“Me only real duty aside from cookin’ was to tend to the nuns’ garden,” she explained, giving her voice an airy quality that she’d heard Laura talk with once. “Their favorite flowers have always been dahlias, ye ken. They’d go on and on when they came back from the market, talkin’ about how the flower monger had beautiful, bright blooms. And year after year, I’d try to plant them. And I couldnae get a single thing to grow!”
Emilie looked around airily, pretending as if she were imagining all the dahlias she could grow on the very soil beneath her feet.
It was all a farce. A beautifully plucked one.
Dahlias wouldn’t grow in Scotland. She wasn’t sure why, as she’d never bothered to ask. But she knew that they refused to grow here.
It was the reason why she had never actually tried to plant the bloom for the older nuns. Because she had known that no matter how hard she tried, the flowers would never sprout.
She was thankful for it now. At this little bit of information that she could weave into her lies.
“Ye tried to plant dahlias?” he asked, the first true reply she had gotten for him since they’d begun the walk.
She smiled up at him dolefully, allowing her eyes to glaze over as she did so.
“Well, of course I did,” she chimed. “They’re such lovely blooms. I tried every single year but would end up with nothin’ more than a patch of dry dirt. The chickens loved it, though.”
Archer glanced sidelong at her.
They had rounded one of the westernmost sides of the castle, placing the sea firmly at their back. Emilie hadn’t yet ventured this way. In fact, the West wing of Castle McGregor was the one part of the castle that she hadn’t really seen at all.
There was a big stone courtyard. One that looked as if it was setting up for training and archery.
A large, brick ring was in the corner, a patch of it looking much newer than the rest of it.
She tried her very best not to let her curiosity get the better of her. Emilie wanted to be able to explore the castle a little more.
Growing up in the abbey, she had known every single corner of the place as well as she knew the back of her own hand. And it would be much the same when she returned.
But here? At Castle McGregor? Everything was new and fresh and exciting. And Emilie wanted to be able to take the opportunity to nurture that curiosity while she still could.
But she couldn’t do that right this moment. Not with Archer standing beside her, staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.
Not when her plan was starting to look like it might be working.
“Ye allowed chickens into yer flower gardens?” he asked, an air of disbelief in his voice this time.
“Of course! They loved explorin’ out there,” Emilie answered quickly. “Although they picked the flowers to death. Even me tryin’ to teach them to sing dinnae keep ‘em busy enough to leave the flowers alone.”
Emilie had no idea where that part of the story had come from. Teaching the chickens to sing?
It was absolutely absurd. And yet, it had made Archer stop walking entirely.
He was staring at her; his mouth parted slightly in surprise as he stared at her. Disbelief was etched into every line of his face, and it took everything within her not to let her mouth tug up into a smile of victory.
“Did ye just say ye were tryin’ to teach chickens to sing?”
It worked. He thinks I’m stupid.
Emilie just grinned at her husband, trying to make sure her face did not change from the carefully constructed mask she had arranged her features into.
I’m so close. So deliciously close to him thinkin’ I am too stupid to help be a maither to his children. If I’m goin’ to commit to this, I have to commit to this fully.
“Oh, aye,” Emilie said, forcing her eyes to go wide as she nodded up at him. “They liked to squawk at each other all the time, because they’re chickens, ye ken. But one day I thought to meself, I wonder if they’d like to sing. So, I started tryin’ to teach them.”
With a stroke of inspiration, Emilie looped her arm through Archer’s. The moment she touched him, warmth spread through her.
She ignored it, pushing her desire as deep within her as she possibly could.