“Does it matter?”
“Of course it does,” said River, her voice a low hiss as she approached the desk. She didn’t sit. Somehow, sitting felt like a surrender when Archer, even seated as he was, seemed to loom over her, taking up all the space in the room. “It may nae matter to ye, but it matters to me.”
“When I first slept with ye.”
Once again, his tone was flat, unemotional, so much so that River began to wonder if maybe all this had been a game to him from the start, if he had been pretending for some unknown, twisted reason. But no, it couldn’t be; the days they had spent together since his memory loss had been genuine. His emotions had been genuine; there was no way to fake them, not for Archer. And that somehow pained her even more, to know she had found real love, real tenderness, only for it to be pulled away from her like this.
“Ye should have told me,” River said, blazing with an anger that threatened to consume her whole. “How dare ye keep this from me? How dare ye use me like this?”
“I didnae use ye,” Archer said, though for a brief moment, he averted his gaze as if he couldn’t stand looking at her. “I did what I had to do. Ye of all people should ken that I have certain...plans in place and I cannae let anythin’ get in the way of that. How am I supposed to catch whoever is attackin’ me if word comes out that I remember? And if it does? Can ye imagine what it will do to the castle to find out I’ve been pretendin’ I remember all this time? Come now, River...use yer head.”
River froze. She was not used to Archer speaking to her like this—or rather, she had stopped being used to it and now she didn’t know how to respond. What was she supposed to say to this? What was she supposed to say to a man who didn’t have a single care in the world about her?
“I wouldnae have told anyone and ye ken that,” she said, her voice dripping with venom. “But if it makes ye feel better about usin’ me, I suppose ye can keep lyin’ to yerself.”
Archer didn’t speak. He only stared at her, and the silence that stretched between them felt endless, like she could never escape it.
“Anythin’ else?” Archer asked finally, as if he was trying to conclude a meeting.
“Anythin’ else?” River echoed in disbelief. “Is that all ye have to say to me?”
Archer gave her a small shrug, desperately trying to hide the guilt that sat like a stone in his stomach from his expression. “What else is there to say?”
What else is there to say, indeed.
“Nay,” River said in the end, her lips pressing into a thin line. “That is all.”
And with that, she was gone.
By the time River reached her chambers, she was in no mood for conversation, which was unfortunate, as Layla possessed an almost supernatural ability to detect unhappiness before a single word had been spoken. The maid was seated near the window with a basket of garments that needed mending in her lap, but she had scarcely looked up from her work before her expression changed.
“Is somethin’ the matter, me lady?”
River paused halfway across the room, wondering how Layla had even noticed so quickly, without so much as a single word from her. She stopped by the small table near the window, her fingers tracing the wood grain. Had she looked at Layla in theeye, she would have crumbled and told her everything in an instant.
Still, Layla waited patiently for River to speak, something that she didn’t do often. Layla was a constant stream of consciousness spoken out loud, never silent for too long, and yet now she didn’t say a single word. Instead, she only looked at River, waiting for her to speak first.
River sank into the chair beside the hearth and stared into the flames, hoping silence might discourage further inquiry. And though it did, River herself couldn’t stomach the silence, the stillness.
“It’s the Laird,” she said in the end.
Layla nodded as though a particularly complicated mystery had just been solved. “Has he done somethin’?”
The answer should have been simple—Archer remembers. But just like everyone else in the castle, Layla didn’t know Archer had lost his memory in the first place, nor did she know about everything that had happened between them. And besides, now that she was thinking about it, this would hardly be a sufficient answer. The problem wasn’t that Archer remembered—the problem was that River had fallen in love with a man who didn’t exist anymore.
Never before had she admitted this to herself. Never before had she considered her feelings as love, as something so life-changing.
“Maybe...maybe it’s better this way,” River said, mostly to herself, instead of answering Layla’s question.
“What do ye mean?”
“I mean…”
What did she mean? There were too many thoughts racing through her mind, too many things she couldn’t share with Layla. But she could tell her about her one and biggest fear. She could tell her the one thing that plagued her even more than this sudden change in Archer.
“I mean that I daenae ken if I even deserve to be happy,” she admitted in the end. She didn’t dare meet Layla’s gaze; she didn’t want to see whatever pity she held for her. But then she heard a rustle as Layla stood and placed her basket aside, coming to sit next to her instead.
“Why would ye say that?” she asked. “Out of everyone in the castle, who could be more deservin’ of happiness than ye?”
