I wish that I could read his mind and hear his thoughts.
Emilie would give nearly anything to know what her husband was thinking in that moment. But of course, she couldn’t.
She’d been certain that he would turn down her plans. That, at any moment, he would state that there was no way he was going out into the woods with them. But yet, at every moment where she’d be certain he was going to shoot her down, she had found him agreeing.
I need to see how he is with the bairns. I need to see if I can get him to be a wee bit more friendly with them. I daenae want to leave this family in shambles and the children alone when it’s time for me to go back to the abbey.
With every passing day, Emilie was getting more and more attached to the children. And it hurt her heart to think that when she left, she would be leaving them with no one else but each other and a father who terrifies them.
“Do ye want to teach them some about the trees when we get in there?” Emilie asked in what she hoped was a cheery voice. “Ican do it if ye daenae want to. But it might help them to learn from ye a bit, too.”
Archer grunted again but did not answer.
“Ye ken ye can say words to me at some point,” Emilie continued, glancing at him sidelong as they continued to walk. “It may help me figure out what it is ye actually want.”
She saw Archer’s gaze flicking toward her, a brow raising as he regarded her.
“I told ye,” he growled, finally speaking for the first time since they had walked out of the castle. “I want ye to teach them about the world, and nature, and the fish. It’s yer job, and I’ll nae be doin’ it for ye.”
Emilie deflated a bit, disappointment filling her at his words. But she quickly pushed it out of her mind.
“Well, then I’ll teach them everythin’ that I possibly can,” she chimed, turning her attention back to the children.
They were getting close now, and they would arrive within the shade of the forest soon.
I should really be workin’ on annoyin’ him a bit more.
Emilie knew it was true. But in this moment, she did not want to. She had seen too much.
Too much hurt in this family. Too much fear in the children. And, she didn’t want to spend time adding to it. Not now.
No, there would be time for her to work on her plan later.
Now? Right now, she needed to work on healing a family.
“Do ye see those trees with the white trunks and dark markin’s?” Emilie asked, pointing ahead of them and grabbing the twins’ attention.
They were only a few feet away from the start of the forest now, and Emilie was able to identify the trees clearly.
She had done this when she was younger, when the nuns had given her a little bit of free time for enjoyment.
Her favorite thing to do had been to sneak one of the books talking about the different types of flora and fauna found in the highlands and go out into the surrounding woods and try to match it all up.
Not that she had ever told Archer that. And she didn’t know much about fish. But teaching the twins about trees, plants, and animals? He could not have given her a better job.
“How can ye tell?” Aurora asked, walking directly up to one of the trees that Emilie had pointed to and scrutinizing it.
“Well, because of the color of the bark,” Emilie explained, walking up next to the girl and pointing to it. “And when ye peel it, it comes off in little flakes, like this.”
Using her thumb and index finger, Emilie plucked a bit of the bark from the tree. It came away easily, the matte white of the bark shifting under the canopy of leaves above them.
“What about that tree?” Louis’ voice chimed in, and Emilie turned to face him.
He was a few paces to their right, standing a bit further within the brush and foliage that decorated the forest floor. Emilie smiled when she saw which tree he was pointing at.
“That’s Scots Pine,” she said, her grin widening as she walked up to stand next to him.
Emilie heard rather than saw her husband coming up to stand beside her, the sound of snapping branches and foliage being rustled about by something rather large announcing his presence. She didn’t turn to look at him, but swore she could feel the warmth of his body radiating off him.