Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Logan did not look back as he led Malcolm toward the study. The courtyard moved around him in sharp, urgent pieces, boots striking stone, men calling for horses, Conn’s voice cutting through the unrest, but all Logan could feel was the pull of the woman he had left behind.
Malcolm followed without argument.
The older man’s breathing was still uneven from the hard ride, though he tried to disguise it. His boots left damp marks across the stone corridor, and one hand remained pressed near his side, not quite clutching, not quite steadying.
“Inside,” Logan said.
Logan opened the study door and let Malcolm enter first.
The room was cooler than the hall, though a low fire burned in the hearth. Maps lay across the table where he had left them earlier that morning, weighted at the corners by smooth river stones. Threats reduced to ink and distance.
Logan shut the door.
“Sit,” he said.
Malcolm lowered himself into the chair opposite the table with a stiff, reluctant movement.
“Tell me everything.” Logan moved to the table, bracing both hands against the edge.
Malcolm leaned forward, the firelight catching the grey of his beard, making him look older than he had in the courtyard.
“They came just after first light,” he said. “Mist was still low. We thought it was cattle moving near the southern field at first, then I heard the shouting.”
“What were their colors? Markings?”
“Nay banner. Nay crest. But English speech and one of them wore a red strip tied round his arm. Mayhap a mark fer their own men.”
Logan’s jaw tightened. “Weapons?”
“Swords. Two bows. One carried a hooked blade, ugly thing, more suited tae tearing sacks than clean fighting.” Malcolm’s eyes darkened. “Used it on our grain store first.”
Logan looked down at the map before his face changed. Grain was not merely grain. It was winter counted in sacks. It was children fed when the weather turned mean. It was women stretching flour in kitchens and men calculating whether a poor harvest could still be endured.
“How much did they take?”
“Five sacks barley. Two oats. Salted meat from the shed, though they dropped one barrel when me lads came at them.” Malcolm’s mouth twisted. “Took two horses. Good ones.”
Logan’s fingers pressed into the table until the wood bit back. Horses could be replaced, but not quickly, nor cheaply. Not without leaving another weakness somewhere else.
“And the people?”
“Ewan took a cut tae the side,” Malcolm’s gaze lifted. “Deep. He tried tae stop them at the storehouse door.”
Logan’s stomach tightened. “How deep?”
“Deep enough that the healer’s hands were red tae the wrist when I left.”
A heavy silence settled between them.
Logan saw Ewan’s face in his mind before he could stop it. Young, broad-shouldered, always too eager to prove himself, with a laugh that carried too loudly across the practice yard. He had married the miller’s niece last spring. She was expecting their first child if Logan remembered correctly.
“Who else?” he asked, voice low.
“Tam was struck across the head, but he woke before I rode out. Fergus has a broken wrist. Little Ainsley was knocked down when they drove the horses through the yard, but nae badly hurt. Mostly fright.”
Logan stared at the map, his hands flat against the table to keep them from shaking. The image of the girl—the same child who had once offered him a fistful of crushed bluebells—bruised for the sake of an Englishman's pride made the air in the room feel thin.
A cold, violent pressure rose in his throat. He forced the rage back only by focusing on the muscle ticking in his jaw.
“We increase patrols here,” he said, tapping the lower road on the map. “Two riders at a time, changing every four hours.”
Malcolm nodded at once.
“Place men by the chapel ruins, above the road. If the English return, I want them seen before they ken they’re watched.”
“Aye.”
“Move the remaining grain from yer storehouse before nightfall. Split it between three cottages.”
Malcolm’s face changed, surprise breaking through exhaustion. “That’ll take time.”
“Then take men from me yard. Conn will send them.”
The older man nodded again, quicker now.
“Any household wi’in a mile o’ the southern fields is tae keep a horn near the door. If riders come, they blow it and bar themselves in. Nay one plays hero over a sack o’ grain.”
Malcolm’s mouth twitched grimly. “I’ll tell Ewan that when he wakes.”
“When he wakes,” Logan said, and made it sound like an order the world would be unwise to disobey.
For the first time since entering the study, Malcolm looked close to smiling. It did not last, but the strain in his face eased by a fraction.
Logan reached for another map, one showing the watch posts nearer the castle. “I’ll place additional men near the east gate and on the ridge above the burn. If they’re watching fer weakness, they’ll find none.”
“They may still come?”
“Aye,” Logan said. “And when they dae, I want tae see them bleed.”
Malcolm was silent for a moment.
The words had come out colder than Logan intended, but he did not regret them. Kindness had its place. Mercy had its place. But men who frightened children, wounded farmers, stole winter stores, and carried Rose’s likeness as if she were quarry would find neither from him.
Malcolm’s gaze held his. “I believe ye mean that.”
“I dae.”
“Good.”
There was a different set to the councilman’s expression now, almost steady.
That was what people needed in fear—the sense that someone had put his hands around the chaos and forced it into order.
“Thank ye,” the councilman said after a moment.
Logan looked up from the map.
“Fer moving quickly.” Malcolm’s voice roughened as he continued, and he cleared his throat as if displeased by it. “Fer nae making me beg protection fer me own people.”
Logan stilled.
The answer rose in him with such force that for a moment he could not speak without showing too much. He thought of his father, of the old laird’s hand on his shoulder, of the first lesson that had mattered: men should not have to plead with their own chief to be defended.
“They are me people too,” Logan said.
Malcolm bowed his head once.
“Aye,” he murmured. “That they are.”
Rose stood by the window, watching the courtyard go still. Her packed bundle sat on the bed—a blunt reminder of her selflessness. She couldn't shake the image of her face on a searcher’s parchment or the fact that men were now bleeding because she had asked for shelter.
Logan’s warning echoed in her mind: Dinnae let fear hold the reins. He had seen past her poise to the panic beneath, treating her like a person rather than a problem to be solved.
A knock sounded at the door.
Her heart lifted despite herself. She turned from the window.
“Come in.” Her voice was calm. A little thin, perhaps, but calm.
The door opened, and Logan stepped inside.
He paused just inside the room, the weight of the morning still sitting in his shoulders. He’d removed his cloak, but the dampness of the road still clung to his clothes and his wind-tossed hair. That small imperfection touched something treacherous and tender in Rose’s chest.
His gaze found her face first, then dropped to the packed bundle on the bed.
Rose felt her cheeks burn, but she forced herself to meet his eyes. She was ready for his anger.
Logan closed the door, the click of the latch echoing in the silence.
“May I?” he asked, gesturing toward the chair.
The courtesy made her chest ache. He could command men into the saddle with a word, yet here, in her chamber, he asked to sit.
“Of course,” Rose replied.
He crossed the room and lowered himself into the chair, resting his forearms on his knees. Rose remained near the window, one hand folded over the other at her waist.
“Ye are standing like ye’re bracing against a blow,” he said quietly.
A humorless breath escaped her. “Perhaps I am.”
A shadow moved across his face. “Then I willnae make ye wait fer it.”
Rose drew herself straighter.
“The raid was worse than Malcolm first said in the yard. They struck his southern fields at dawn. Took grain, salted meat, two horses.” Logan’s voice remained even, but there was a roughness beneath it that made every word feel heavier.
“A man was cut trying tae stop them and another broke a wrist. A child was knocked down when they drove the horses through.”
Rose went very still.
The room seemed to tilt, the world becoming unreliable beneath her feet.
She saw none of the people he mentioned, and yet each one arrived in her mind with painful clarity: a man bleeding onto dirt, another dazed and stumbling, a child thrown aside by hooves because men had ridden in pursuit of her shadow.
Her fingers curled into her skirts. “I see.”
It was a ridiculous answer. Politeness placed over something rotting and vast.
Logan watched her carefully. “Rose.”
She looked down at her hands. Her knuckles had gone white.
“They repelled them,” Logan said. “Malcolm’s men drove them off before they could take more.”
“They should not have had to drive anyone off.”
“Nay,” he said. “They shouldnae.”
The agreement struck harder than comfort would have.
Rose lifted her eyes. “Then you understand.”
“I understand why ye blame yerself.” His jaw tightened. “That disnae mean I agree.”
A sharp pressure gathered behind her eyes. She turned away before he could see too much, facing the window again though her sight blurred over the courtyard below.
“They came because of me.”
“They came because Barnaby sent them.”
“That distinction does not help a wounded man breathe easier.”
“Nay,” Logan said, and his voice roughened.
“But blaming ye fer it willnae change it either. These men have nay right tae enter our lands and bring ruin, loss, wounds and death just because they want tae take something they believe is theirs, whether it is ye or something else. That is what I am protecting me people from.”
Rose shut her eyes.