“Emily,” her father warned.
“Should I make him a blanket? Weave something for him?” she snarked. She could not seem to stop herself.
Only when she glimpsed Kaden’s smirk did she look squarely at him.
“Do ye think that I am so much of a brute that I daenae ken the story of Penelope and her suitors, lass?”
What nerve did he have to tease her? They had been speaking alone. If he had been so taken with her as to plan this trip all the way here, then he could have said something to her when they had been alone. He could have hinted at anything that might have warned or prepared her for this conversation.
She turned to fully face him. “Well then, perhaps I could come and redecorate yer castle? Surely ye’d love everything to be… forget-me-nae blue?”
Kaden’s lips pressed together, as if he were attempting to hold back his laughter.
The nerve! A man like him wasn’t supposed to laugh. Every moment that she spent with him, he seemed to be pushing her further and further away from believing the rumors about him.
It shouldn’t be that difficult to hold his gaze, but she got the very distinct impression that somehow he was mocking her.
Well, that would suit her just fine. She knew how to end an engagement, just like the other two. He might seem unfazed by her pestering, but she would wear him down sooner or later.
Then again, she couldn’t exactly do that, could she? If she did, she would have nowhere to go. Her father had made it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t be swayed this time.
“How about a race?” Kaden asked.
The suggestion caught her off guard.
Did he think that she wouldn’t know how to ride a horse?
“If ye win, then ye will be ‘worthy’ of being me wife. If I win, then I’ll have to keep looking,” Kaden added.
There had to be something behind his words that she couldn’t see. It was as if he was giving her the perfect out in the situation. All she would have to do in order to break off this engagement would be to let him win the race.
Was that really what he was saying?
It was too simple. What was the catch?
“Very well, then,” she answered.
It wasn’t like she was going to make it easy for him. Perhaps if she made it look to her father like she was giving it everything that she had, then she would be able to break off the engagement and get away with it, too.
Hamish rose from his seat and clapped his hands together. “It is settled, then! I shall have the servants prepare the horses at once!”
“Now?” Emily protested.
She was hardly ready for such an event.
“Nay time like the present!” Hamish responded with a grin. He paused beside her. “Fewer ways for ye to try to wriggle out of it.”
And with that, her fate was sealed.
Iona offered her a soft smile before following him out of the room.
It wasn’t right to have her alone with one strange man, let alone two, but Emily was certain at this point that if somebody were to say something about them being in the same room, so near to one another, her father would only use that as further fuel to his motives.
“Ye daenae want to marry me,” she said confidently. “Ye daenae ken me.”
Kaden rose from his chair and nodded once to his companion, who promptly left to go stand watch outside. As he came closer, towering over her, it took effort to keep her spine straight and not shrink away from him.
“I ken enough,” he said in that impossibly calm, deep voice.
