Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
“Can we go now?” Louis chimed, glancing eagerly toward the doorway to the dining room.
Emilie laughed, looking pointedly at the food still piled on each of their plates.
“We all need to finish eatin’ first,” she said cheerily, indicating their full plates. “It’ll be awhile, yet, before we eat supper. And we daenae want our bellies to be grumblin’ as soon as we step outside.”
Aurora hadn’t said anything else, but a soft smile seemed to linger at the corners of her mouth. Both children turned their attention back to their plates, before they immediately began shoveling food into their mouths.
They were chewing quickly, and Emilie couldn’t help but chuckle at their exuberance.
She turned her attention back to her own food, beginning to eat with a similar haste.
Emilie didn’t want to keep the children too long away from their studies. She knew that if Archer found out, he would be furious.
But she also knew that it was worth the risk. Especially since it’s been the one thing that seemed to have Aurora allowing herself to soften a bit.
When they had finished their food, they all stood and began walking back through the castle.
“Ye’ll have to lead the way,” Emilie informed the twins. “I’m still learnin’ me way around the castle.”
“I can show ye!” Louis chimed. “Aurora, hurry!”
Louis grabbed hold of Emilie’s hand, tugging it gently as he urged her forward. Emilie couldn’t stop the soft chuckle that rose out of her.
Aurora shook her head at her brother, but the rigidity that had been filling the girl since Emilie had married their father seemed to have ebbed a bit.
I’ll take what I can get.
Louis led them through a part of the castle that Emilie didn’t find familiar, and she didn’t think she and Catherine had taken this route before. It was much faster than she had anticipated.
Before she knew it, they were stepping outside, and the warmth of the sun was once again on her face. She glanced at the twins as they walked, noticing that their dark hair had glints of gold.
Aurora turned back to her. The expression on her face was so much like one that Archer wore often, with her mouth turned down at its edges and her brows knit together.
She favors her faither.
It was something Emilie had noticed the night before, when she’d first met the children at the cèilidh. And, while they both shared dark hair, their faces were nothing alike.
Where Aurora had the wide features and gray eyes of her father, Louis had dark eyes that were almost black. His cheekbones were high, and his features a bit sharper than either his sister’s or his father’s.
He must look like his maither.
A bit of curiosity flickered through her, and Emilie couldn’t help but wonder about the woman who had borne them.
“This is the best path to go down,” Louis chimed, grabbing Emilie from her quickly spiraling thoughts. “Especially when the tides are a bit higher. The beach at the bottom is bigger, so it doesnae get completely covered.”
Emilie glanced around them, immediately taking note of the way they had gotten there. The rose garden was to their left, the path that led down the side of the cliff just through a break in one of the bushes.
She glanced at the castle. Emilie was certain she’d located the window that was her chambers, and smiled in satisfaction, knowing she’d be able to see this spot from her rooms.
“Where are the other paths?” she asked.
“They’re all over.”
The answer came from Aurora. And, when Emilie glanced at her sidelong, she found the girl looking at her. Her expression was lacking the animosity she’d been cloaking herself with since Emilie arrived.
“We can show them to you,” Aurora continued, and then she seemed to realize that she was bordering on being nice to Emilie.
The scowl returned, and the brows pressed together again, and Aurora puffed up her chest as she amended her statement.
“Eventually, but I daenae want to do it all today. Ye’ll have to figure out some stuff for yerself, ye ken.”
Emilie chuckled. “Of course.”
The conversation between them died out, the twins seeming eager to get down to the beach. They were so different, the two children that surrounded her, whom she was now expected to be a mother to, for however long she resided in Castle McGregor.
It hadn’t taken long for her to pick up on the differences between the twins. Where Louis was open, warm, and seemed to be excited about the prospect of having a new mother, Aurora was much more reserved.
She wondered if the twins had inherited not just the looks of one parent or the other, but their personalities as well. The curiosity bubbled within her again, and this time, Emilie did not try to stifle it.
I have a lot to learn about these children. And I daenae have a lot of time to do it in. Clearly, they’re timid around their faither, and before I leave, I’d like to help them. In some way or another.
And it was with that thought that Emilie plastered another warm smile on her face and allowed herself to be led down the dirt path toward the sea.
Archer huffed at his desk, staring down at the ledger he’d been looking at for at least five minutes without retaining a single word.
From the moment he’d walked out of the dining hall, he had been plagued by thoughts of Emilie. Granted, he had been plagued by them for most of the day, but it had only gotten worse since seeing her at lunch.
“I have to get control of meself,” Archer growled to the empty room, hoping the act of speaking would make it easier for him to focus.
It did not.
With another grunt of frustration, Archer shoved his chair back from his desk. It had been nearly a quarter of an hour since he’d left the dining hall, and still, he hadn’t been able to get control of his mind.
“I cannae let this lass do this to me,” he grunted, aggravated that he still could not get control of himself. “She may be me wife, but nay one controls me thoughts and me mind but me.”
He paced for a few moments, trying his best to focus his thoughts by using movement.
Feel yer legs workin’, he reminded himself, trying to steady his breathing and really feel the air rush into his lungs.
But no matter what he tried, the only thing he saw was a pair of sky-blue eyes and a set of pouted lips that were begging to be kissed.
“I’ve had enough of this,” Archer growled, and he whirled away from his desk toward the door.
As he turned, something just beyond the window caught his eye.
His study was just below his chambers, on the side of the castle that faced the sea. And out the window, three forms were strolling along the cliff’s edge, lingering at the border of the easternmost rose garden.
Archer squinted his eyes, trying to make what he was seeing make sense.
Because surely Emilie was not that daft. Surely, she had not defied him when he’d directly told her that the twins were to focus on their lessons with Eoin. She had not taken them on a stroll through the gardens.
But no matter how hard he stared, the image remained the same. Emilie, walking on the edge of the castle grounds with his twins in tow.
“I cannae believe this,” Archer growled, storming from his study and through the castle.
He made it out onto the grounds in record time, his anger at being defied driving him forward. Archer was on them before his wife or children were even able to register that he’d been approaching.
“What do ye think ye’re doin’?” Archer growled, reaching out and grabbing Emilie’s wrist as he whirled her to face him.
By the time her gaze fell on his face, her blue eyes were wide and startled. Her mouth, that damned, kissable mouth, had popped open in an ‘o’, and her cheeks were flushed with shock.
A small yip of surprise fell from her lips before recognition washed over her face. He watched as Emilie quickly rearranged her features.
The shock slowly fell from her face, her lovely features quickly rearranging themselves. Her eyes were still forced wide, but now they were blinking and dull. Filled with all the intelligence of a newborn calf.
“Well, we’re walkin’ of course,” Emilie said, her voice high-pitched and grating. “We’re doin’ a stroll and learnin’ about nature before I send them back to their studies, like ye told me to do.”
She blinked at him dumbly, but there was something else on her face. Something deep and cloying and almost deliberate that set every single one of his nerves on edge.
“I dinnae tell ye to do that,” he growled.
And still, Emilie did not flinch. The stupid expression did not waver from her face.
“Surely ye did,” Emilie blathered. “Ye told me that it was me job to teach them about the things yer people do. About the fish and the trees. And then ye told me to send them back to their tutor after I was done.”
Archer sighed, the frustrated sound bubbling up from deep within him.
“That is nae what I said,” he continued.
A bit of movement caught his eye, drawing Archer’s attention away from his wife. His twins were standing a bit off the way, both of their eyes filled with apprehension as they looked in their direction.
The expression on their faces was familiar. It was the way he used to look at his own father.
An image danced behind his eyes, transporting Archer to another time in his life. One where he was the twins’ age, staring up at his father, screaming at his mother. Only for the man to turn his fists on Archer himself.
He winced as if the punch was truly flying toward him, the anger leaving him almost entirely. A bitter sadness rose up to replace it, one that had him dropping Emilie’s wrist so quickly he nearly threw it away.
“Go back to yer lessons,” Archer growled at the twins, but his voice lacked the rage of a moment before. “Meet Eoin in yer study room. And I daenae want to see ye again until supper.”
Aurora, who had been standing in front of her brother, slowly tucked Louis back behind her as if to protect him. The sight of it made Archer sick to his stomach.
It’s better that they think of me like this, he reminded himself.
That way, I can never get close enough to hurt them. That way, I can make sure I will never be like me faither. Their distance from me is what keeps them safe.
Both twins nodded quickly, turning to scamper across the grounds and back toward the Castle. Once they were far enough away, he knew they would no longer hear what he was saying. Archer turned his attention back to Emilie.
Her expression had shifted while he’d been paying attention to the twins. The deliberate stupidity that had been dancing in her eyes was gone entirely, and instead, she was glaring up at him now.
“Why do ye treat them like that?” she hissed. “Why do yer own bairns feel like they cannae laugh, or dance, or even be actual bairns around ye? The way they are right now, it’s nay way to live.”
Archer returned her glare, narrowing his eyes on her as her words washed over him.
“That is nae yer business,” he growled, the frustration returning and souring his stomach. “I need ye to raise them. Nae question the way that I handle them.”
“That’s the thing, though,” she argued. “It is me business. If ye want me to raise them, that means me carin’ for them. And I need to be wary of the things that scare them. And it’s clear that ye’re the one that scares them. It’s nay way for children to live. Can ye nae see that?”
“I daenae care.”
Archer took a step forward, bringing himself only a few inches from Emilie’s body. He was close enough that he could feel the body heat rolling off of her.
He noticed it immediately. Even with the anger and frustration bubbling in his belly, he was wholly aware of every inch of her, aware of all the ways her body curved, bringing her even closer to him.
Archer tried to push the thought from his mind, tried to drive the essence of Emilie out of all the places in his brain that she’d seemed to take up residence. But she refused to leave.
“I will nae take ye questionin’ the way that I choose to interact with me own bairns,” he menaced. “I am the one who gets to make decisions about their care. And their studies? It is the most important thing for them to be focusin’ on right now.”
“But concernin’ themselves only with their studies and nothin’ else? That is nae a way for bairns to live. They need to run, they need to play.”
“They have a playroom.”
Emilie threw her hands up in exasperation. “That is nae what I meant, and ye ken that.”
Archer paused for a moment, his hands flexing at his side as he worked to get his aggravation under control. Finally, when he had a grasp on emotions once more, he continued.
“The twins daenae need to live like ordinary bairns,” he said, forcing the previous anger out of his voice.
What he was saying was important, and he needed her to take in every single word.
“Me children will one day have part in the success of all of our people, whether it’s because they are Lairds themselves or because they have married themselves to allies,” he said, speaking as plainly and pointedly as he possibly could.
“Their studies are the single most important thing to that success, and to the future of thousands. So nay, me bairns daenae need to live. They need to be smart enough to make sure that everyone they’ll be protectin’ survives.”