This wasmadness.
She had no idea what her body needed, but she knew that it had something to do with Kaden. She wanted to pick up where they had left off. She wanted to know all the things that he had been hinting at because, as of right now, her knowledge was limited to what she had heard from her mother and the maids she had encountered in her life. But they had always stopped talking whenever they noticed that she was listening.Every single time.
Despite the filth her first fiancé had spoken to her, she had never let him touch her. She hadn’t been lying about that. Kaden was the only man whose hands she had ever welcomed on her. Whose lips she had ever pressed her own against. And now that she had been given a taste of what she might be able to enjoy with him, she wanted more.
Maggie yipped softly, stirring from her sleep near Emily’s feet. Her small mouth opened into a wide yawn.
“Well, nay need to brag that ye are able to sleep,” Emily muttered.
In response, Maggie crawled on her belly up the length of the bed to nudge Emily’s hand. Emily tousled the fur on the top of her head and then sighed.
“I suppose there’s nay sense in just lying here,” she said, mostly to herself, before pushing up to sit.
She pulled her robe from where it had been hanging on the bottom of her bed and pulled it on, lazily tying the knot and sliding her feet into her slippers. She wrapped her arms around herself and turned back to Maggie.
“Maybe a little walk will help tire me out a bit?”
Naturally, Maggie didn’t answer. She merely tilted her head to the side.
“Do ye wish to stay here or come with me?” Emily asked, already knowing the answer without the need for the puppy to speak. “Well, come on then.”
She scooped up the pup and placed her on the floor carefully. Maggie wasn’t quite big enough yet to jump on or off the bed. Emily would have to fashion some sort of ramp or stairs for her if she didn’t grow up to be much bigger than she was presently.
“If nothing else, this will be a very good test for me to see if I learned anything about the layout of this place, hm?”
Without a care in the world, Maggie happily trotted after her as she left the room and started slowly down the darkened hallway.
It took her longer than it probably should have to locate the way to the gardens. All the practical crops were up closest to the castle, everything the kitchens would need, and the scent of herbs was heavy in the air as she started to walk.
Maggie paused to relieve herself briefly, and then they were off again. Emily had only managed to glimpse the flowers, as they were more toward the side of the castle, and there hadn’t been time earlier.
At least the moonlight was bright, the moon hanging nearly full in the sky as she slowly made her way across the grounds. The air was cold enough that her robe wasn’t quite warm enough, but the gooseflesh on her skin made it easier to ground herself.
She forced herself to focus on the plants, the design of the castle, the tree line in the distance, everything that she could in order to distract herself as much as possible.
She finally settled in the middle of the garden beds, sitting and letting Maggie crawl into her lap and curl up into a ball as she stared up at the moon. The stars were very obviously the same stars she had seen her whole life from her Reid Castle, but they looked different here somehow.
A cool breeze ruffled her braided hair, and she closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply.
It was almost like her subconscious summoned him.
She heard Kaden before she saw him. The low grumbling and the thud of his boots made her open her eyes. Clearly, he was upset about something.
Was he also having trouble sleeping?
Though seeing the same clothes that she had attempted to rid him of earlier, she didn’t think that he had even tried to sleep yet.
He looked crazed. Perhaps angry? She didn’t call out to him as her instinct urged her to. She didn’t draw attention to herself because, after what had happened earlier, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to be seen.
She needed to apologize. She was certain that Kaden had misunderstood what had happened, and she felt terrible. But he also needed to apologize for dismissing her the way he had.
She had tried to imply to a man that she was owed an apology once, and it hadn’t gone well for her.
Maggie, however, wasn’t burdened with such thoughts.
She started wriggling and barking at the sight of Kaden. Her whole body shook with how hard she was wagging her tail. Emily attempted to hush her, to pull her back into her lap, but it was pointless. The fluff ball was off and running.
Emily had to scramble to catch up with her as Maggie ran at full pelt towards Kaden. She was barely a blip of white and brown in the lush green grass, but it stopped Kaden in his tracks.
