“But what were the nuns like? Were they mean? Marcus always says nuns are mean,” Louis asked, grabbing a piece of cured meat from his plate and bringing it to his mouth.
“Nuns arenae mean,” Emilie scoffed, pausing just long enough to take a bite of the small red tomato she’d been toying with on her own plate.
Havin’ lunch with the bairns is quite nice without me husband menacin’ around.
Emilie had been pleasantly surprised when she walked into the dining hall and found the twins waiting for her, with her husband nowhere in sight. She had made a fool of herself the day before. She had gone too far with mentioning the chickens.
It was something Emilie knew all too well. And, while she knew she couldn’t annoy him into an annulment if she wasn’t actually around him, she also knew she needed to take a moment and re-formulate her plan.
“But Marcus says they are!” Louis argued back, pointedly.
Emilie arched a brow at the young boy.
“Did Marcus give ye any examples?” she asked pointedly. “Did he tell ye why he thought nuns were mean?”
Louis’ mouth snapped shut, his face turning contemplative as he no doubt racked his brain for the precise words that Marcus had used.
Aurora shifted beside her brother, chomping on one of the strawberries with juice dripping down her chin.
“What did ye do at the abbey?” she asked, cocking her head to the side. “Did ye just pray all day?”
Emilie shook her head. “There was much more than that. I was busy from sunup to sundown, most days.”
It had been like that since the moment she’d sat down. Apparently, Catherine had mentioned to them that she had spent most of her life at the abbey, and the twins were endlessly curious about what her life had been like.
And so she told them. Emilie recounted for them the days that she had had while tucked within the cloisters of the nunnery.
She told them about her garden and how carefully she had tended to it. She told them about helping the nuns account for their funds and do their ledgers.
Emilie had just launched into a story about Laura and some of the other novices when someone strode through the door to the dining room.
Out of the corner of her eye, all Emilie made out at first was a hulking form. She knew immediately who it was without having to look; the feeling in the bottom of her belly told her exactly who had just walked through the door.
It was further confirmed by the twins. Louis was the first to divert his eyes, darting them to the side to land on the newcomer. And the moment they did, she watched as he wilted.
Aurora glanced next, her expression withering exactly like her brother’s.
The twins shrank back in their seats, the excitement that had been shining within their eyes dimming entirely as they glanced down at their plates.
Emilie stared at them, her eyes darting between Louis and Aurora, as she tried to figure out why on earth they had that reaction to their father.
It was a question that had plagued her more than once. But as she watched it in real time, she saw the swift change from how lively they had been to how docile they were now.
It was jarring.
“Are ye havin’ a nice lunch, wife?” her husband asked, pulling back his chair at the table and sliding into it.
Finally, Emilie looked away from the twins and to Archer.
He was staring at her, gray eyes flinty as they rested on her. A muscle ticked in Emilie’s jaw as she clenched her teeth, frustration bubbling within her.
Why did he have to come in here and ruin the perfectly good luncheon we were havin’?
Before she could say anything, Archer’s eyes flicked to his children.
“It’s gettin’ rather late in the day,” he said, his gaze raking over the twins who still had their heads bowed. “Ye bairns need to run along and get back to yer studies.”
The twins immediately pushed back their chairs, obeying their father without question or hesitation. As fast as a blink, the children were scurrying out the door, heading off to their studies, exactly as Archer had suggested.