Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
“These barrels seem to be agin’ right,” Archer said, walking forward to inspect the seals on the closest barrels. “Got a good smell to ‘em, too.”
“Aye. They’ll be set to distribute within the week,” Marcus agreed, coming up to stand beside Archer.
Looking down at the parchment in his hand, Archer made a couple of notes. There had been requests from all of his territories for an increase in the amount of whisky they were having delivered.
As the summer months were ticking on, the heat crept up higher and higher, and the men were dying to drown themselves in drink. Especially at the end of a long day of fishing and providing for their families.
It was something that Archer was more than happy to oblige.
“We’ll need to make certain to get to the distillery in Thrums, though,” he said, making another note. “We’ll need to inspect the new reserves.”
Marcus nodded, turning to say something to him, but something in the corner of the room grabbed his attention. Marcus glanced to his left, a look of amusement flickering across his face.
Just as Archer began to follow Marcus’s line of sight, small, slim arms wrapped around his middle.
“There ye are,” a high, female voice purred, giving him a quick squeeze. “I’ve been lookin’ all over for ye.”
Archer jumped back, his mind immediately scrambling as he tried to figure out who on earth was touching him.
“What are ye—” but his voice died out as his eyes landed on who it was that had snuck up behind him.
Emilie was standing before him in a dress that was almost the exact color of her eyes. He recognized it immediately as one of the ones he’d just had made for her.
Archer had ordered them before he’d ever even seen her, as her parents had been the ones to send him her measurements. And, never in his wildest imagination could he have imagined how stunning she would have looked in it.
“What are ye doin’ down here?” he asked gruffly, trying to stamp down on his admiration of her.
Stepping away, Archer gave her a stern look. It did not matter how beautiful she looked; he did not want her touching him. Not like that.
“I came lookin’ for ye, ye silly duck,” Emilie said, cocking her head to the side.
Archer stared at her for a moment. Was there something different about the way she was speaking?
He searched his memory. He could have sworn that, the day before, when she’d been talking to him in the carriage, and even once they had arrived at the castle, her voice had been deeper.
It had been raspy and lovely.
Not like the high-pitched, giggly voice of the woman standing before him now.
Why would she be doin’ that on purpose though? Mayhaps she was just nervous yesterday, and that caused her to talk more softly?
Archer did not think that was the case. But he couldn’t figure out any other reason why she would be changing the sound of her voice now.
“What do ye need?” he grumbled, eager to get back to his work.
She cocked her head to the side, blinking her cornflower eyes at him.
“I just wanted to see how ye were doin’?” she chirped. “See how yer night was, especially since I dinnae see ye this mornin’.”
She beamed at him, but there was tension in her eyes. It all came together to muddle Archer’s mind.
What on earth was she doing? Just the day before, all the way up until right before they’d fallen asleep, Emilie had seemed like she’d wanted nothing to do with him.
She’d seemed too afraid of him, too worried about other things to pay him any attention whatsoever. But now? Now something had changed.
And that something had Archer on edge.
“What do ye mean ye wanted to ask how me mornin’s been?” Archer grumbled, gritting his teeth as a wave of irritation started to wash over him.
“I think what Arch is tryin’ to say,” Marcus said, stepping forward so that he was standing between the new man and wife. “Is that we are currently workin’ on somethin’. So, is what ye’re needin’ an emergency?”
His tone was light and cordial, and Emilie gave him a winning smile as she turned her attention to the man-at-arms.
“I recognize ye,” she beamed. “Ye were at our weddin’. And sittin’ next to us at the head table.”
“Me name is Marcus,” his cousin explained, his friendly grin widening. “I’m yer husband’s man-at-arms. So, ye’ll be seein’ a lot of me.”
He extended a hand to Emilie, one that she gladly took.
“It’s a pleasure to meet ye, Marcus. And that darlin’ lady that was with ye. I’m assumin’ that was yer wife?”
“Aye. Paisly.”
At the mention of his wife’s name, Marcus’s entire face transformed. It had been friendly just moments before, even jovial. But as he spoke his wife’s name, the love that he felt for the woman seemed to pour out of him.
“She’ll be wantin’ to meet ye soon, for certain,” Marcus continued, giving Emilie’s hand a shake in greeting before dropping it.
Archer shifted uncomfortably on his feet. He didn’t like anything about this.
He didn’t like that Emilie seemed to be different today. He didn’t like the attention that Marcus was now paying her.
And, most of all, he did not like how, despite all of that, he wanted to look at her more.
Her blue eyes were shining as they looked at Marcus, dancing with amusement and a familiarity that she certainly couldn’t feel, not when she had just met the man.
Archer couldn’t help but be enamored by it, the way her eyes seemed to gleam and express every bit of emotion that she was feeling. He wondered what those eyes might look like as they began to cloud with desire.
And even more so, what might they look like as she was writhing beneath him, how they’d glitter with pleasure as he buried himself inside her.
Nay. Nay. Absolutely nae. I cannae be losin’ meself in thoughts like that. I cannae love her, which means I cannae sully her.
He shook his head, glad that Emilie and Marcus’ attention was solely on each other. Archer knew he needed to get this conversation over with quickly.
The sooner that Emilie left this cellar, the better.
“What was it ye needed?” Archer growled, stepping around Marcus as he interrupted their conversation.
“Well, I wanted to talk to ye,” Emilie said, her eyes pointedly flicking to Marcus. “Do ye think that we might be able to speak alone?”
She emphasized the last word, giving Archer a simpering, pleading look.
Who was this woman standing before him? Surely it could not be the same timid, curious woman that he’d met the day before.
“Of course he can,” Marcus said, moving to push Archer toward his wife. “There is another room, just through the break in those barrels, there.”
Marcus pointed Emilie in the right direction, and she gave him a grateful smile.
“That will be perfect,” she tittered, grabbing hold of Archer’s wrist and giving it a leading tug. “What do ye think, Archer? Would ye like to go talk to me in here?”
Archer pulled his hand out of her grasp, planting his feet firmly on the stone of the cellar beneath him.
“I willnae be goin’ anywhere,” he growled.
Emilie’s face fell for a moment, and Archer could have sworn he caught a glimpse of the woman he’d met the day before shining on her face. But almost as quickly as the mask seemed to fall, it was replaced again, her bright smile affixed almost immediately back into place.
“All right,” she said jovially, “we can talk here. It isnae that important.”
“If it’s nae that important,” Archer growled low in his throat, “then why did ye come all the way down here and interrupt me work? Why could it nae wait until supper or when I saw ye?”
Emilie took a step back, the tightness at the corners of her eyes becoming more pronounced. But through it all, her bright smile stayed fixed on her face.
“I can go,” Marcus said quickly, taking the focus off of Emilie and bringing it to himself. “I will go upstairs and talk to the stewards about makin’ the trip into Thrums. I’ll come back down in a bit.”
Marcus shot Archer a look. It was easy enough to read his friends’ meaning; they’d known each other for their entire lives.
He was telling Archer to behave, to stop being so beastly to the girl. But Archer didn’t know what Marcus expected.
The way Emilie was currently behaving was enough to drive anyone mad.
Either way, he still nodded at his man-at-arms, a solid promise that he would try to be on his best behavior. It wasn’t much, and Archer knew that his patience would likely wear thin rather quickly.
But he would try for as long as he could.
Both he and Emilie were quiet for a moment, the pair of them waiting as Marcus exited. His footsteps echoed as he traversed the stairs, going from the root cellar where the whisky was stored to the world above.
When Archer was certain that Marcus was gone, he turned his attention back to his wife. He steeled himself, reminding himself internally to be patient as he spoke again.
“Marcus is gone,” he said, making an attempt not to glower at her like he had a moment before. “What did ye want to speak about?”
Emilie looked a bit taken aback by the switch in his tone. She blinked at him for a moment, seeming to assess what she wanted to say next.
“The curtains,” she mumbled eventually, the word spilling past her lips quickly.
Archer stared blankly at his wife, unable to believe what he’d just heard.
“Curtains?” he asked, arching a brow in Emilie’s direction. “Ye came to talk to me about curtains?”
Somehow, the unexpectedness of it all had disarmed him almost entirely. He’d been annoyed when she’d first come down to the cellar, had wanted nothing more than to lose himself in his work for the day.
But because of the absurdity of what she was saying, he lost all ability to be angry about it.
“Aye,” Emilie answered, regaining a little bit of the composure she’d had when she’d first come down.
She straightened her shoulders, fixing him with another bright, cheek-splitting grin. He was less annoyed with it this time, moving into a state of what felt a bit like amusement.
Now that he wasn’t as heated as he’d been a moment before, he could notice the nervousness in his wife.
Her shoulders were straight, but her hands were trembling. And her voice kept cracking as she prattled on, letting Archer know that it wasn’t used to being that high.
“I want to change the curtains,” she continued. “And I want to paint our bedroom a bright, sunny yellow. Do ye think they could do that? Wash the walls in yellow? I ken they’re stone, but surely there is a way to make ‘em all shine like the sun.”
“Ye want to paint our room yellow?” Archer parroted, once again unable to believe what he was hearing.
Emilie nodded vigorously, a jolting movement that seemed unnatural.
“And it’s nae just our rooms,” his wife prattled on. “I also would like to redo quite a few things I saw in the castle. Fill it with color.”
“Why?” Archer cocked his head to the side.
He couldn’t figure his wife out. One moment, she was timid. The next, she was prattling in his ear about wanting to redo the entire castle.
The fake smile was still plastered on Emilie’s face.
“To bring in a little bit of color, of course,” she said brightly.
“I thought ye grew up in a nunnery,” Archer fired back. “I would think a bit of color might be foreign to ye. That ye would be used to livin’ in drab conditions. But now, ye want to infuse everythin’ with yellow?”
Her smile faltered a bit, nothing more than a slight drop to the right side of her mouth and a flicker of worry crossing her eyes. It was gone as quickly as it had come, replaced almost immediately by the same foolish grin. But it had been there, all the same.
Why did that comment bother her so much?
A slight headache started to bubble between Archer’s eyes. He couldn’t keep up with everything that was happening.
The swift change in his wife’s mood. The immediate switch of his own emotions, moving from annoyed to amused within seconds. It was befuddling Archer’s mind and making his head pound.
“I daenae care,” he grumbled, fighting the urge to rub the sides of his temples. “Ye can do whatever ye want to the castle. Paint the whole thing yellow so it can be seen for miles, for all I care.”
Emilie’s mouth popped open in surprise.
“Ye mean I can do it?” she asked, still staring at him in disbelief. “I can redo the castle?”
“Aye,” he responded gruffly. “Do whatever ye want to it. Ye daenae need to run it by me. Now, return to whatever it is that ye were doin’, so I can get back to me work.”
Emilie’s eyes flicked between Archer and the barrels of whisky behind him, as if truly noticing them for the first time. Her brows darted together, and a thousand questions lingered in her gaze.
“Go,” he growled, his headache beginning to worsen. “Before I lose me temper.”
He could feel his entire mood souring, a side effect that often came about when his head began to pound. And, as confusing as Emilie’s behavior had been, he did not want to take it out on her.
“All right,” she mumbled, giving a quick dip of her head in acknowledgment. “Thank ye.”
Emilie turned on her heel, striding toward the staircase that would take her back to the world above them. He let out a sigh as her footsteps faded from his ears.
“That woman makes me head ache,” he murmured to himself, with nothing around him to hear but the whisky barrels.