Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Rose forced herself to keep walking.
A lady moved with grace, and she clung to that lie even as the memory of Logan’s hand burned through her gown.
The keep was cool and shadowed, swallowing the distant noise of the yard. Rose pressed her fingers to her stomach, her pulse a frantic, irregular thrum. Her body had no sense of propriety at all. Her palm still felt the leather hilt of the dagger, and her hip was alive with the ghost of his touch.
She tried to draw air into her lungs. They remained tight, refusing to expand.
She had nearly reached the turning toward her chamber when Christina appeared from the opposite corridor, her fiery hair loosely braided over one shoulder and her arms filled with folded cloth.
“There ye are,” Christina said, her blue eyes brightening as she rounded the corner. She stopped short, her boots clicking against the stone. “I was just coming tae find ye.”
Rose’s breath caught. Christina had a way of looking at people that felt like sunlight hitting a dusty room—sudden and revealing. She would see the lingering flush on Rose's neck, the slight tremor in her fingers, the way her body still moved as though it were vibrating.
Rose folded her hands, anchoring them. “Were you?”
“Aye.” Christina’s gaze swept over Rose’s face, lingered on her hair, then dropped to her skirts before returning with a look of sharpened interest. “Were ye outside?”
“In the courtyard,” Rose said, proud of how steady her voice sounded.
“Wi’ Logan?” The question was voiced with a deceptive, airy innocence.
Rose felt her fingers tighten against each other until her knuckles ached. “He… began my first lesson.”
Christina’s brows arched toward her hairline. “The dagger lesson?”
“Yes.”
A soft, knowing laugh bubbled out of Christina. “And did ye survive it?”
Barely, Rose thought. She pictured the heat of Logan’s chest against her back and the way the air had seemed to vanish between them. She hated how easily her body had betrayed her.
She inclined her head, clinging to her dignity. “I believe so.”
Christina’s mouth curved. The amusement in her face was tempered with a kindness that made Rose want to both confess everything and run for her life. “If ye hadnae come back smiling, I would’ve kent someone else had taken over. Me brither isnae kent fer making things easy.”
Despite the chaos in her chest, a small laugh escaped Rose. She caught it quickly, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her anyway.
“Well,” Christina said, and the brightness in her voice softened into something gentler. “Come wi’ me. I need yer help.”
“My help?”
“Aye. Fer the feast.” She shifted the folded cloth in her arms. “If I’m tae help choose what ye’ll wear, I need tae see what suits ye properly.”
Rose hesitated only a moment before falling into step beside her.
The walk to Christina’s chamber was not long, though Rose found herself grateful for the slower pace.
Christina did not comment on her discomfort and that small mercy eased something in Rose’s chest. She was beginning to understand that kindness in this castle often slipped quietly into the spaces where pride might otherwise be wounded.
Christina’s chamber was warmer than Rose expected, brightened by a wide window that looked over the inner yard and a hearth where the fire burned briskly.
Fabrics lay draped across the bed, the chair, even the lid of a carved chest. Wool, linen, soft tartan, a pale green cloth with small embroidered edges, a warm brown, a deep red, and then, folded near the foot of the bed, a blue so rich it seemed to hold the last light before dusk.
Rose’s eyes went to it at once.
Christina saw.
“Aye,” she said, smiling. “I thought so.”
Rose stepped closer before she could stop herself. The blue cloth was not the stiff, polished silk she had known in England. It had a softer weight, a depth that made the color seem almost alive when the firelight moved across it. She touched it with only the tips of her fingers.
“It is beautiful,” she murmured.
“It’ll suit yer eyes,” Christina said, moving beside her. “Logan said blue.”
Rose’s hand stilled.
Christina, who had been lifting another gown from the chair, glanced over as though she had not just dropped a burning coal between them.
“He said blue?” Rose asked, attempting to sound almost careless.
“Aye.” Christina’s mouth twitched. “He said ye should have something that feels yers, nae borrowed. Then he told me nae tae make a fuss o’ it, which naturally meant I should make a great fuss o’ it.”
“How very thoughtful,” she said, and hated how small the words seemed beside what they tried to carry.
Christina’s expression softened. “He can be, when he forgets tae pretend otherwise.”
Rose looked up.
There was only warmth in Christina’s face now, and something observant enough to make Rose feel seen in a different way than Logan saw her. Less affecting, perhaps, but not less direct.
“I would not wish to take something valuable,” Rose said, retreating into the safer language of manners. “You have already done so much.”
Christina clicked her tongue. “There ye go again.”
Rose blinked. “Again?”
“Speaking as though every kindness is a debt collector waiting at the door.” Christina lifted the blue gown and held it up against Rose’s front, studying the color with narrowed eyes. “Hold still.”
Rose obeyed and Christina tilted her head, then smiled. “Aye. This one.”
“It is not too fine?”
“Fer a feast? Nay. Fer hiding in yer chamber? Aye, far too fine. So dinnae hide.”
Rose touched the edge of the sleeve, and the fabric shifted softly beneath her hand. The thought of wearing it to a clan festival, standing among Logan’s people in something chosen for her, sent an ache through her that had nothing to do with fear.
“I have never attended a Scottish feast,” she said.
“Good. Then ye’ll have a memorable night.”
“I am certain I have several habits that wouldn’t fit well though.”
“Ye dae.” Christina laid the gown on the bed and began sorting through ribbons and a narrow belt. “But they’re very graceful bad habits, so mayhap nae one will mind.”
Rose lowered herself carefully onto the edge of the chair near the hearth, unable to stop the faint smile that touched her mouth. “You are very frank.”
“Aye. It saves time.”
“That must be convenient.”
“It is, until someone wants me tae be delicate.”
Rose’s smile deepened despite herself, then faded into something quieter as she watched Christina gather the blue fabric.
The woman moved with easy familiarity, as if including Rose in this small domestic ritual cost her nothing.
As if Rose belonged in the room, choosing gowns and exchanging remarks while English riders sharpened themselves against the edges of MacKenzie land.
“Christina,” Rose said softly.
The other woman looked up at once, her hands stilling around the belt.
“I wanted to thank you.”
“Fer the dress?”
“For more than that.” Rose’s gaze lowered briefly to her fingers. “Since I came here, you have been so kind to me. Far kinder than you needed to be.”
Christina’s face changed, the teasing leaving it piece by piece. “Rose…”
“I know I arrived with trouble behind me,” Rose continued, because stopping would make it impossible to begin again. “And I know there are people here who must have wondered why I should be given shelter at all. You never made me feel it. Not once.”
Christina came to sit on the bed opposite her, the blue gown gathered loosely between them like a small stretch of evening sky.
“I’m glad ye’re staying,” she said.
The words were simple, but Rose felt them like a hand closing gently over hers.
Her throat tightened. “For now.”
Christina smiled faintly. “Aye. Logan’s favorite phrase these days.”
Rose looked down quickly, but not before warmth rose again in her face.
“I hope ye feel more comfortable here,” Christina added. “Truly. I ken it cannae be easy, being this far from home, among strangers.”
Rose drew a slow breath.
Comfortable was not the word she would have chosen. Nothing inside her felt settled. Yet there were moments now when the castle did not feel like a hiding place only.
“I do,” she said at last. “More than I expected.”
Christina’s expression warmed. “Good.”
A brief silence settled between them, softer than the others.
Then Christina’s eyes sharpened, not unkindly. “And how are ye getting on wi’ me brither?”
Rose’s heart gave one hard beat.
She reached for composure too quickly. “Your brother has been very kind.”
Christina’s mouth curved. “That was a careful answer.”
“It was an honest one.”
“I didnae say it wasnae, but it didnae answer me question.”
Rose smoothed an invisible crease from her skirt. “He has done far more for me than I expected. More than anyone could have asked of him.”
Christina watched her with a softness that made Rose more uneasy than teasing would have done.
“Aye,” she said. “Logan takes his duty seriously.”
Rose nodded, relieved by the safer word. Duty. Yes. That was what this was. Logan was laird. He protected those under his roof. He had seen her in danger and acted because he was honorable.
Christina’s smile deepened, a small, knowing spark lighting her eyes. “But he wouldnae have done all this fer just anyone.”
Christina didn't lean in or push. She only held Rose’s gaze with a quiet, patient understanding that made denial feel like a childish lie and confession feel like an impossible surrender.
Rose took a deep breath and rose from the chair carefully. “I- I should go back and rest my ankle.”
Christina’s expression did not change, though something knowing flickered at the edges of it. “Aye. Ye should.”
“The gown is lovely,” Rose said, gathering what dignity she could. “Thank you.”
“We’ll have it sent tae yer chamber.”
“That is very kind.”
“There ye go again,” Christina murmured.
Rose almost smiled, but it did not quite form. She inclined her head and left before the warmth in her face became impossible to hide.
The corridor outside felt cooler than before.
She walked slowly, one hand brushing the wall when her ankle protested, though her thoughts had gone far from the pain. Christina’s words followed her with every step.
Rose reached her chamber and shut the door behind her. The quiet met her at once: the low fire, the narrow bed, the unpacked belongings now set neatly where they belonged. She crossed to the window and stood there as she had earlier, looking down into the courtyard.
Logan was not there. Still, she saw him everywhere.
She heard his voice: Then stay. Fer now. She felt again his hand over hers, his palm at her hip, the heat of his chest close enough to steal the shape of her breath. The heat of his hand was still pulsing through her.
It was a longing she didn't have a name for, a desperate, aching pull that made the thought of his distance feel like a physical wound.
Rose stared out at the darkening courtyard, her vision blurring.
She was not merely grateful. That was the lie she had been trying to make graceful. Whatever had begun inside her when Logan stepped between her and danger had deepened.
She was beginning to care for Logan MacKenzie.
Barnaby Henshaw stood before the hearth with a cup of wine untouched in his hand, listening to the messenger stumble through his report.
“Well?” he asked, his voice soft enough to make the man flinch.
The man had ridden hard. Mud clung to his boots, and cold had reddened the skin around his eyes, but Barnaby found no satisfaction in such evidence of effort. Effort was expected. Results were the only thing worth rewarding.
The messenger swallowed. “Her trail was followed north, my lord. Near the Scottish border. We questioned men along the roads and found signs she crossed over.”
Barnaby’s fingers tightened around the cup.
Scotland. The word soured in his mouth before he spoke it. The girl had fled like a frightened little fool and somehow crossed into the hands of savages.
“And yet,” he said, turning the cup slowly in his hand, “you return without her.”
The messenger’s face paled. “We found more, my lord. A woman matching Lady Rose’s description was seen entering MacKenzie castle.”
The room went still.
Barnaby’s eyes lifted slowly to the trembling man.
“MacKenzie,” he repeated, the name leaving his mouth like something fouled.
“Aye, my lord. A nearby clan. The laird is said to be sheltering her.”
The phrase struck something ugly and hot in him.
He imagined Rose behind Scottish walls, wrapped in their rough wool, fed at their tables, looked upon by men who had no right to raise their eyes to what belonged to him.
His promised bride. His claim. His way into Briar Hall and the border routes beyond it.
That delicate little face had hidden defiance better than he had first judged.
It will be corrected soon.
Barnaby set the wine aside without drinking. “Gather twenty riders.”
One of his men, standing near the far wall, shifted. “My lord, crossing into MacKenzie land with armed men may be taken as an act of war.”
Barnaby turned his head slowly.
The man continued, foolishly loyal to caution. “If the Scots retaliate, the border could erupt. It may be wiser to send formal word first. Demand her return.”
“Formal word?” Barnaby smiled. “To thieves?”
No one answered.
“She is not a sack of grain misplaced on a road,” Barnaby continued, his voice sharpening despite the calm shape of his posture.
“She is my promised bride. Her father gave me cause enough to claim her, and she will be returned before these border rats convince themselves they have any say in English affairs.”
“The MacKenzies are armed, my lord,” the man said quietly.
“Then bring more men.”
The command cracked through the room.
Barnaby stepped closer, lowering his voice until every man present had to strain toward it.
“You will cross before dawn. You will ride straight for the castle. You will search the roads, the villages, the outbuildings, every miserable stone they hide behind if you must. And when you find Rose Algernon, you will bring her back to me.”
Barnaby turned back to the fire, watching the flames bend and consume the blackened wood.
Rose had run from him. The next time she stood before him, he would make certain she understood the cost of that mistake.