Chapter 13 #2
“And perhaps,” Emmeline continued gently, “one need not always control a loud thing at once. Sometimes one may simply sit beside it until it grows tired.”
Aaron frowned in thought. “Can fear g-grow tired?”
“I hope so.”
He considered that. “Does yours?”
The question struck with such unexpected accuracy that Emmeline felt her breath catch.
Her fear had not grown tired last night. It had followed her back to her chamber and sat beside her while she touched her swollen lips in the dark. It had woken with her, dressed with her, and walked beside her through the halls of Ironford, wearing Rowan’s absence like a cloak.
She smiled, though it cost her. “Sometimes.”
Aaron looked satisfied. He bent over the book again, and this time, when he read a line aloud under his breath, the stammer softened around certain words.
And then she felt eyes on her. Her gaze lifted toward the open doorway.
Rowan stood in the hall.
He was in riding clothes, his hair wind-tossed and his face harder for the outdoors. The sight of him hit her with such sudden force that for a moment she forgot Aaron, the book, the whole bright library around them.
Her body remembered before her pride could intervene. His mouth at her throat. His hands on her waist. The rough sound he had made when he kissed her.
Heat rushed through her, shameful and immediate.
Her husband did not speak.
He looked at Aaron first, then at her, and what passed across his face was so brief she might have missed it if she had not been aching to understand him. Surprise. Regret, perhaps. Something tight and pained and dangerous.
Emmeline’s pulse stumbled.
“Father?” Aaron said, turning.
But by the time the boy looked toward the doorway, Rowan had stepped back.
The hall was empty.
Aaron frowned. “Was he there?”
Emmeline looked at the vacant threshold, anger rising to cover the foolish hurt beneath it. “For a moment.”
“Did he l-leave?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “It seems His Grace is very practiced at doing so.”
Aaron did not understand the bitterness. That was perhaps for the best.
By dinner, Rowan sat at the head of the table with the same impenetrable control he had worn the night before.
“And then the c-captain went to the d-deck,” Aaron said, leaning toward her over his soup, “and the storm was everywhere, and the first mate said they should t-turn back, but the captain said no, because the island was close.”
“Was the captain right?” Emmeline asked.
Aaron nodded. “Yes. But also no.”
Rowan’s spoon paused.
Emmeline smiled. “That is often the most interesting sort of answer.”
Aaron looked pleased. “He was right because the island was close. But he was wrong b-because there were rocks. They broke the ship.”
“A grave offense.”
Aaron laughed, quick and delighted.
Rowan’s gaze lifted.
Emmeline caught it and refused to look away. “Did you enjoy such stories as a boy, Your Grace?”
The question forced him into the conversation. She saw the subtle tightening of his jaw and felt a small, wicked satisfaction.
“Some,” he said.
Aaron looked at him with interest. “Y-you did?”
Rowan’s gaze shifted to his son. “Yes.”
“What k-kind?”
A pause.
Aaron’s shoulders began drawing inward.
Then Rowan said, “Military histories.”
Aaron blinked. “Oh.”
Emmeline could not help herself. “Naturally. Far more sensible than pirates.”
Rowan looked at her then, and the air between them sharpened. “They had the advantage of being true.”
“And therefore, I suppose, never wet or impractical.”
A faint sound escaped Aaron before he could stop it.
Rowan’s eyes narrowed slightly, but not with anger. Not entirely.
“Some campaigns were very wet,” he said.
Aaron giggled again, looking between them, delighted by the exchange as if it were a performance arranged for his benefit.
For a few minutes, dinner almost became bearable.
Emmeline asked Aaron which books he wished to show her next. Aaron told her about the orchard with increasing animation, his stammer still present, but softer when she gave him time.
Then Aaron said, “Mama never saw the orchard, I think.”
The change in Rowan was immediate.
It passed through him like a door slamming shut. His shoulders squared. His gaze hardened. Even the footman behind him seemed to still.
“Aaron,” Rowan said.
The boy’s smile faded. “I only said—”
“That is not a suitable subject for dinner.”
Emmeline’s heart sank.
Aaron looked down at his plate. “I was only w-wondering.”
“Then wonder about something else.” The words were controlled, cold.
Emmeline felt anger flare so hot that her skin prickled. “He asked nothing improper.”
Rowan’s eyes cut to her. “I did not ask for your judgment.”
Aaron’s breath hitched, the sound small and frightened. “I d-did not mean to—”
“No one thinks you meant harm, darling,” Emmeline said at once, softening her voice for him even as she kept her gaze on Rowan.
Rowan’s jaw worked. “He must learn there are proper times and places.”
“For remembering his mother?”
“For dwelling on what cannot be changed.”
Aaron’s fingers trembled around his fork. “I d-d-don’t remember her. That is w-why I—”
His face reddened as the words trapped themselves. He tried again, shoulders tightening, breath catching, the stammer worsening under the pressure of Rowan’s stare and his own embarrassment.
Emmeline moved before she thought.
“Aaron,” she said gently, turning her whole body toward him, giving him a new place to look. “Tell me about the orchard.”
The rest of dinner limped forward, held together by Emmeline’s careful questions and Aaron’s quiet answers. Rowan said very little. But she felt him watching her at intervals, and every glance struck her like the memory of a hand.
She hated it. She wanted it. She wanted him to speak, to explain, to apologize, to touch her, to stop looking at her as though he had built a wall and found her standing on the wrong side of it.
When Aaron was taken to bed, he bowed to her again. “Good night, Duchess.”
“Good night, Aaron.”
When the door closed behind Aaron, only the silence remained. Rowan sat across from her, rigid and unreachable, as if loneliness were another rule he meant to enforce.