Archer didn’t answer. He just seethed down at her, staring and daring her to continue.
“Ye care, Archer,” she said after a brief pause.
He opened his mouth to talk, but Emilie held up her hand, immediately silencing him.
“Ye can try to tell me that ye daenae,” she continued on, “but I saw ye in that forest today. I saw how ye rushed to Louis’ side and all but ran at the speed of light back to the castle. I saw the worry on yer face when ye were standin’ in his room. And I’ve heard the way the staff talks about ye. I heard the way ye take care of yer people, how ye’re fair and just and protective.”
She raised a hand, poking a finger into his chest to drive home her point. Archer’s eyes darted down to where she was prodding at him.
Usually, this kind of thing would make him irate. But for some reason that he didn’t understand, it only served to fill him with a bit of amusement.
“So daenae stand there and try to tell me that ye daenae care,” she forged on, unaware of the effect that her nearness and her brazenness were having on him. “Because if ye utter those words, we both ken that it would be a lie. And ye daenae strike me as a liar.”
“I’m nae a liar,” he grumbled, still warring with the conflicting emotions taking place inside of him. “But I ken how dangerous it would be for the bairns to get close to me.”
“Just because yer faither was a monster, it doesnae mean that ye are one,” Emilie said simply.
She shrugged her shoulders after she spoke, the words falling from her lips as if they were the simplest things in the world. But they were far from it.
The amusement Archer had been feeling a second before left his body entirely. He stepped forward, their chests nearly pressing together.
“Ye think ye ken me?” he growled, his agitation rushing through him like ice in his veins.
He still wanted Emilie. That much was true. And her nearness was doing absolutely wicked things to his mind and his body.
But that did not mean he did not have his wits about him. Archer still had control over himself, was still able to see all the ways in which his wife was so horrifically wrong.
“Ye ken nothin’,” he continued.
Emilie seemed to sense the shift in his demeanor, her blue eyes flaring with surprise as they stared up into Archer’s face. A strand of chestnut hair had fallen down beside her cheek, framing her eyes and making them look even icier than normal.
“I ken enough,” she hissed back, but this time her voice sounded unsure.
“I’ve killed people,” Archer growled. “Just as surely as me faither did. I’ve sliced a throat. I’ve buried a sword in someone’s belly and an ax in someone’s skull. So, just because I’ve nae raised me fist to a bairn, ye’re tryin’ to tell me it means I’m nae a monster?”
He stared down at his wife, waiting for her to answer. There was a part of him that wanted her to fire back. Wanted her to say that she could understand why he did those things. That if they were during war, or to save those that he cared about, she could understand them entirely.
But it seemed that for the first time since entering their chambers, his wife was at a complete and total loss for words.
Disappointment washed through him, and Archer sneered down at her.
“That is exactly what I thought ye’d have to say,” he growled. “Now, stop speakin’ about things ye ken nothin’ about.”
Archer pushed past her, saying absolutely nothing else as he made his way toward the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“What do ye mean things I ken nothin’ about?”
Emilie hurled the words at her husband’s back, wasting no time at all as she turned on her heel and stormed after him.
Archer was almost at the door when she reached him, hurling herself in front of his large body to bar his exit. His lip curled as she stared up at him, a beastly snarl sounding somewhere in the back of his throat.
“Move out of me way,” he commanded, his gray eyes flashing like the edge of a sword.
“Nay,” Emilie argued, immediately shaking her head.
She had no idea what had gotten over her. Never in her life did she think she would be standing toe-to-toe with a man, refusing to bow to his whims. Not over something like this.