“Is the big, bad Laird afraid of a wee pup like this?”
Kaden spun back to face her so suddenly that it made her gasp. He towered over her and gave her the very first glimpse of the anger that lived in his chest, a glimpse of the man that all the gossips whispered about. “I am nae afeared ofanything.”
Emily nodded slowly. “Alright…” she trailed off, angling the puppy away from him. “Well then,she”—she nodded to the puppy in her arms—“cannae go anywhere. She’s afraid of everything.”
Kaden glanced at the puppy as if it were an attack dog ready to bite his whole face right off.
What a strange reaction.
But perhaps this was a reminder that she needed to remember her goal. She could use the puppy as an excuse to go back to their initial conversation.
If he didn’t like dogs, she could just keep this one. Then it would be a valid reason for both of them to keep their freedom. He could find another wife, any other wife. He was certainly handsome enough to get away with any choice that he made.
No, that was the sort of thing she wasn’t allowed to keep thinking.
She followed Kaden back to the clearing, the puppy quiet in her arms. “I’m going to keep her with me for the rest of me—or her—life, so if ye daenae like dogs…”
Kaden scoffed, already untethering the horse he was offered. “I ken what ye are doin’, and it willnae work. The puppy can stay here with yer kin if ye need it to.”
“Daenae be impossible!” Emily shook her head, already attempting to figure out the best way to mount her horse and keep the puppy with her.
“I daenae want to be married any more than ye do, never did, but we have a duty to fulfil and two clans that expect us to do it,” Kaden said, then winced. “That sounded worse than I meant it.”
Emily shook her head again, like she didn’t believe him, and managed to repurpose a saddle bag to hold the puppy even while he was talking.
“It will be better to do that with someone who understands ye, do ye nae agree?” Kaden reasoned. She refused to look at him as he mounted his horse. “Yer faither could make the same offer to someone ye daenae even ken.”
Emily bit the inside of her cheek. He wasn’t exactly wrong, and it wasn’t like she minded spending time with him. But the fact ofthe matter was that she had said she wasn’t going to get married, and she wasn’t. She wasn’t going to kiss her freedom goodbye and dedicate herself to being some man’s trophy for the rest of her years.
Her whole identity, when hitched to a man, would be nothing more than the Laird’s wife. She would have children, plan parties, embroider, and do other things that she had no interest in.
Her father had raised her outdoors, like the son that he had always wanted. Until she came of age, and then yanked the ground right out from under her.
Would life with Kaden be any different?
She doubted it. No amount of compatibility…
Her mind flashed back to the scars on his wrists, on his arms, and the way every time she looked at him, she seemed to find a new scar. What had happened to make him the way he was?
“I willnae rob ye of yer freedom,” Kaden promised, as if he were reading her mind. “We can live totally separate lives and still appease both clans.”
How were they going to do that when he had kissed her the way he had? When now he was refusing to look at her? He was pulling her in too many different directions.
Then it dawned on her.
It was her turn to scoff. He had said they could live totally separate lives, probably because he wanted to take mistresses. Perhaps he already had them, and that was why he had chosen her for exactly this reason.
But perhaps that would give her the time to do what she wanted.
She couldn’t count the times that she had told her father all of the reasons that she didn’t want to get married. She had told him that she could be his heir and that when he passed, she was more than capable of running the clan in his stead. Of course, given that she was a woman and not a man, he had refused it. He had explained that a woman could never do such a thing until he was red and purple in the face. He had screamed and growled until she had become so frustrated that she had stormed out.
During her first engagement, she had gotten the idea to fill her time with writing. Something that she loved to do almost more than anything else. She had tried to write a book, learning everything that she could about the inner workings of clan politics and how to navigate them. The things that were needed to be a laird, and her thoughts and opinions on them. The man that she had been engaged to at the time had found a couple of her pages, torn them up in her face, and laughed at her for being so stupid.
One of many reasons that she had broken off that engagement.
But perhaps if Kaden was being serious, really serious, there might be a way that she could use that to her advantage.
“Ye are being serious?” she asked as she mounted beside him.
