Chapter 5
“The only thing that I am interested in hearing is whose idea it was to conspire behind me back.”
Kaden ran his finger along the brim of his wine glass idly as he sat beside the warm fire in the meeting room. Just adjacent to his study, it was the only space that was large enough to fit every member of his council.
They had spent the better part of the morning hearing about this and that, and for most of it, the conversations had merely brushed past him. He chose not to focus on them, as his mind kept floating back to last night and the few interactions that he had had with Emily.
It would have been far more preferable to have focused on that, rather than knowing that the people sitting in this room still didn’t seem to think that he had earned the right to make choices for this clan.
“What do ye mean, me Laird?” Duncan, who was sitting closest to him, asked.
Duncan had been on the council even when Kaden’s father had still been alive. He had been with this family and a vital part of the clan for Kaden’s whole life. He had even had a hand in his rearing and training him for the day that he would take up the mantle.
Just another person who had failed him.
Bitterness crept up the back of his throat like acid.
Kaden’s eyes drifted shut for a moment as his finger paused. These men had stopped looking for him. They had thought him dead and chosen to run this clan in his stead with his mother as their guiding hand.
It was understandable, he supposed. Though there was no part of him that could fight the knowledge that he had felt unwanted when he had returned home four years ago. He knew that he couldn’t do his job while harboring all of that anger.
With a deep inhale, he steadied himself.
“What I mean is yer scheme to find me a wife with or without me consent,” he answered flatly.
A subtle shudder went through the room at his tone.
There were still a couple of councilmen who refused to see him as anything other than the boy who had been kidnapped. Never mind that he couldn’t even remember that part of him or anything about it. The others had seen that all of the kind, soft parts of him that they had once known were dead.
“Me Laird, there was nay disrespect meant by it, but… Well, ye have to ken that being unwed at yer age…” Duncan trailed off.
Kaden’s limbs felt heavier as he looked over at the man with a hollow gaze. “Aye, well, I didnae get the chance to spend me youth courting lassies now, did I?”
Nobody answered for a long moment. A few shifted uncomfortably in their seats as they struggled to think of what they might say to him, how to further address the subject.
“Me Laird, there is nay denying the work and effort that ye have put in since yer return. Ye have restored the glory and honor to our halls, and nay man in this room would dare deny yer combat skills.”
It was all just placations with them. Kaden had no interest in their attempts at flattery. He simply wished to be left to his own devices so that he could make choices for himself.
“If I have done as ye say, why do ye believe that I cannae choose a wife on my own terms?” he asked in the same flat tone that he had used since the beginning of the conversation.
“The absence of an heir is the only issue that the clan is facing at this point, me Laird.”
The muscle in his jaw ticked as he ground his teeth together. “Ye ought to have more faith.”
His mother, who had been sitting in the corner mainly listening, chose that moment to speak up. “Ye daenae need to be defensive, son. They only mean well.”
As if she had not been in on the scheme.
No, his mother wasn’t the enemy here.
“Everyone in this room is on yer side. Most of these men are as good as kin to us both,” Ailis MacLeod continued gently.
The smile on her face was warm and kind as it ever was.
Kaden knew that she only wished for his happiness, but for him, the answer to what would make him the happiest wasn’t something that he was going to find in a wife. No matter how many times he had said such to her, she simply didn’t seem to hear him.
His index finger tapped angrily against the rim of his glass.
What sort of husband would he be anyway? A man who couldn’t seem to shake the anger in his heart, nor the impatience in his mind.
He felt on edge almost every minute of the day, always waiting for the other boot to drop.
He didn’t think that he would ever be able to stop looking over his shoulder in anxiety.
He was perfectly capable of doing whatever needed to be done to protect the few souls that he cared about and his clan, but this idleness was always making everything worse.
His free hand dropped under the table, the heel of his hand grinding into his thigh where some of his larger scars were, pressing where the skin itched and burned—a nervous habit that he had developed to keep himself grounded since he had freed himself.
The only times that he had had a break from feeling that way, from constantly overthinking and planning, were those two brief encounters with Emily.
“Well then, ye can all stop scheming. It will please ye to learn that I have found a wife.”