Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
“Ic-cannot n-name him Biscuit,” Aaron said with great seriousness, sitting cross-legged on the drawing room carpet while the puppy attempted to chew the cuff of his sleeve. “That is a s-silly name!”
Emmeline looked up from where she knelt beside him, one hand reaching for the puppy’s soft middle as she tried to tug him gently away from Aaron’s sleeve before his tiny teeth did any real damage.
“Then why have you said it six times?” she asked with a teasing smile.
Aaron’s cheeks colored. “I was t-testing it.”
“And?”
He looked down at the puppy, who released his sleeve only to tumble backward over his own paws, ears flopping, round belly exposed to the room in a posture of complete defeat.
Aaron’s mouth twitched.
“It suits him,” he admitted, trying very hard to sound dignified and failing beautifully.
Emmeline’s heart softened so suddenly that it hurt.
The veterinary surgeon had come that morning, a brisk, cheerful man from the village who smelled faintly of straw and liniment and had declared the puppy male, underfed, and otherwise in excellent health.
Since then, Aaron had changed the animal’s name from Soldier to Prince to Admiral to Mr. Paws, and finally, after the puppy had stolen half a biscuit from a tea tray and fled beneath the nursery table with the triumph of a highwayman, Biscuit had settled over him like fate.
“Then Biscuit he shall be,” Emmeline said solemnly.
Aaron looked at her, his eyes bright. “Truly?”
“Truly. Though he must learn to answer to it before he eats all our furniture.”
As if in response, Biscuit rolled upright and gave a small, offended bark.
Aaron laughed.
The sound filled the room with such clear, open delight that Emmeline went still for a moment. She had heard him smile before, had watched warmth come over him in brief, cautious flashes, but this laugh had no fear or apology in it.
It made her want to gather him in her arms and never let him go.
“Biscuit,” Aaron said, patting the carpet before him. “C-come here.”
The puppy stared at him.
Aaron frowned in concentration. “Biscuit. C-come.”
Biscuit yawned.
Emmeline pressed her lips together to stop herself from laughing. “Perhaps he requires a more persuasive tone.”
“I am being per-per-persuasive.”
“You are being ducal.”
Aaron glanced at her, confused. “Like Father?”
The word struck somewhere tender and complicated inside her.
For one instant, Emmeline saw Rowan as he had stood in the entrance hall the day before, his jaw tight with resistance even as his eyes had followed his son with something too raw to be indifference.
She remembered the awkward way he had touched Aaron’s head, the way he had looked at her afterward, and the memory sent a strange heat through her body before she could stop it.
It was infuriating. She was kneeling on a carpet with a muddy puppy at her knee, and still one memory of Rowan’s gaze was enough to make her skin warm beneath her gown.
He had barely touched her since that night in his study, and yet her body remembered the closeness of him too vividly: the low heat of his voice, the intimidating width of his chest when she had stood near enough to feel trapped by him, the way his restraint seemed like a locked door she was foolish enough to want opened.
She drew a breath and forced herself back to Aaron.
“Not exactly like your father,” she said gently. “Your father gives commands. We are asking Biscuit to wish to obey.”
Aaron considered this with grave attention. “How do we make him wish it?”
“With praise. Patience. And perhaps…” She reached toward the little dish beside her and lifted a crumb from the remains of the stolen biscuit. “A little bribery.”
Aaron’s eyes widened with delight. “That is not p-proper.”
“It is very effective.”
He looked at the crumb, then at the puppy, then back at her. “M-may I?”
“Of course.”
Aaron held out the crumb. “Biscuit. C-come.”
Biscuit sprang forward so quickly that he nearly skidded into Aaron’s lap.
Aaron laughed again, one hand flying to steady the puppy as it scrambled over his knee. “He came!”
“He did,” Emmeline said, smiling despite the sting in her eyes. “And now he must learn sit.”
Biscuit did not learn to sit; Biscuit learned to chase ribbon, lick Aaron’s chin, bark at his own reflection in the polished fender, and collapse in exhausted triumph upon Emmeline’s slipper.
Aaron, however, glowed with every failed attempt, treating each one like a victory.
By the time Miss Harrow suggested they allow the puppy to sleep, the boy’s stammer had softened into something so faint that Emmeline could scarcely hear it.
That small miracle followed her out of the drawing room.
It showed her what Aaron might sound like if he were not always bracing for the world to correct him.
But so did the memory of his face paling near the river. It was a fear no child should know, and he had swallowed it down so quietly that she almost hated the house for teaching him how.
By afternoon, the thought had become too heavy to leave untouched.
Emmeline looked for Mrs. Vale, the housekeeper, and found her in the linen room, counting folded sheets.
“Mrs. Vale,” Emmeline said, pausing at the threshold. “Might I ask you something?”
She had meant to sound casual, but the strain entered her voice before the first word had settled.
The housekeeper turned at once and dipped into a respectful curtsy. “Of course, Your Grace.”
“It concerns Lord Aaron.”
Mrs. Vale’s expression changed almost imperceptibly, mouth tightening. “Is the young master unwell?”
“No,” Emmeline said quickly. “No, nothing of that sort. He is quite happy with Biscuit.”
Despite herself, the housekeeper’s mouth softened. “I have heard as much. The scullery maid says the creature has already attempted to overthrow the kitchen.”
“He is ambitious,” Emmeline replied, and then her smile faded. “But yesterday, while we were walking, we came near the river.”
Mrs. Vale went still.
Emmeline’s heartbeat changed. “He became frightened. Not merely uneasy, but frightened. I wondered whether he is afraid of the water. If he is, perhaps it might help to arrange swimming lessons at some point, gently, of course. Nothing forced. Only enough to make him feel less helpless near it.”
Mrs. Vale looked down at the folded linen. Her hands, so capable a moment ago, rested motionless against the cloth.
“Your Grace,” she said carefully, “I do not believe His Grace would approve.”
The answer landed coldly in Emmeline’s chest.
“Because of the river?” she asked.
The housekeeper hesitated, and in that hesitation, Emmeline felt a secret the whole house was keeping from her.
“Mrs. Vale,” she said more softly, “I am not asking out of mere curiosity.”
The older woman’s eyes lifted to hers, then drifted away again almost at once. Her fingers smoothed the same folded sheet twice, though it was already perfectly neat, and when she drew breath, it seemed to catch somewhere behind her ribs before she spoke.
“Her Grace once took him there,” Mrs. Vale said at last, voice low. “His mother.”
Emmeline’s throat tightened.
“It was not… a pleasant experience,” the housekeeper continued, dragging each word slowly. “The Duke does not wish it spoken of. It is best, perhaps, to let old grief lie where it has fallen.”
Emmeline thought of Aaron frozen by the sound of water, his eyes widening, his face gone pale in the green shadow of the trees. Grief had not lain down. It had stood before her, seven years old, silent with terror.
“I understand,” she said, but her fingers tightened against the seam of her skirt, and the words felt too neat for the unease pressing behind her ribs.
Mrs. Vale looked relieved and sorrowful all at once. “His Grace means to protect the boy.”
“I know,” Emmeline said.
And that was the worst of it. Rowan’s coldness was not entirely empty.
She could see the hard set of Rowan’s jaw whenever Aaron strayed too near anything dangerous, the sharpness of his voice when fear reached him before tenderness could, the way he turned his fear into an order.
And still, all she could think was that she wanted to take Aaron’s small hand in hers and place it in his father’s, then force Rowan to see that a child did not need another wall around him.
He needed a door.
The thought should have ended there. It should have remained with Aaron, where it belonged.
Instead, it turned treacherously toward the memory of Rowan standing too close, his broad chest rising with restrained breath, his voice low enough that her skin seemed to remember hands he had not even placed on her yet.
She wanted to stand before him and demand the truth from his mouth. She wanted to put her hands against that unyielding chest and feel whether anything beneath it gave way.
Instead, she inclined her head and left the linen room with her composure intact.
She found Aaron in the rear garden an hour later, Biscuit asleep in a patch of sun beside his boot.
“There you are,” she said.
Aaron looked up. “Biscuit is tired.”
“So I see. Are you?”
He shook his head.
“Good.” Emmeline held out her hand. “Then perhaps it is time we find something braver than sitting beside a sleeping dog.”
Aaron’s eyes widened. “Braver?”
“Only a little.” She smiled gently. “A walk to the orchard. A proper inspection of that pear-tree fortress you promised me.”
Aaron looked toward the distant trees, then down at Biscuit, then back to the trees again. Emmeline kept her hand where it was, open between them, and made herself wait. He did not take it at once. His fingers curled at his side, then loosened, then curled again.
At last, he stepped closer and slipped his small, warm hand into hers.
“All right,” he said, very quietly. “But Biscuit m-must come.”
Emmeline glanced down as the puppy woke, yawned, and stumbled after them. “Then Biscuit shall lead the expedition.”
And together, they walked toward the trees.
“What in God’s name are you doing?”