Chapter 20 #2
His jaw clenched, and he drove the practice blade down hard enough that the dummy rocked backward on its base.
He knew he had no right. The thought had come to him over and over, sharper each time. Rose had not hidden the letter beneath a locked chest. She had written to her family because the letter from Henshaw had torn open every fear she had been holding together.
He knew that. But knowing did not stop the old wound from opening.
He should have trusted her, especially after last night. But his father had trusted quiet dealings with the English once. His father had walked toward English words and never come home.
The blade hit the dummy again.
“Logan.”
The sound of his name stopped the air in his lungs.
He knew her voice. Soft, controlled, threaded with something uncertain beneath it. It moved through him despite everything, slipping past anger with a terrible ease, and that made him strike the dummy once more, harder than before.
The wood cracked beneath the blow.
Rose stood at the edge of the yard when he finally looked over his shoulder.
She wore one of Christina’s softer gowns, pale green wool falling neatly around her frame, her hair pinned back with care. She looked composed. Her hands were folded before her, fingers resting lightly over one another, but he saw the small tension in them.
Her eyes moved from him to the split dummy, then back to his face. “You did not come to supper.”
“I was occupied.” His voice came out flat, almost cold. He hated it the moment he heard it.
Rose took a careful step into the yard. “Christina said you have been here for hours.”
“Christina speaks too much.”
“She was worried.”
Logan turned back to the dummy, adjusting his grip on the practice sword. “She neednae be.”
Another step. He heard it in the dirt, light and hesitant. “And should I be?”
That did make him still.
For a long moment, he stared at the torn cloth before him, at the straw spilling loose like something gutted. Then he lowered the blade slowly.
“Nay.”
“Then tell me what is wrong.”
He laughed once under his breath. There was no humor in it. “Ye want tae ken what is wrong?”
“Yes.”
Her answer was immediate. Brave. It struck too close to the part of him that wanted to turn and gather her against him, to bury his face in her hair and apologize before he had even spoken.
Instead, he turned. “I found yer letter.”
The color left her face so quickly that the anger in him faltered. For a moment, she only stared at him.
“My letter?” she whispered.
“Aye.” His hand tightened around the hilt. “The one where ye wished tae go back tae England.”
Her lips parted. For one suspended beat she looked wounded, but then her face hardened.
“You went through my things?” The question was soft, but there was nothing gentle in her face now.
Logan’s jaw hardened. “I went tae leave ye something. I found it half out among yer things.”
“And you read it?”
“Nay.”
“Then how fortunate for me,” she said, her voice cutting cleaner now, “that you only accused me from the few words you happened to steal with your eyes.”
The words struck him harder than they should have. His grip flexed once around the hilt before he forced his hand still.
“Ye said ye wouldnae leave,” he said again, rougher. “And now, ye wish tae return home.”
Rose’s spine straightened. The wounded look had not vanished, but she drew dignity over it like armor.
“I wrote to my mother and father,” she said. “The people who sent me into the dark because it was the only way they could keep me from being dragged into a marriage I did not choose. Fergive me if I wished to know whether they still breathed.”
“And ye thought tae send private letters south without telling me?”
Her eyes sharpened. “I had not sent it.”
“Yet.”
Rose went very still.
The moment it left his mouth, Logan wanted it back. But pride kept his shoulders square and his face closed.
His gaze snapped back to hers.
She took one step closer, and the fading light caught the anger bright in her eyes. “Do not stand before me and speak as though I am some spy caught passing secrets through your walls. I have hidden nothing from you that I was ready to speak aloud.”
His jaw hardened, but she did not let him answer.
“I folded that letter and put it away because I was not ready. Because the roads are dangerous. Because sending it without thought might put others at risk. Because every choice I make now seems to carry someone else’s life inside it.
” Her breath shook once, but her voice did not break.
“And because, despite everything, I still have a mother and father somewhere across that border, and I am allowed to ache for them.” His grip loosened on the sword.
She took another step closer, and the fading light caught in her eyes. They were bright with unshed tears.
“Do not soften now,” she said, quieter, sharper. “Not after making me feel like a criminal for missing my own family.” Logan looked away.
“Secret English letters are nae a small matter tae me,” he said, forcing the words out. “Me faither once trusted the English. He died fer it.”
Rose’s face changed. The hurt remained, but something quieter entered it.
“I know I cannot understand it as you do.” Her voice trembled now, but she held herself steady. “But I also know I cannot stand here and pretend your father’s death is only a story to me. It is not. It is the reason you look at English words as if they might hold a blade.”
His throat tightened.
“But Logan,” she continued, taking one more step until there was barely a few feet between them, “I am not those men.”
He looked at her then. She was pale, shaken, but she did not retreat.