"Very well," she said. Quieter still. "If ye must parade me as spectacle."
The words landed with more precision than she'd probably intended, or perhaps exactly the precision she'd intended, which was the more likely option.
He felt something tighten in his jaw that he kept from showing.
"Return before dusk," he said.
She moved past him.
Her shoulder brushed his arm as she went through the doorway, deliberate, unhurried, not accidental.
A statement delivered without words.
He did not stop her. He watched her move down the corridor, Fox falling into step at her heel as if he'd been waiting outsidethe door the whole time. Which he probably had, until she turned the corner and was gone.
Fergus appeared at his shoulder and said nothing. Which was, occasionally, his best quality.
"Make sure she's back by dusk," Anthony said.
"Aye." A pause. "She'll be fine, me Laird. She kens how to handle herself."
"I'm aware of what she can handle." He turned back toward the study. "That's nae what concerns me."
He didn't explain further. Fergus had the sense not to ask.
He spent the afternoon in the yard.
Not training, he had men for that, and they didn't need him standing over them to do it properly. What he needed was something to do with his hands and his feet that wasn't sitting still.
He walked the perimeter instead, the way he did when he needed to think without appearing to think.
Hands clasped behind his back, pace steady, eyes on the walls and the gate and the guards rotating their posts. Anyone watching would see a laird doing a routine inspection.
Which he was. Also other things.
The east stable roof had been repaired. Properly this time, timber replaced rather than patched, which meant Duncan had taken the Friday deadline seriously.
He noted it without commenting.
Good.
Praise given too freely lost its value, but he filed it. Duncan had earned the next one.
He stopped at the far end of the yard where the outer wall met the gatehouse and looked down the road. Empty. She'd left an hour ago. She'd be in the village by now, or close to it.
One escort. Within sight.
He turned away from the gate. Quickly, the way a man turned away from something he'd checked more than once already.
Old Seumas was on his knees in the corner plot near the east wall, talking to something in the soil.
He was the keep's gardener, had been for thirty years, and he treated the grounds as his personal domain and everyone else as tolerated visitors within it. Anthony had always respected that.
A man who knew his ground was worth keeping.
Anthony stopped beside him. Looked down at the row of newly turned earth. "What are ye plantin'?"
Seumas did not look up. "Winter kale, me Laird. If ye daenae disturb the roots with yer great boots standin' that close."
