Archer blew out a breath, shaking off the darkness that had plagued him.
“I’m here,” he grunted, shrugging so that he knocked Marcus’ hand from his shoulder. “I’ll nae be killin’ him. Nae now, anyway.”
Marcus nodded wearily, clearly unsure of whether he should believe him.
“We’ll need to get orders out to our other stores,” Archer ordered. “Get some barrels here to replace our stock. And we’ll need to start brewin’ new as well. Tell Alistair and get that all taken care of while I go back to the castle.”
Marcus nodded, clearly hearing Archer’s command. But he didn’t move.
“Ye’re truly only goin’ to the castle?” he questioned, and Archer blew out an exasperated breath.
“Aye. I’ll nae be goin’ anywhere else but home. I’ll nae be ridin’ out to kill Finlay, nae any time soon, at least.”
Marcus studied him for a moment more, but eventually he seemed to sense the truth of Archer’s words. He nodded again before turning on his heels and disappearing back toward the storage room.
When Archer was certain that he was alone, he heaved a sigh of relief, all the anger and frustration that had been bubbling up inside of him leaving entirely, replaced with a deep shame.
What had he been thinking? Why had he allowed himself to entertain such a violent path?
His thoughts had sounded exactly like his father’s words, and Archer had allowed those thoughts to run rampant. After years, decades, even, of promising himself that he’d never be anything like his father, it hadn’t stopped him from turning into him in one of his most vulnerable moments.
What if Emilie had been around me when I’d found the whisky ruined? What if the twins had been here? I’d been so furious. Would I have taken that anger out on them?
Archer’s stomach soured at the thought. Suddenly worried he was about to spill the contents of his stomach on the floor, he dragged in a breath.
Turning toward the door, Archer finally pulled it open, stepping out into the crowded street beyond. The noise of the city rose to greet him, the smells of a city packed too tightly with people washing over him.
He climbed onto his horse, not paying much attention to anything else around him as he started guiding his mount through the crowd.
Archer hadn’t lied to Marcus. He would be heading straight to the castle. The only problem was that now, having felt the rot of his father’s blood so deep inside of him, Archer was no longer certain of exactly what it was he was going to do when he got there.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“What a lovely paintin’,” Emilie chimed, plastering a smile on her face as she gazed over Aurora’s shoulder. “Is it of a fish swimmin’ through water?”
Aurora turned, giving Emilie an offended look.
“It’s a bird in the sky,” Aurora corrected, sticking her nose in the air at Emilie’s mistake before turning back to the painting that she’d been working on.
Emilie winced, her tone immediately apologetic.
“And what a bonnie bird it is,” she chimed, but Aurora just ignored her.
Sighing, Emilie crossed the children’s playroom, collapsing into the large, overstuffed chair in the far corner of the room. She looked up, eyes gazing over the twins who were both sittingstraight-backed at a small easel, with the canvases she had procured for them earlier that day.
They hadn’t had lessons that day, as it was one of their scheduled days off. At first, Emilie had been thankful for it.
With the twins not having lessons to occupy their time, she would be able to more easily come up with excuses to ignore her husband. But now that a few hours had passed, and she hadn’t seen anything beyond the four walls of the playroom, she was growing exhausted.
“What am I goin’ to do?” she whispered, making sure to keep her voice low enough that the children would not overhear.
For days, Emilie had been barely speaking to her husband. When she’d first run out of the drawing room, the guilt and the shame had been so immense she had barely been able to speak.
She had broken her vows to God, after all. And that was not something that she would easily be able to process.
But as the hours and then the days had worn on, her shame had begun to diminish.
What had she done wrong, really?