Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
“He is still not down?” Rowan did not look up from the breakfast table as he asked it, though the untouched cup of coffee at his right hand had long since gone tepid and the morning paper lay folded beside it, unread.
The silence pressed against his eardrums, reminding him of the empty chair at the end of the table.
The housekeeper stood near the sideboard, hands clasped neatly before her apron. “No, Your Grace. Miss Harrow says Master Aaron woke, but he has not yet left his room.”
Rowan’s jaw tightened.
He had scarcely slept. Each time he closed his eyes, the previous evening returned in sharp pieces.
He had gone to the schoolroom later, of course.
Aaron had already fallen asleep on the sofa there with Comet tucked beneath one arm, Miss Harrow seated nearby with a book left open in her lap.
Rowan had stood in the doorway longer than he should have.
“Send some food up to him,” he said at last. “Bread, fruit, whatever he will take.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“And if he does not eat, he is not to come downstairs.”
The housekeeper hesitated only very slightly before inclining her head. “Of course.”
Rowan rose. If he stayed any longer, the empty seat where Aaron should have been would only keep accusing him.
“The Earl of Weston and his daughter, Lady Emmeline Greene.”
The footman’s voice carried clearly over the music as Emmeline entered the ballroom on her father’s arm. Heads turned in every direction, voices dipped, and glances lifted one by one until the whole room seemed aware of her at once.
Emmeline had known they would look. She had prepared for it. Yet the force of it still made something tighten beneath her ribs, because these were not ordinary looks of admiration or passing curiosity. These were sharpened by scandal. She could feel their hungry attention devour her.
“Do not let them unsettle you,” her father murmured.
She turned her head only slightly. “I shall do my best.”
The ballroom blazed with warmth, music, jewels, and movement, and for one disorienting moment, she felt far too visible and far too exposed, as if her dress was transparent.
She kept her chin level and her expression composed, though her pulse beat too fast at the base of her throat and her skin prickled with the effort of holding herself together beneath so many watchful eyes.
Then, before the moment could close around her entirely, Margaret appeared.
“Thank God,” she said, sweeping toward Emmeline with bright, deliberate energy, her father just behind her. “I had begun to think you meant to leave me alone among these dreadful people.”
The weight lifted so fast from her shoulders that Emmeline nearly laughed.
“Never,” she said.
Margaret kissed her cheek lightly and then turned with easy warmth to Lord Weston, who greeted Viscount Dunbrook with sincere gratitude poorly disguised as ordinary courtesy.
They fell into conversation at once, speaking just loudly enough, that anyone watching would be forced to see that Emmeline would not be exiled.
Margaret slipped her arm through Emmeline’s. “There,” she murmured, smiling too naturally. “If they insist on staring, let them at least stare at something graceful.”
“You make it sound a performance.”
“It is a performance,” Margaret replied under her breath. “Society is merely a badly written play with expensive costumes.”
That did make Emmeline smile, if only for a moment.
Then the crowd shifted.
She did not see him at first. She felt the ballroom making room for someone without anyone appearing to move. When she turned, the Duke of Ironford was entering with the hosts on his arm’s breadth.
His suit was black enough to make the white of his linen and the severity of his broad frame seem sharper. There was no visible uncertainty in him, no hesitation, no mark of strain save for a faint tension around the eyes, as though the last days had cost him sleep.
The thought sent a foolish warmth through her that she immediately resented.
He approached them and greeted her father, then her.
“Lady Emmeline.” His voice was too deep, sitting somewhere low in her body before her mind had time to answer it.
“Your Grace.”
He did not linger over the pleasantries. Instead, with the eyes of half the room already moving between them, he drew a velvet box from the inner pocket of his coat and opened it, as his eyes fixed hers.
A diamond lay against the dark velvet, clear and bright and impossible to mistake for anything but a public declaration.
Emmeline heard the shift around them at once, those rippling whispers, the whole ballroom holding its breath at once.
The Duke looked at her.
“If I may,” he said.
Her hand moved before she fully thought it through, and she placed it in his.
His fingers closed around hers, and the contact struck too clearly. He held her with grave steadiness, turning her hand just enough that the lamplight caught the pale satin of her skin and the stone together, then slid the ring onto her finger.
The diamond settled at the base of her finger.
A tremor moved through her.
It was not the ring itself, though it was beautiful enough to make any lady’s pulse jump.
It was the public finality of it. The fact that everyone saw.
The fact that this was no longer a rumor walking on uncertain legs through drawing rooms and morning calls.
It was before them now, glittering on her hand, fixed by his touch.
He released her, and she felt the absence of his warmth immediately.
The Duke bowed slightly. “Dance with me.”
Her heart stumbled.
She could still feel the pressure of his hand on hers, still feel the weight of the ring he had placed there, and something in her had not settled since. Against all reason, his invitation felt less like courtesy and more like being chosen in full view of everyone.
She gave a small nod. “Yes.”
He took her hand again and led her to the floor.
The first moment he set his hand at her waist, she understood that this would be worse than the ring. He touched her properly, as any gentleman would, and yet there was nothing proper in the effect of it.
His palm was a brand against her waist. The heat of it seeped through her dress, grounding her even as it sent a chaotic shiver straight to her marrow. The room vanished, leaving only the hard line of his arm and his dizzying heat.
She laid her hand in his and they moved.
The ballroom passed around them in a blur of candlelight, silk, and music, while his hand remained at her waist with maddening steadiness. He danced well, with the same contained precision he brought to everything else, and that only made her heart beat harder.
She could no longer bear the silence.
“How is Aaron?” she asked.
His expression did not change, but she saw a subtle withdrawal behind the eyes. “He is well.”
The answer was too brief, too smooth, and she knew it at once.
“Is he?” she asked.
His gaze settled on her more fully. “You have taken your role rather seriously, Lady Emmeline.”
There was an unmistakable edge in it.
“If I am to be your wife,” she said, keeping her voice just as even, “I ought to understand the child who will be entrusted to me.”
“You need not concern yourself with one difficult dinner.”
“It was not the dinner that concerned me.”
His jaw clenched. “No?”
The music turned them. Other couples passed close and then away again.
“He was hurt,” she said more softly. “And you knew it.”
The Duke’s hand at her waist tightened. “Must we revisit this here?”
“If not here, then when?”
She should have let it go. The ballroom was not the place for this. Yet his touch made all her nerves feel too near the surface. She could not seem to speak to him lightly, no matter how much prudence recommended it.
He looked at her for one long second, his hand still firm at her waist, his gaze dropping just enough to make her stomach drop before it lifted to hers again.
“And after one dinner,” he murmured, his breath a ghost of heat against her temple, “you’ve decided to dismantle my authority, my household, and my son?”
The dance turned. Suddenly, Emmeline felt how close he had drawn her.
The space between them had thinned without her noticing, and now she could feel the full heat of him, the hard line of his body near enough to make her breath catch.
His hand at her waist seemed heavier than before, more possessive.
She looked up and saw that he had noticed it too, saw his eyes darken.
The space between them evaporated. For one heartbeat, their bodies moved as one, her chest grazing the wool of his coat. Her heart thudded against her ribs like a trapped bird.
By the time the music ended, she felt dragged back from somewhere she had no business wanting to go.
He stepped back by a fraction, not enough to seem abrupt, and escorted her from the floor with all the same grave propriety with which he had led her onto it.
By the time the Duke returned her to her father, people were already moving toward them.
“My dear Lady Emmeline, what wonderful news.”
“How very sudden.”
“That ring is exquisite.”
“Thank you.” Emmeline smiled, offered her hand when propriety demanded it, and felt the weight of every gaze on her.
Lord Ashcombe bowed to the Duke. “Ironford. My congratulations.”
The Duke inclined his head once. “My thanks.”
Lady Ashcombe smiled up at him with a softness that vanished when she looked back at Emmeline. “You must be very happy, Lady Emmeline.”
“I am very grateful,” Emmeline said.
The woman blinked, as though that answer had not been the one she wanted.
“Well,” Lady Merrow said, glancing again at the Duke, “His Grace has never lacked for admiration.”