and there was Archer, half-dressed, his muscular chest on display.
River screamed, her heart jumping to her throat. At first, she didn’t even realize who was standing before her, and her mind supplied her with the worst case scenario—an intruder who was there to hurt her, the children, or perhaps even the Laird once more. But when her brain caught up with her eyes and she saw it was none other than Archer himself, in a room that was now suddenly fully furnished, she didn’t know what to make of it.
“What are ye doin’ here?” she asked him.
“I could ask ye the same,” said Archer, with an infuriating smirk on his lips. “These are me chambers. Though ye are welcome here anytime.”
River blinked a few times, confusion seeping into her. “What do ye mean these are yer chambers?”
Everyone in the castle knew where the Laird’s chambers were, and they were certainly not in the eastern wing. River knew that for a fact. And yet there Archer was; and not just him, but his belongings, too—the things she remembered seeing in his chambers the first night of their marriage, when he had taken her straight there.
“I moved here, in the eastern wing,” Archer said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Quite infuriatingly, he was still not wearing a shirt, and River’s gaze kept slipping back to his chest, to those muscles that bulged and dipped and played with the scant light that came in through the windows.
She couldn’t focus on anything else. Even the words Archer was telling her were flying right past her, and she didn’t notice she had been staring quietly for a long time until she heard him call her name.
“Everythin’ alright, lass?”
Heat bloomed over River’s cheeks once she realized she had been staring at Archer without seeing a single word. There was no doubt in her mind that he had noticed exactly where she had been staring this entire time—not with the way he smirked at her again, so smug and satisfied.
“Aye, I’m fine,” she said, with all the dryness and derision she could muster. Admittedly, there wasn’t much of either.
“Because it seemed to me for a moment there that ye forgot how to speak.”
“I remember how to speak just fine, clearly,” said River, her lips pressing into a thin line as she tried to will the color away from her cheeks.
“It’s right,” said Archer as he sauntered towards her. “Many have fallen speechless upon seein’ me without a shirt.”
“How would ye ken?” asked River, thankful that her mind was still working properly. “Ye’ve lost yer memories.”
Much to her surprise, Archer laughed. It was a soft sound, restrained, not the kind of belly laugh that she was used from herself, the children, her brother. Still, it was more than she had heard from Archer in the year they had been married.
“That’s right,” he admitted with a small shrug. “But I can imagine it to be true.”
“That’s very presumptuous of ye.”
“And yet ye were speechless just now.”
There was nothing River could say to that. She couldn’t deny the fact that she had lost all her words the moment she came face to chest with Archer. It didn’t help that with their height difference, his chest was right at eye-level for her. No matter where she looked, she was greeted by a wall of muscle and glistening skin, and every effort to avert her gaze seemed entirely futile.
“Ye frightened me,” said River, and in that moment, it sounded like the best excuse she could come up with. “I thought this room was empty.”
“It was,” said Archer. “Until I moved in.”
“Aye,” said River. “And why is that? What are ye doin’ here?”
“It’s me castle. Cannae I be in any room I please?”
“Yer chambers have always been at the other end of the castle, as I understand it,” River reminded him.
“Perhaps now that I daenae remember any of it, I prefer this side of the castle,” said Archer.
River didn’t believe that for one second. “Tell me the truth,” she demanded. “Why are ye here?”
“Because ye’re here,” Archer said. He didn’t even try to hide it. He shared the truth openly, and River didn’t know what to make of it anymore.
Just a few days prior, she knew that Archer wanted nothing to do with her. She knew it as certainly as she knew that the sun rose in the east and set in the west. Now, her entire world had been flipped upside down and the man standing before her was nothing like the man she had come to know.
“Well, I was fine on me own,” said River, lifting her chin. She fought hard to avoid looking at Archer’s chest, most of her focus spent on the task rather than her words, but at least it paid off; she kept her gaze firmly planted on his face.
