Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Ye two are quiet tonight,” Archer said, gaze bouncing back and forth between the twins.
It was the day after they fell asleep in his lap in the library. He had hoped the night before that things were about to change for them, that the hostility and the distance between him and the twins could stop.
He would still have to be careful; his father’s blood did still run in his veins, after all. But that did not mean that it had to go back to the way it was, did it?
The twins stared at their plates, each one of them using a fork to push their food back and forth. They did not look up at him.
Archer sighed, placing his utensils back on the table.
“Ye can talk to me, ye ken,” he said gruffly. “Like ye did last night.”
It was Aurora who looked up first, her gray eyes flashing as they landed on him.
“Ye said that it wasnae anyone’s fault that Emilie left,” she said matter-of-factly, holding his gaze the entire time that she spoke. “But I daenae think that’s true.”
Archer cocked his head at her. “And what do ye think happened?”
For what it was worth, Aurora did not shy away from him.
“I think ye asked her to leave,” Aurora said. “And I think that ye did that because ye dinnae want her to be our maither, because ye ken that we liked her more.”
It took everything in Archer not to chuckle at his daughter’s words. He could tell by the look on her face that she was serious.
What would Emilie do if she could hear them now?
The thought brought him up short, bringing to mind images of what Emilie would look like sitting at the table with them now. He knew exactly what she would do, dipping her head and hiding her mouth behind her hand so that the children wouldn’t see her laughing at them.
She would be amused by this. He knew that she would be.
And just like that, a pang rang out in his chest.
Archer missed his wife. It wasn’t the first time in the last few days that he’d thought it, but now he felt it more than ever.
He wanted her here. He wanted her to experience the children as they were now.
Because yes, Louis had now set down his fork, and he was staring at him. Both of the twins were staring at Archer, leveling their accusatory gazes at their father.
But the thing was, they were looking at him. Not shying away, not dipping their gazes. But actually looking.
And Archer wasn’t shying away from it either. He was allowing them to look, allowing them to be angry at him, and to speak to him, and to not worry only about their studies and nothing else.
They felt like a family, for the very first time. And Archer had a feeling in the very pit of his stomach that Emilie was mostly the reason for it.
“Why did ye do it, Faither?” Louis asked, his voice soft and hesitant, but accusatory all the same. “Why did ye tell her to leave? Why could ye nae just let her be our maither?”
Archer was silent for a moment, his gaze darting back and forth between his children.
“Ye want her back?” he asked finally, the question answered immediately with enthusiastic nods.
He sat back a little in his chair, a thousand thoughts whirling through his mind. But there was only one solution that he could see. Only one thing that he could do to make all of their pain go away.
“All right then,” Archer agreed. “I’ll go to the abbey in the mornin’, I’ll get Emilie, and I will bring her home to us.”
The twins’ eyes went wide, clearly in disbelief for a few moments.
“Ye mean it?” Louis asked with a wide grin slowly spreading across his face.
“Aye,” Archer answered honestly. “Ye want her to be yer maither? Well, I do, too. I’ll go and I’ll get her.”
The twins jumped up, cheers filling the dining room as they began to celebrate.
“We should make her a welcome home present,” Aurora cheered, immediately reaching forward and grabbing Louis’ arm.
Louis quickly agreed, the pair of them not sparing Archer a second glance before they turned and sprinted out of the room, their cheering slowly fading into the background.
Amusement flickered through him, happy that the twins finally seemed happy. He would need to tell Marcus, although he was certain that his man-at-arms would never let him hear the end of it.
It would be relatively easy for him to get to the abbey, and relatively easy for her to be moved back into the castle. She had taken hardly anything with her, after all.
What he didn’t know, however, and what was arguably the most important thing, was that if he showed up at that abbey tomorrow and asked her to return with him, Archer had no idea if she actually would.