logan’s jaw set. “Gather the men. Double the watch and send riders tae the ridge. I want every approach watched before sundown.”
“Aye, me laird.”
The guard was gone before the last word had fully left him.
Logan looked down. Rose’s face had gone still in a way he had already learned to distrust. Her composure had returned too fast, too neatly.
“They’re closer,” she said.
“Aye.”
“This is because of me.”
He resumed walking. “This is because Barnaby Henshaw is in me land wi’ too many men and nay fear o’ trespass.”
“That does not change the rest.”
“Nay,” he said. “It disnae.”
But it changed enough.
He got her to her chamber himself. Christina appeared at the door almost before he could knock, took one look at Rose’s face and the way she leaned on him, and stepped back at once.
“What happened?”
“She turned her ankle.”
Christina’s gaze dropped to the makeshift binding and then rose, alarmed, to Logan’s face.
“It’s nae broken,” he said before she could ask. “Send fer the healer.”
She nodded and hurried away.
Logan helped Rose to the bed and eased her down until her back rested against the carved wood. The room felt suddenly too small for the three things in it: the scent of river water still clinging to her hem, the warning from the guard, and the memory of her weight in his arms.
Rose looked at him once, then away, as though she could bear either the pain or the fear but not his concern on top of them.
The healer arrived shortly after, a narrow older man with calm hands and the sharp eyes of someone who dealt with pain more than words. He crouched before Rose, unwrapped Logan’s rough binding, and pressed lightly along the swelling.
Rose caught in a breath.
“Only a mild strain,” the healer said at last. “Painful, but nae serious.”
Logan let out a breath he had not meant to hold.
The man looked up at him briefly, his gaze lingering on the strip of cloth Logan had used. Then he nodded once, as if to say it had done well enough.
He rummaged in his satchel and drew out a small bundle of dried herbs bound in twine.
“Steep these in hot water and lay the cloth over it taenight,” he told Rose. “Keep it elevated. Rest. Dinnae walk on it if ye can help it.”
Rose nodded.
The healer wrapped the ankle again with practiced care, rose, and made for the door.
At the threshold he paused and glanced back. “It’ll mend quickly, me lady. So long as ye obey.”
That, somehow, drew the smallest smile from her.
When he had gone, the room fell quiet again.
Logan stood a moment longer than necessary beside the bed, looking down at the woman he had meant only to reward with a picnic and had somehow brought back injured. He had been careless.
“Rest,” he said finally, his voice lower than before. “That’s all ye need dae taenight.”