It was Louis who spoke first, which was no surprise to Archer. The boy was always the more friendly of the two, the more extroverted.
“What will we be doin’?” The boy asked softly, standing from the small desk and wringing his hands before him.
Aurora’s gray eyes flicked constantly between her brother and her father, as if waiting for any perceived danger so that she might step in front of him.
Archer’s stomach bottomed out at the sight, as it was an expression he knew all too well.
Had he not constantly done the same thing to his mother? When he was young, had he not always looked for the soonest opportunity to jump between his father’s fists and his mother’s body?
But he had never once raised his hands against his children. Archer had kept enough space between them to ensure that.
It was one of the reasons why Archer had always kept them at arm’s length. To make sure that whatever darkness rested within him, deposited from being his father’s son, did not fester and turn him into the man he had spent his entire life despising.
“We’re goin’ out into the forest,” Emilie chimed cheerily, bringing Archer out of his internal spiral.
“What will we be doin’ there?”
It was Aurora who asked, climbing out of her chair to come stand beside her brother.
“Learnin’,” Emilie said, turning her reassuring smile on the young girl. “And most importantly, we’ll be havin’ fun. As a family.”
His wife paused for a moment, glancing over her shoulder at him. She angled herself perfectly so that the children could not see her expression and gave Archer a pointed glance.
“Isnae that right, husband?”
Emilie’s tone implied exactly what she wanted him to say. But still, Archer paused.
Is this what I want? Curiosity or nae, goin’ out there with them, spendin’ time with them—it could all put me closer to them than ever before.
Images of Archer’s father flashed before his mind. A rage-filled face, a clenched fist coming to him, his mother’s screams.
Archer banished the thoughts, looking past his wife to his children just beyond. They were eyeing him.
There was weariness in the lines of their faces, which was to be expected. But there was something else there, too. Something that he hadn’t seen in his children’s faces while they were looking at him, ever in their entire lives.
Hope.
So, against his own judgment, Archer nodded his head, looking at his children instead of his wife.
“Aye,” he said a bit gruffly, “that’s right.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Why do ye think Faither is with us?”
“I daenae ken, but it’s a bit strange.”
Emilie tried to stifle a chuckle, feeling Archer stiffen where he was walking beside her as they made their way through the wide, open meadows that led from the castle to the forest.
The twins were walking a few paces ahead of them, their heads dipped together. The children seemed to believe that they were whispering and that the adults walking behind them could not hear. Which could not be any further from the case.
Archer was stiff beside her, and when Emilie glanced at him sidelong, she saw a muscle clenching in his jaw.
“Ye should relax a bit,” she said, hitting his shoulder with hers. “Otherwise, ye’ll just keep frightenin’ the bairns. And that isnae the purpose of today.”
Her husband said nothing; he simply grunted to show that he heard her and kept his gaze focused on the children before them.
The twins were still whispering, but Emilie did her best to block them out, allowing her thoughts to wander while they made their way toward the tree line.