“I just meant…” She swallowed and tried to steady herself. “I tend to work best at night, and I’m at a crucial point in achieving me dream. I can agree nae to wander the grounds, but I do like to be able to move around and such.”
She felt beyond foolish for having to ask permission to move around in her own home.
Home? Where had that come from? It was true though. She could not deny it. She…well, if she had to be honest, she liked it here.
“What sort of dream is this, anyway?” That interrupted her thoughts. Thank God.
“I, ah—” She felt like saying it out loud might make her sound foolish. “I’m writing a book.”
“A book?”
At least he didn’t sound condescending. So many men thought that while it was important for a gently bred woman to be educated, they never actually wanted their women to use their brains for anything other than planning parties and decorating. That would never be the sort of woman Emily would be. She would rather die than just be some laird’s broodmare.
“Aye.”
“What is the book about?”
“How to run a clan,” Emily said quickly, and waited for the judgment that everybody always gave her when she said it. But he was curiously silent. “Me faither always wanted a son. Instead, he got me. I was still raised as a son might be. I can ride and hunt. I have a mind for politics… and many other things, but… Let’s just say he decided I no longer needed those things. He said they were inappropriate and that he never should have taught me anything like that.”
“That’s cruel of him.”
Emily shrugged one shoulder. She agreed, but every time she thought about it too hard, she always ended up crying.
She didn’t want to cry in front of Kaden. It was only her first day here, for Christ’s sake.
“So I thought that I could at least compile me knowledge in one place. I ken I’ll have to publish me book under a man’s namefor anyone to take it seriously, but I have a lot of information to share about how to be a good and fair laird, how to run a clan. I—” She stopped herself before she started to really go on a tangent.
She shouldn’t have to explain herself, and yet every time somebody asked her about her dream, she felt as if she needed to justify why she was allowed to have that dream in the first place.
“Ambitious.” Kaden nodded. He didn’t seem to think it was a bad idea at all. “But ye shouldnae publish yer book under any name but yer own. If ye ken as much as ye say, then the book will speak for itself.”
“If anybody even bothers giving it a try,” Emily sighed.
“Then ye’ll just have to give them something that they cannae deny,” Kaden declared, as if it was really that simple. But perhaps to him it was.
“But because of this dream, I need ye to nae… distract me like ye just did. Or I’ll never get anything done.” Emily shifted anxiously as she said it.
As much as she had enjoyed it, they had an agreement, and she wasn’t going to just give up like that.
Kaden smiled softly. “If I were actively trying to seduce ye, ye wouldnae stand a chance.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “Ye think so highly of yerself, daenae ye?”
Now it was Kaden’s turn to shrug a shoulder.
He took a step closer, and even just his proximity made her heart skip a beat. He leaned down like he was going to kiss her again, her arousal flaring anew despite her attempt to control herself. He lingered, and she almost closed the distance between their lips. But at the very last second, he tilted his head and kissed her neck once.
“Very well, I willnae do it again until ye ask.”
Emily couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had already done that. It was over now. He couldn’t put her through that humiliation again. He just couldn’t. It wasn’t fair!
“What?!” she squeaked.
Kaden smirked, apparently very pleased with himself and her reaction. “I am a man of me word, ye ken. Or have ye forgotten that ye asked for that nae long ago?”
Emily felt like her face was going to catch fire, and she was going to melt right into the stone floor. He liked getting a rise out of her far, far too much!
She shook her head furiously. “Well then, ye daenae have to worry. I willnae forget meself again!”
