“Nay,” she said again, her voice breaking on the word.
Her hands flew up, and Emilie noticed they were shaking as she placed them on Archer’s chest. Pushing slightly, Emilie created enough space for her to slip past him, creating the distance she so desperately craved.
Emilie whirled, turning back to glance at her husband’s face.
Archer was standing exactly where she had left him, a few feet away, his brows knit together in confusion. His eyes, which a moment ago had been shining and lighter than she had ever seen them, seemed darker now. Like shutters had been pulled across them, blocking her out.
I have to leave. I need to get out of here. I need to be alone.
“I’m goin’ to our chambers,” Emilie announced, her voice still shaking.
Archer nodded, and when Emilie started to turn and walk away, she saw him start to walk with her. She shook her head, turning to face him once more.
“Daenae follow me,” she commanded, her voice a bit stronger than it had been a second before. “I need to be alone.”
“Are ye certain?” Archer asked. “Are ye all right?”
She didn’t know how to answer that. Shame had begun to fill her.
Emilie could not believe that she had done that, could not believe that she had given this man before her access to the delicate parts of herself that the Lord commanded her to keep hidden.
She needed to think. She needed to clear her head. And, most importantly, she needed to get away from her husband.
“I’m goin’ to our chambers alone,” she said again, knowing that it wasn’t an actual answer to his question, but it was the only response she was currently prepared to give. “Please, daenae follow me.”
She stared hard at Archer, watching as his Adam’s apple bobbed. After a brief pause, one where he studied her hard, he gave her a nod.
Gratitude mingled with the shame coursing through her, and Emilie turned on her heel. She strode from the room, the sound of her boots echoing on the stone floor.
When she finally stepped through the threshold, closing the door to the drawing room behind her, something inside her unclenched, and the tears that she’d been working to hold back finally began to fall.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Me Laird?”
A knock at the door of his study and a hesitant voice drew Archer out of the work that he’d been doing.
He glanced up, spotting a nervous-looking steward standing in the threshold. He was young, someone that he knew Marcus had recently hired and took under his wing.
For the life of Archer, he could not remember the young man’s name.
“Come in,” he grunted, nodding his head in the direction of the steward, waiting as the man filed in to stand before him.
The young man’s brow tugged together with obvious anxiety, and he wrung his hands in front of him as he came to stand before Archer.
“I have news, me Laird,” the steward stammered, staring at Archer as if he expected him to lose his cool entirely at any moment.
“News of what?” Archer prompted.
He was trying not to let his foul mood seep into his tone. The young man standing before him seemed nervous enough.
But a bit of his agitation still seeped through, causing the young man to shift nervously on his feet.
It had been days since he had tasted Emilie in the drawing room. And, in those days, she had barely spoken to him.
She wasn’t outright avoiding him, not like she had been after they had kissed. But the few times when he had seen her, she had hardly looked at him, let alone spoken to him.
Archer was at a loss. And now, his days were filled with little more than thoughts of Emilie while subsequently trying to distract himself from those thoughts.