Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
The corridors had gone colder than the hall, the night settling into the stone as Logan made his way upstairs. He should have felt the whisky by now, should have felt a comfortable heaviness settling in his limbs. Instead, his mind had sharpened cruelly.
Stay clear-headed.
As if he had not spent years doing exactly that. As if every decision he made was not measured against the weight of the clan, the memory of his father, the thin line between peace and bloodshed. He had made himself into a man who did not sway easily.
Then Rose Algernon had walked into his life with frightened eyes and a spine made of English steel, and he had not felt steady since.
He reached his chamber, opened the door, and stopped before crossing the threshold.
Silence waited inside. The bed was made. The fire had burned low. Everything was exactly as it should be, and still, the room seemed too narrow to hold him.
Logan closed the door again without entering. Damn it.
He stood in the corridor a moment longer, dragging a hand down his face. Then a faint sound reached him from below: the soft clink of pottery coming from the direction of the kitchens.
A servant.
Then he was moving before he had given himself permission.
The lower passage smelled of cooling bread and banked ashes. Most of the keep slept now, yet the kitchen door stood partly open, a line of warm amber light spilling across the stone floor.
Logan slowed as he reached it.
Rose stood near the hearth, one hand braced against the wall.
She wore one of Christina’s most simple gowns, with a shawl drawn around her shoulders, her hair loose over one side. She was balancing most of her weight on one foot, the injured ankle held slightly off the floor, while she reached for a small pot near the edge of the table.
Logan’s jaw tightened as he stepped into the room, his eyes instantly dropping to her braced leg. He opened his mouth to snap a reminder about the healer’s orders, but the words died before they reached his tongue.
For a moment, he only stood there, his gaze fixed on the steady rise and fall of her chest, as if he needed proof the floor was truly holding her.
“Ye were told nae tae put weight on it, Rose.”
Rose startled, the pot wobbling in her hand.
Logan stepped forward before thinking, but she caught it quickly, her fingers tightening around the handle as she turned toward him with wide eyes.
A faint flush touched her cheeks. Then the composure returned, swift as a curtain drawn across a window.
“Logan,” she said, as if he had not found her disobeying him in his own kitchen near midnight.
His name in her mouth made his stomach drop.
He stopped a few paces from her, folding his arms because he did not trust his hands. “What are ye daein’?”
“Making tea.”
“I can see that.”
“Then why did you ask?”
The answer was so quick, so prim beneath the defiance, that he nearly smiled.
Instead, he looked pointedly at her ankle. “Is it better?”
Rose followed his gaze, then lifted her chin a fraction. “Somewhat.”
He stared at her. She stared back, proper as a queen and balancing on one injured foot. The absurdity of it worked its way under his ribs before he could stop it. He looked away first, toward the hearth, because if he smiled fully she might see too much.
“Sit down,” he said.
“I am perfectly able to stand.”
“Aye. And I’m perfectly able tae carry ye back upstairs if ye insist on proving it.”
The silence that followed was very still. Her lips parted, but she didn’t make a sound.
Only after the words left him did Logan realize how intimate they sounded. The soft color rising in Rose’s cheeks told him she had heard it too.
He cleared his throat, his voice lowering. “The bench, Rose.”
For once, she obeyed without argument. Slowly, she moved toward the bench by the hearth. He stepped forward at once, offering his arm. She hesitated only a moment before resting her hand on his sleeve.
It was barely a touch. Her fingers were light, but Logan felt them as if they had closed around bare skin.
He kept his pace slow as she sat. Once she was settled, he took the pot from the table and poured hot water over the herbs waiting in a small cup.
Rose watched him with an expression he could not read. “You know how to make tea?”
His brow lifted. “Aye. Daes that surprise ye?”
“A little.”
“Did ye think Scottish men survive only on whisky and fury?”
Her mouth trembled at the corner. “I had not ruled it out.”
There it was again—that quiet flicker of humor she tried to hide.
Logan set the cup beside her. “Drink.”
She wrapped both hands around it, letting the warmth seep into her fingers. “Thank you.”
He should have left then. Instead, he sat on the opposite end of the bench, leaving a careful space between them.
Rose took a sip and winced.
Logan glanced over. “Too bitter?”
“No,” she said at once.
“Rose.”
She lowered the cup, her expression dignified despite the way her mouth had tightened. “It is medicinal.”
“That means bitter.”
Her eyes flicked to him, and for a moment, the fear that had followed her all day seemed to loosen its hold. “You argue a great deal for a man of few words.”
“I save them fer when they’re needed.”
“And this was needed?”
“Aye. Bad tea shouldnae go unchallenged.”
A soft, startled sound escaped her and Logan felt it settle warm in his chest. He looked into the fire before he could be caught watching her too openly.
“Could ye nae sleep?” he asked.
The humor faded from her face by degrees. She looked down into the cup. “No.”
He nodded once, because he understood that too well. “Pain?”
“Some,” she admitted. “But not only that.”
He waited in silence.
Rose held the cup tighter. “At Briar Hall, when I could not sleep, I would come down quietly and sit near the kitchen hearth. My mother always said it was improper for me to wander the house at night.” Her mouth curved faintly, though the expression did not reach her eyes.
“But the cook would pretend not to see me. Sometimes she would leave honey cakes where I might find them.”
Logan pictured it too clearly. A younger Rose slipping through polished English corridors, trying to make herself quiet, hungry for warmth and finding it among servants rather than wherever lonely daughters were meant to seek comfort.
“She sounds kind,” he said.
“She was.” Rose’s thumb moved slowly along the rim of the cup. “I think she knew I was not as calm as I looked.”
Logan turned his head toward her. “Are ye nae?”
She looked at him then. For a heartbeat, he could see the proper answer forming behind her eyes. But perhaps the hour was too late for lies, or the fire too low, or perhaps exhaustion had worn the edges of her composure thin.
“No,” she said.
The honesty of it made his chest ache.
He wanted to move closer. God help him, he wanted to reach across the space between them and take the cup from her trembling hands, wanted to wrap the shawl more securely around her shoulders, wanted to draw her close enough that the trembling in her hands had somewhere to go.
Instead, he kept his voice even. “Neither am I, most nights.”
Rose’s brows drew together softly. “You?”
The surprise might have offended him from someone else. From her, it only struck him as unbearably gentle.
“Aye,” he said. “Lairds are permitted bad sleep.”
“I did not mean…”
“I ken what ye meant.”
“You seem very steady,” she looked down, embarrassed. “That is all.”
Logan let out a quiet breath that was almost a laugh. “That is the trick o’ it.”
“The trick?”
“Looking steady. It keeps people from doubting yer word.”
Rose considered him for a long moment, her eyes thoughtful in the firelight. “That sounds lonely.”
The words hit with such accuracy that Logan had to look away. The fire cracked between them.
“It can be,” he said at last.
Rose did not fill the silence quickly. He liked that about her. She had been taught to speak prettily, he had no doubt, but when it mattered, she listened with her whole attention. It made him feel both seen and exposed.
“What were you like as a boy?” she asked, her voice dropping to a soft, curious thread that pulled at him. “Before you learned the trick of looking steady.”
Logan’s mouth curved despite the weight in his chest. He looked down at his hands, his thumbs tracing the rough grain of the table. “Trouble.”
“Truly?” Her blue eyes caught the light, a sudden brightness that made him want to keep speaking just to see it stay there.
“Aye. Ask Christina. She’ll tell ye I was solemn from birth, but she lies when it suits her.”
“I find that difficult to believe.”
“That I was trouble?”
“That Christina lies.”
This time, the smile broke through fully. He felt the muscles in his face relax, a rare, easy warmth spreading behind his ribs. “She disnae lie cruelly. Only makes things bigger than they should be.”
Rose laughed. The quiet sound moved through Logan, warming him. He leaned back against the bench. Usually, the past felt like a bruise, but in this kitchen, with her, the memory didn't ache.
“I used tae steal oatcakes from the kitchen and blame her,” he said, his voice roughening as he remembered a smaller, lighter version of himself.
“Poor Christina.”
“She deserved it.”
“For what crime?”
“Fer being slower than me.” Logan caught her gaze, watching the way her smile lingered, refusing to fade.
Rose shook her head, though the amusement stayed in the curve of her mouth. “That is a terrible moral defense.”
He watched her, a strange, fierce tether tightening in his gut. “I was ten.”
“Still terrible.”
“Aye,” he admitted, his voice dropping an octave, almost as if telling her a secret. “But effective.”
She laughed again, and, suddenly, the kitchen felt held apart from the rest of the world.
Then her smile softened. “My sisters and I were not allowed to steal much of anything. Not even time, really. Everything had its hour. Lessons. Needlework. Music. Walks in the garden when the weather permitted. We were loved,” she added quickly, as if afraid he might misunderstand. “But watched. Always watched.”
Logan studied her profile, the delicate line of her nose, the way firelight gilded the loose strands near her cheek. “And did ye want tae run?”
Rose’s fingers stilled around the cup. For a moment, he thought he had gone too far.
Then she said, “Sometimes.”
The word was barely more than breath, and it caught him unprepared.
“Not because I was unhappy,” she continued, gaze fixed on the fire. “But I used to wonder what it might feel like to move without being corrected. To laugh too loudly without someone looking toward the door.”
Her mouth tightened faintly.
“And then I finally did run,” she whispered, “and it was because I had no choice.”
Logan’s chest went tight.
He thought of her alone on the roads. Hungry. Frightened. Too proper to beg, too desperate to stop. He thought of her pushing open the tavern door, trying to hold dignity around herself while men watched her closely.
“It shouldnae have taken fear tae give ye freedom,” he said.
Rose looked at him and the softness in her face struck him harder than any blade.
“No,” she said. “It should not have.”
Her eyelids fluttered then, briefly. She blinked, trying to force herself awake, but exhaustion had begun to claim what fear had not. Her hands loosened around the cup.
Logan reached out quickly and took it before it could slip. “Easy.”
“I am awake,” she murmured.
“O’ course ye are.”
Her eyes narrowed faintly, though they were already half-closed. “You are humoring me.”
“Aye.”
“That is rude.”
“It is kind when ye’re about tae fall asleep sitting upright in me kitchen.”
She seemed to consider arguing. Instead, her head tipped slightly toward the wall, and the fight went out of her in one long, quiet breath.
Logan sat very still.
Her face lost the careful propriety she carried in waking. The guarded line between her brows eased. Her mouth softened. She looked younger like that, and more vulnerable, and the sight twisted his gut.
This woman was English. This woman had brought danger. And she had no one here but the people he had decided would protect her.
He stood carefully and set the cup aside. Then he bent, sliding one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees. She stirred as he lifted her, a small sound escaping her as her cheek turned toward his chest.
For a moment, Logan stopped breathing.
She weighed almost nothing in his arms. Too little, he thought, anger stirring again at the days she had spent running without food or rest. Her shawl slipped, and he adjusted it with his fingers before carrying her from the kitchen.
The corridors were darker now. The torches had burned low, their light wavering over the stone. He moved slowly, careful not to jostle her ankle, though every step made him more aware of the warmth of her body against him.
She did not wake when he reached her door. That trust struck deeper than any words she might have given him.
He shifted her weight carefully and managed the latch without lowering her. Inside, the chamber was still warm, the fire banked and glowing. He crossed to the bed and laid her down as gently as he could, easing her injured foot onto the mattress last.
Rose turned slightly into the pillow. A strand of hair fell across her cheek and Logan reached for it before he could stop himself. His fingers hovered a breath away from her skin. Then he curled them into his palm and stepped back.
He drew the blanket over her instead, tucking it carefully around her shoulders. That much was allowed. That much was simple duty.
At the door, he paused and looked back.
She slept on, safe for the moment beneath his roof, and his chest tightened with a feeling he did not dare name.
“They’ll nae touch ye,” he whispered, so low the words barely reached the room. “Nae while I draw breath.”
Then he left before tenderness could make a fool of him.
His own chamber felt colder when he returned to it.
Logan closed the door and stood in the dark, listening to the silence. Conn’s warning returned. Stay clear-headed. Dinnae let it make ye careless.
He knew Conn was right. The English riders were close. But as Logan sat on the edge of his bed and dragged a hand through his hair, he was certain that something had already changed.
Rose Algernon was a risk. A complication that would bring English steel to his gates.
But she was also the woman who had sat beside his kitchen fire and seen the loneliness he had spent years making invisible. The woman who had laughed at his poor excuses and listened when he admitted that steadiness could be a trick.
Logan lay back at last, staring into the darkness.
He should hate the English. Some part of him did. Some old, loyal part of him would always remember his father and the blood price of misplaced trust.
But Rose’s face came to him anyway, soft with sleep, her hand curled near her cheek like she had finally set down a burden too heavy for one woman to carry alone.
His jaw tightened. Whatever came for her would have to come through him first.
Only then did his eyes close.