The certainty in it came out harder than he intended and landed in the room with a weight that had nothing to do with border patrol. He felt his jaw lock, the muscle jumping rhythmically.
Fergus heard it. He always heard it. He had the good sense to say nothing. The man simply lowered his head, acknowledging the command.
Anthony folded the map slowly. Corners aligned. Crease pressed flat. His movements were precise, mechanical, as if he were trying to fold his own emotions into the paper. The ridge line disappeared into the fold, and then the fold disappeared underhis palm, and he set the whole thing at the corner of the desk and looked at the fire.
Six years. The number felt like a sentence.
She had been Lady MacLeod for six years, and she had stayed on her side of the boundary for six years.
Whatever she was doing riding the northern ridge now, she was doing it deliberately, which meant she wanted him to know, which meant she wanted something.
Not his concern. Had never been his concern. She'd made certain of that.
He felt a surge of old, tired anger rise in his throat, not the kind that burned, the kind that settled.
The kind a man carried long enough that it stopped feeling like anger and started feeling like weather. And whatever she wanted was not his concern and had not been his concern since the autumn she'd sent word of difficulties and complications.
He had read the letter once. Set it down. He had not needed to read it twice to understand thatdifficultiesmeant him. Thatcomplicationsmeant what was left of his face.
Nae loss. That was the important thing. Nae grief. Pride, only. Wounded and old and nae worth examinin'.
He had not replied. He did not close his eyes. He looked at the map instead, at the notation in Fergus's hand, and kept his expression exactly as it was.
"Out," Anthony said. The word was sharp, a command intended for a soldier, not a beast.
Fox blinked. Slowly. The blink of an animal that had heard the word, considered it, and declined. Anthony felt his face flush with a mix of disbelief and annoyance.
Behind him, Fergus coughed. It was a dry, amused sound that Anthony chose to ignore.
Anthony pointed at the door. "Out. Now." He stepped forward, his shadow falling over the desk.
Fox looked at the pointed finger. Then at Anthony's face. Then, with the deliberateness of a decision being made, he leaned forward and closed his teeth around the rolled dispatch. Anthony's eyes widened as the fox's jaw snapped shut on the paper.
He was off the desk and through the door before Anthony had finished pushing back from the table. The speed of the animal left a vacuum of silence in its wake.
"That animal," Anthony said. “That beast will be stew before winter.” He was already turning, his movements jerky with a new, frantic energy.
He was already moving. His boots thudded against the stone, the sound echoing in the corridor.
He was chasing a fox through his own keep. This was his life now.
Fox knew the keep better than half the men who lived in it.
That was the only explanation for the route he took. Not the direct corridor, not the obvious stairwell. But the narrow service passage beside the kitchen that emerged into the east corridor at the precise angle that required a pursuing man to slow his stride or catch his shoulder on the stone.
Anthony felt the rough stone scrape against his shoulder, a sharp sting that only fueled his pace.
Which cost him three seconds, which was apparently exactly the margin Fox had calculated.
The animal had run the service passage deliberately. He was certain of it.
He let out a low, frustrated growl through gritted teeth.
He caught sight of red fur at the base of the main stairwell. Gone by the time he reached it. The tail vanished around the corner like a flicker of flame.
Fergus was behind him somewhere, he could hear the particular rhythm of Fergus not quite keeping up and not quite willing to say so. The heavy thumping of boots followed him, a relentless reminder of the ridiculousness of the chase.
He was going to hear about this until spring.
