Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Logan rode beyond the edge of his own lands with five men at his back and three days of unrest riding with him.
The morning was cold. Mist clung low over the road, blurring the heather and the dark line of trees beyond it, while the steady beat of hooves struck the damp earth. Usually, riding out steadied him, but today even the land seemed to be holding its breath.
Conn rode silently to his left, his green eyes sweeping every ditch, every ridge, every bend in the road. Behind them, three of Logan’s guards kept a careful spread. No one spoke unless needed.
Logan preferred it that way. Talking would only make room for the thoughts he had spent three days forcing into order.
Rose had remained within the castle walls, her ankle mending, her face too polite whenever he saw her. As if the conversation in the kitchen had not happened.
He tightened his hand around the reins until the leather creaked faintly.
Conn glanced at him. “Ye’ll wear through those if ye keep at it.”
Logan looked ahead. “Watch the road.”
“I am watching the road.”
“Then dae it silently.”
“Aye,” Conn murmured. “There he is.”
Logan followed the tilt of Conn’s chin.
Near the bend ahead, where the road cut between two low stone walls, the mud had been churned deep.
Several horses.
Logan slowed his mount and lifted one hand. The men behind him halted at once.
He dismounted before his horse had fully settled.
The ground sucked faintly beneath his boots as he crouched by the tracks.
Fresh.
His jaw tightened. He ran two fingers along the edge of one hoof mark, then looked toward the north road, where the tracks continued.
Conn lowered himself carefully from the saddle and stood over him. “Ye think it’s the English?”
Logan rose slowly. “Aye.”
One of the guards behind them shifted, his hand resting near his sword. Logan heard the movement without turning.
“Easy,” he said.
The man stilled.
Conn’s gaze moved over the road. “They’re too close.”
Logan did not answer. Close was too soft a word for what he felt twisting in his gut. They were not an idea anymore, not a distant report carried by a frightened messenger. They had been here. Their horses had marked the same mud beneath his boots.
And somewhere behind his walls, Rose was likely sitting in a patch of sunlight, pretending not to listen for news.
The thought made him look away from the tracks.
“Rory,” he said over his shoulder. “Ride east. See if they split by the old mill road.”
“Aye, me laird.”
The guard turned his horse and rode off at once.
Logan mounted again. “We keep moving.”
They followed the road into the next village, a small clutch of cottages gathered near a shallow burn.
Logan drew his horse to a halt near the smithy, where an older man stood beneath the overhang, wiping his hands on a leather apron. The man’s eyes moved from Logan to Conn, then to the men behind them. He swallowed.
“Laird MacKenzie,” he said, bowing his head. “Wasnae expecting ye.”
Logan nodded. “English riders came through?”
The smith’s mouth tightened. He looked toward the nearby cottages before answering. “Aye. Yesterday, near dusk.”
Logan felt the words settle like iron in his blood. “How many?”
“Six men. Armed.” The smith’s gaze flicked to Logan’s face, then away again. “They were looking fer a young woman. English. Fair-haired. Fine-bred from the way they spoke o’ her.” His lips thinned with dislike. “They had a likeness drawn on parchment.”
Logan’s pulse struck once, hard.
Conn looked at him.
Logan kept his face still. “A sketch?”
“Aye.” The smith’s shoulders rounded slightly, as if he wished he had seen less than he had. “Nae perfect, but enough tae tell. They showed it round. Offered coin fer word o’ her.”
Heat rose behind Logan’s ribs. He saw Rose as she had been in the tavern, dust on her hem, dignity held together by will alone. Then he imagined those men holding up her likeness in strange villages, making her face public.
His hand tightened on the reins. The horse shifted beneath him, sensing the change.
Conn’s voice cut in. “Did anyone speak?”
The smith shook his head quickly. “Nae here. We ken better than tae take English coin.”
Logan inclined his head once. “Good.”
The smith hesitated. “But they kept riding west. Toward the lower road.”
“How long did they stay?”
“Long enough tae question two travelers and frighten me niece half tae death.” His voice hardened there, anger breaking through fear. “One o’ them went house tae house, asking if any woman had come begging shelter. Another checked the stables.”
Logan’s vision narrowed. “Did they name the man who sent them?”
The smith shook his head. “Nay. But one said their lord wanted the lass brought back before she crossed too deep intae the Highlands.”
As if Rose were not a woman, but stolen property being retrieved before it disappeared beyond reach.
“What direction after the lower road?” Logan asked.
The smith pointed. “Past the chapel ruins. Then south again, I think. There was another man who saw them. He came in this morning fer nails. Said they stopped near his cousin’s croft and searched the outbuildings.”
Logan gave a clipped nod. “Ye did well tae speak.”
This wasn’t a handful of desperate men following a rumor. They had a route, coin enough to loosen tongues, and the patience to search cottages, stables, sheds, and paths until the land itself began to give her up. They were hunting her properly. Relentlessly.
Logan felt something dark move beneath his ribs, quiet and vicious enough that his hand had to loosen on the reins.
They willnae get tae her.
Rose was halfway down the corridor after breakfast when the voices of two servants drifted through a half-open doorway.
“The laird’s been out since dawn,” the first whispered. “Tracing the English riders seen near the lower village.”
“Aye,” the second replied. “God help us if they bring their war here.”
“They will, if she stays,” the first said, voice dropping lower.
Rose froze. The blood drained from her face, her fingers digging into her palms.
She didn't wait to hear more.
Ignoring the sharp, biting protest in her ankle, she hurried toward her chamber. Every step was a jagged reminder of her own weakness, but the terror in her chest was louder.
She stepped inside, locked the door, and leaned against it, her breath coming in shallow hitches. The room felt like a trap. Christina’s kindness, the healer’s herbs, Logan’s promise of safety—they were all weights now, dragging these people into a line of fire they didn't deserve.
Logan would fight for her. He would let his men die on his walls for a woman who was a stranger to his clan.
I cannot let them bleed for me.
She moved to the chest, her hands trembling but precise.
She wouldn't take the fine gowns, or the soft shawl Christina had given her.
She grabbed only the essentials, her mind already mapping the distance she needed to put between herself and the keep.
Her ankle throbbed with every movement, a dull, insistent ache, but she forced herself to pack.
She had to be gone before he returned. She had to lead the danger away from his gates, even if she had to crawl to do it.
She tied the bundle once, then untied it again when she realized she had forgotten the pouch of coins her father had pressed into her hand.
The familiar weight of it struck her palm with such sudden force that for one breath she was back in her father’s study, watching her mother’s face break by candlelight.
Rose swallowed hard and tucked the pouch deep into the folded linen, then pulled the knot tight with fingers that refused to steady.
After that, there was nothing to do but wait.
She crossed to the window, then back to the bed, then to the chest again, each careful turn sending a small flare of pain through her ankle.
She tried sitting, but the stillness made her thoughts louder.
She rose again almost at once, one hand braced against the wall as she paced the narrow length of the chamber, her breath shallow, her eyes returning again and again to the courtyard below.
If he returned after she left, he might follow. If she waited to tell him, he might stop her.
I cannot vanish from his home like a thief.
Not after he had brought her here, protected her, and given her shelter when he owed her nothing. Whatever leaving might cost her, she owed him the dignity of hearing it from her own lips. She would wait for him. She would thank him properly. And then she would go.
That thought rooted her near the window.
The cold stone pressed against her fingertips as she looked down into the courtyard, watching servants cross with baskets, guards speak in low tones near the gate, horses shifting restlessly by the stables.
Every sound seemed too sharp. Every passing moment dragged a blade over her nerves.
Then movement came beyond the gate.
Rose leaned forward before she could stop herself, her heart lifting and sinking in the same terrible beat. Riders approached through the morning mist, dark against the pale road, Logan at their head.
For one moment, she could not move. Then her body acted before fear could reason with it. She caught up her skirts, abandoned the bundle on the bed, and turned for the door.
The descent felt endless.
Every step sent a dull ache through her ankle, but she kept her hand light on the wall and her expression composed whenever she passed a servant. The corridors opened toward the courtyard, where the cold air struck her cheeks and made her eyes water at once.
Logan had just dismounted.
He stood near the center of the yard, one hand still on his horse’s reins, his dark hair wind-tossed, his cloak damp at the shoulders.
Conn was beside him, speaking low, his face grim.
Several men waited near them, mud up their boots, exhaustion and tension sitting heavily in the lines of their bodies.
Rose saw the moment Logan noticed her.