“Nay. Our parents cursed me with this nest that can only be tamed by these precious hands.” Elize blocked her path and eyed her hands. “I intend to take full advantage. Oh, is this new?” She ran a finger over the comb in her hair.
Emily flinched, but not enough for Elize to notice. She could not understand the reaction. She had always shared everything with her sister. She should not feel so possessive.
She trailed her finger over the comb and let it rest at the center. The motion jerked Elize’s hand away.
“Mrs. Donnelly didnae bring jewelry to me room. Tell me that she didnae lend ye a chest.” Elize’s eyes were wide.
“She didnae.” Emily stepped around her, still cupping the comb. “It was a gift.”
“From whom?”
“I will let ye borrow it if ye daenae question me further.” She would not. The chest beside her bed had a lock and key, and she intended to make use of them.
“Was it a gift from the Laird?”
She whipped around, grinning, but her sister had stopped smiling. She instantly deflated.
“He buys ye a gift and walks ye to yer chambers at the early hours of the mornin’. What else does he do that I daenae ken about?”
She saw us?
Her heart leapt in her throat.
“He kissed me,” she blurted out before she could think.
The words felt like a confession and a plea at once. She didn’t mean to say them and was immediately filled with regret.
She clapped her hands over her mouth. She just couldn’t keep holding it in. She was not used to lying to Elize or keeping secrets, but it was all she had done since they left the orphanage.
The castle was changing her into someone she did not recognize. A woman who abandoned her morals and lied to her sister.
“Emily,” Elize hissed. “Did ye like it?”
Emily considered for a moment.
“I am nae asking if ye enjoyed yerself, Em. I want to ken if ye were willing or if he demanded it of ye.”
She bit her lip. How could she admit to her sister that she had been more than willing? Or that if Adair hadn’t kissed her, she would have kissed him first?
Her face was a canvas, and her emotions were painted in bold colors.
“Ye mustnae love him.” Elize gripped her arm, causing her to stumble forward. “He buys ye something pretty and then kisses ye. Doesnae that sound like seduction? He doesnae feel affection for ye, ye ken that?”
Of course, she did. How could she not? The girls at the orphanage had always been confused about that. They mistook the gifts they received from their married lovers as evidence of love, and she had been the one to judge them, to think them stupid.
Elize misunderstood her silence.
“Em, listen to me, ye are a knitter in a borrowed gown, and he is the laird of this castle. There is one ending to that story, and ye ken what it is.”
It wasn’t as though Emily didn’t know that. It wasn’t as though she didn’t know that thinking about the kiss they had shared deluded her into thinking that perhaps he cared for her beyond their ruse.
But even as she found herself harboring fantasies she shouldn’t, she was quick to dismiss them, reminding herself that their arrangement was only temporary and that they would go their separate ways at the end of the month.
Elize was right; there was only one ending to that story. So Emily let herself be pulled down the hall.
Though her fingers found their way to her lips again, and she found herself struggling to care about how their story ended, only that it had begun.
9
