The tavern wench lingered just a little longer than was strictly necessary before leaving them alone once again.
“It was nothing,” Kaden answered honestly.
“Ye didnae have to buy me any of those things.”
Kaden shrugged. “Perhaps nae, but ye are going to live at the castle too, and ye deserve to have it feel like home to ye as well.”
Emily scoffed. “Well then, ye have already failed. I would have to continue feeling deeply uncomfortable for it to feel like home.” She shook her head, making light of the comment that she had just made. “Nae that it was all bad, but it stopped feeling like me true home a long while ago.”
Kaden nodded. “I ken what ye mean. I daenae ken if the castle will ever feel truly like home.”
“I cannae imagine what it would be like, to never quite feel safe.”
Kaden’s brow furrowed. “Nay? I would have thought that ye might ken a thing or two about that, having had to live with two other men.”
It was a shameless tactic to get more information and an invitation for her to speak all at the same time.
“I willnae say that it was comfortable, but I think that is different. They were never going to be me home for different reasons,” she admitted, drinking her wine slowly.
“Do ye think that ye can find yer home here?” Kaden asked, not sure if he even wanted the answer in the first place.
At least he didn’t want to know if it was a negative answer. Anything was better than sitting here, eating in silence.
Emily didn’t answer for a long time, feigning sudden interest in her food.
“There is nothing between Shona and me,” Kaden murmured, glad to finally have it all out in the open.
He had been hoping to find a way to broach the subject at some point today, but there hadn’t been a good moment. Now wasn’t exactly a good moment either, but he needed to make sure that she knew.
“That’s what I was trying to tell ye before.”
Emily’s eyebrow rose, and she shrugged with feigned indifference. “Why should I care?”
Kaden smirked, barely containing a low laugh. “Because ye care.”
“What ye do and who ye do it with is none of me business. This isnae?—”
“A real marriage. Aye. So ye have said.” Kaden pushed his nearly empty plate to the side. He leaned over the table, the solid wooden surface protesting slightly under his bulk. “But ye still care, nonetheless.”
Emily started to shake her head. She was certainly a very stubborn woman; there was no denying that.
“I wouldnae have done what I have done if I didnae want ye to care,” Kaden admitted. “There was a time, after I returned, when Shona was the only kind hand that reached toward me. We had a kinship from when we were young, and there was a dalliance, but it was never anything serious. It was never something that either of us was interested in pursuing further, I assure ye of that.”
“This is likely just some game that ye are playing with me,” Emily replied. “Just another manipulation, is it nae?”
Kaden knew that any answer he could give her right now wouldn’t be something that she wanted to hear. Nothing that he could say to her was likely to make it any better. “Nay, it’s nae.”
All he could do was be honest. She would believe him, or she wouldn’t.
“Right. And why would I believe ye?”
“Just how do ye suggest that I prove meself to ye?” he huffed, a hint of his temper coloring his words.
“Ye cannae take that tone with me!”
“And what are ye going to do about it? Do ye think that I should just sit here and be content with ye having more misconceptionsabout me? As if I havenae had to deal with that from enough people in me life?”
Emily stopped short. She floundered because she didn’t care for the look on his face.
