Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Logan remained in the training yard for several minutes, standing beside the ruined dummy with the practice sword still loose in his hand. The last of the evening light had thinned over the stones, but he did not move.
Conn’s words stayed with him, settling beneath the anger until there was nothing left to hide behind except the memory of Rose’s face. She had looked wounded, and still she had held herself with that careful dignity of hers.
At last, he set the sword aside and headed inside, intending to return to his study where reports were waiting and men would expect orders before morning.
He had taken only a few turns through the lower passage, his mind still caught between Conn’s warning and Rose’s hurt, when a small cry broke the quiet ahead.
Logan stopped, his hand moving to the hilt at his belt.
The sound came again, sharper this time, the unmistakable sob of a child trying and failing to be brave.
Footsteps hurried in from the garden door, and Rose appeared in the archway with Elsie in her arms.
Logan went still.
Rose’s green gown was damp at the hem, and several pale strands had slipped loose from her pins.
She held the little girl against her chest with one arm beneath her knees and the other firm around her back, careful of the child’s scraped leg.
Elsie’s face was red and wet with tears, one fist curled tightly in Rose’s sleeve.
“Hush now,” Rose whispered, her cheek nearly brushing the child’s dark curls. “You were very brave. It only frightened you.”
Elsie hiccupped. “It hurt.”
“I know it did.” Rose’s voice gentled further, and the sound of it caught somewhere behind Logan’s ribs. “But we shall have the healer look at it, and then you may tell everyone you fought the garden path and survived.”
The girl gave a broken little laugh through her tears. Rose smiled down at her with a warmth so patient it made Logan’s throat tighten.
She was carrying one of his people as if the child were precious. As if every small hurt in this place mattered to her.
And he had looked at her letter as though her love for her own mother were a threat.
He watched the way Rose lowered her face to listen when the child whispered something into her sleeve. Watched how she answered with a tiny nod, grave as a vow, as if nothing in the world mattered more than the fear of a little girl with a scraped knee.
Conn’s words returned with cruel precision.
She has done naething tae deserve yer mistrust.
Logan looked at Rose’s profile, at the gentle set of her mouth, at the hand smoothing once over Elsie’s hair.
Nay, he thought, the ache in his chest hardening into certainty. She had not.
Morning had fully settled over the castle when the knock came.
Rose sat by the window with a piece of mending, though her stitches were few and uneven. Beside her lay the pale green gown from Christina, and on the table stood the little carved horse. She had found it the night before and stared at it for a long while, her fingers hovering over its mane.
The gift hurt. It was thoughtful—a gentle acknowledgment of the frightened girl she had been. Yet the same man who had thought of it had looked at her letter and seen a betrayal.
A second knock, softer this time, pulled her from her thoughts. Rose set her work aside, smoothed her skirts, and crossed the room.
She opened the door. Logan stood there, and for a moment, Rose forgot to breathe.
He looked as though he had slept little, if at all.
His dark hair was pushed back from his face, though not neatly enough to hide the strain around his eyes.
His jaw was freshly shaven, but the tiredness in him remained, held beneath the severe stillness of his expression.
He wore his usual dark tunic and a cloak fastened at one shoulder, and there was something almost formal in the way he held himself, as though he had come prepared to face punishment.
“Rose,” he said.
Her fingers tightened slightly on the edge of the door. “My laird.”
His eyes flickered at that.
The title had been harmless once. Polite. Habit. Now it stood between them like a closed gate.
His throat moved. “Will ye come wi’ me?”
She had expected an apology, perhaps. Or another strained conversation in the corridor, another attempt at fixing what had cracked between them while servants passed at a careful distance. She had not expected this.
“Where to?” she asked.
“Somewhere quiet.”
His voice was steady, but she saw the tension in his hand where it rested at his side, the faint curl of his fingers.
Rose looked past him into the corridor. It was empty. Then she looked back at him.
“Should I bring anything?”
“Nay.” A pause. “Only yerself.”
The words were too simple for the way they entered her chest.
Rose nodded once. “Very well.”
He stepped aside to let her pass, careful not to brush her, and that restraint also hurt in a strange, tender way.
She followed him through the lower corridors and out into the morning.
The castle was already awake, though quieter than it had been before the attack.
Men stood in pairs near the gates now. The wall walk held more guards.
Even the servants crossing the yard moved with purpose, as if fear had been folded into duty and given hands.
Neither of them spoke as they passed through the courtyard.
A horse had been saddled near the stables, along with a smaller mare. Rose slowed at the sight of it, and Logan noticed at once.
“It isnae far,” he said. “We can walk the last part if ye wish.”
“I can ride,” Rose replied, perhaps too quickly.
His gaze held hers for a moment, and something like pain moved through it. Then, he inclined his head.
“Aye,” he said softly. “I ken.”
The ride was quiet.
Rose kept both hands around the reins, her posture careful, her attention fixed on the path ahead.
Logan rode slightly before her, but not too far, turning often enough to make sure the mare kept steady beneath her.
The morning air was cool and clean, carrying the smell of damp grass and heather from the hills.
Somewhere to their left, the river moved unseen at first, its sound growing clearer as they climbed, a low silver rush over stone.
The path narrowed near the crest of a hill, and Logan dismounted first. He came to Rose’s side, but this time he did not simply lift her down as he might have before. He held out his hand and waited.
Rose looked at it. Then she placed her hand in his.
His warm fingers closed around hers, and she let him guide her from the saddle. Her feet touched the ground. His hand remained only long enough to steady her, then fell away.
She hated that she noticed the loss.
Logan tied the horses near a twisted rowan tree and gestured toward the rise ahead. “This way.”
Rose followed him up the last stretch on foot.
At the top stood a small hut of weathered stone and timber, half-sheltered by the slope and a cluster of wind-bent trees. It looked old. Someone had kept the doorway clear, and the roof had been mended in places with newer thatch. Beyond it, the land opened wide.
Rose stopped.
From that hill, she could see the river curling through the valley below, bright where the morning light touched it. The castle stood in the distance, smoke lifting from its chimneys. Beyond it, the fields stretched outward, patched with green and gold, and farther still the hills rolled into mist.
“It is beautiful,” she said, the words leaving her before she could soften them.
Logan stood beside her, looking at the hut.
“Aye,” he said. “It is.”
Rose turned to him slowly.
His face had changed. There was a quietness in him that she had never seen before.
“This place means something to you,” she said.
He looked down at his hands. “Aye.”
She waited.
The wind moved between them, lifting a few loose strands from her temple. Logan watched them for half a second, then looked away as if the sight had struck too close.
“Me faither brought me here when I was a bairn,” he said at last. “When I had done something foolish and wanted tae be away from the men who would laugh about it fer a week.”
Despite herself, Rose’s mouth softened. “Were you often foolish?”
His gaze flicked toward her, and for the first time since he had knocked at her door, something faint moved at the corner of his mouth. “Nay.”
Rose lifted a brow.
“Aye,” he amended, with a low breath that almost became a laugh. “Often enough.”
The small humor passed quickly. He looked back toward the hut.
“He said a laird needed one place where he didnae have tae be laird. A place where he could think before speaking and feel before deciding what tae dae with the feeling.” His jaw worked once. “I have shared it with very few people.”
Rose felt the meaning of that settle slowly around her. He had brought her somewhere sacred to him. Somewhere private. Somewhere that had belonged to the boy he had been before grief had hardened around him.
Her throat tightened.
“Why did you bring me?” she asked, though part of her already knew.
Logan turned fully toward her then.
“I was wrong.” The words came without defense, and that made them harder to hear.
Rose held herself still.
“I was wrong tae look at yer letter and see betrayal before I saw grief,” he continued, his voice low.
“Wrong tae let me faither’s death speak through me as if ye had any part in it.
Since ye came here, ye have been honest when lying would’ve served ye better.
Brave when fear had every right tae take ye.
Kind.” His eyes moved over her face. “Ye have earned me trust, Rose. More than once.”
Her fingers tightened in the folds of her skirt and she swallowed.
“I brought ye here because I wanted tae show ye. This place is… mine in a way few things are. And now ye ken it.”
Rose’s breath trembled.