“Nay?”
Kaden shook his head and sat back on his heels. It was the closest they had been to eye level since?—
Emily shook her head to clear that thought. At least at dinner, there had been a table between the two of them.
Honestly, what was the matter with her? She must just be feeling overly permissive because of how generous he had been today. Certainly, that was the extent of it.
“She’s a wild pup,” he explained. “While her fur might have gotten her stuck once, this isnae the first storm that she’s experienced, and it willnae be the last.” He shrugged. “She’s more than likely pleased to be inside.”
Emily nodded and sat on the edge of the bed, pulling the tartan around her shoulders. She scooted closer toward the fire. How had the temperature dropped so suddenly?
Kaden turned and grabbed her foot to start unlacing her boot. “The rug’s warmer than yer boots, lass. I’m sure of that.”
It did look comfortable.
“Daenae get any wise ideas.”
Kaden smirked, but lowered his head so that she wasn’t able to see his eyes. “Me? I wasnae aware ye thought of me as the smart type.”
Emily returned his smirk. “Well, ye have to have somethin’ between yer ears if ye are a laird. At least, I would hope so.”
Kaden pulled her other boot free. “Isnae that what a wife is for? Telling her husband what to do and when to do it?”
Not in the household she had grown up in, that much was for certain. Yet, it was how any marriage she was in should be. That was how she had always pictured it. She was just as good a markswoman as any man. She was just as good on horseback and any number of other things.
She liked to think that she was a far superior tracker when she didn’t have so many layers of skirts around her legs. She knew that it was ‘improper’ for a lady to rule, but she had thought that any man who managed to capture her heart would think of her as more of an equal. She didn’t want a marriage like her mother’s or other women’s.
“Is that how it was with yer maither?” she asked.
“From what I can remember, it was something like that,” Kaden admitted, resting his hands on his thighs as he looked up at her from where he knelt on the floor. “Whether or nae me faither took her advice, that’s nae something I can remember.” He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “She certainly did a good job running things with the help of the council all these years.”
“She led?”
“After me faither and I were taken, what other choice did she have? She couldnae allow the lairdship to fall to another. She couldnae just lie down in her grief and lose everything. She thought that we were dead, ye ken? She didnae want us to have died for nothing.”
Suddenly, Emily found herself wanting to know the woman who had birthed him a whole lot better. She was going to have to make a much more serious effort to get to know Ailis and Kaden’s sisters more. If what he said was true and there was honestly nothing between him and Shona, she might as well make more of a place for herself here with them. She could lower her guard a small amount. Could she not?
“That’s nae exactly what most men seem to want in a woman,” Emily said. Though it would be a lie to say that she wasn’t testing his reaction to that comment.
He shrugged. “Insecure men, perhaps. What fun is a useless woman?”
“Or man,” she added.
Kaden flashed her a genuine smile and nodded in agreement. “Aye, or man.”
Emily just now realized that he was still holding the back of her calf under her skirt. She tried to pull away from the warmth of his hand, but he only tightened his grip.
“Perhaps we ought to rest, since we will have to leave early tomorrow.”
Kaden’s thumb brushed across her calf, and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “Is that truly what ye want?”
Was it?
Emily’s chin dipped, and she shook her head. “I daenae wish to keep playing this game, Kaden. I daenae like the hot and cold attitude, the back and forth. If that is what this is to ye, I would much rather that we keep a clear boundary until after the year is up.”
She glanced up in time to see confusion flicker across his face. He was good at concealing his emotions, but she was getting better at reading them every day.
“Is that what ye think I am doing? Playing a game?”
