Chapter 19 #2
The gentleman’s smile faltered. “Of course. Quite.”
Lady Cresswell stepped forward, her eyes moving from Rowan to Emmeline with a sweetness sharp enough to cut. “And Your Grace must be finding married life quite changed from the country.”
“Changed, yes,” Emmeline said, smiling. “Though I find London has a talent for making every change feel small when you return.”
The lady’s fan paused.
Rowan’s gaze touched Emmeline’s face for the briefest moment. “An efficient city.”
“Indeed,” Lady Cresswell murmured, her smile losing some of its edge. “Very efficient.”
Lord Fairford approached at once, his bow deeper than the last. “Duchess, allow me to offer my congratulations. A remarkable match.”
“Thank you,” Emmeline replied.
“Quite remarkable,” he added, glancing between them. “Especially after the unfortunate business with Foxdale.”
Rowan’s hand shifted slightly at the small of her back, enough for Emmeline to feel the heat of his palm through her gown.
“Careful,” Rowan said mildly.
Lord Fairford blinked. “Your Grace?”
“With your wording,” Rowan replied. “It nearly suggested you intended rudeness.”
Color climbed the man’s neck. “Not at all. Forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive if nothing was intended,” Rowan said.
“No, of course. Nothing was intended.”
Emmeline kept her smile in place, though her pulse had begun to beat too quickly beneath the diamonds at her throat.
Mr. Pembury, a gentleman with thinning hair and too much eagerness bowed before them. “Your Grace, I trust Lady Juliet recovers well?”
Emmeline felt the name ripple through the small group around them.
Rowan did not so much as blink. “She remains in the country. Her health improves, though slowly.”
“And Wellfield?” Lady Fenwick asked, her fan moving with predatory delicacy. “Such an unfortunate postponement.”
“Perhaps,” Rowan said, his voice level, “it was not a suitable match.”
The fan paused.
“When my sister has recovered fully,” he continued, “she may consider a match better suited to her temperament.”
The authority in his voice closed the subject as neatly as a door.
No one dared push further.
Emmeline looked at him then, despite herself. There was no uncertainty in him, no trace of the panic that must have lived beneath all of this.
It was impossible not to admire him in moments like this. But it was also impossible not to resent him for being able to protect everyone with such force except the people nearest his own heart.
Frederick appeared at precisely the moment the silence risked becoming too heavy.
“Ironford,” he said brightly. “You have frightened half the room into good manners. A public service.”
Rowan gave him a flat look. “Calham.”
“And Duchess.” Frederick bowed over Emmeline’s hand with a flourish. “You look radiant enough to cause poetry, which I hope you will forgive.”
“Only if the poetry is brief,” Emmeline replied.
Frederick’s eyes lit. “Excellent. You see, Ironford? She understands art.”
“She understands mercy,” Rowan said.
The words were dry, but his gaze had moved to Emmeline’s mouth again, and the briefest silence opened between them.
Then the orchestra shifted.
The first notes of a waltz rose through the ballroom.
Frederick glanced from Rowan to Emmeline, then smiled with the satisfaction of a man about to commit mischief. “Ah. There it is.”
Rowan’s expression darkened. “Do not.”
“I have done nothing.”
“You are thinking loudly.”
Frederick put a hand to his heart. “And yet misunderstood.”
Then he stepped aside with shameless efficiency, leaving Rowan directly before Emmeline as couples began to move toward the floor.
For one beat, neither of them spoke. Emmeline felt the entire room sharpen around them.
Rowan held out his hand. “Will you dance with me?”
His voice settled low in her body, stirring every memory she had tried to bury beneath hurt. His hand at her back. His eyes on the stairs. His mouth almost close enough beneath the beech tree.
“Yes,” she said.
His fingers closed around hers and the dance began.
At first, Rowan held her correctly, one hand at her waist, the other enclosing hers. But even correct contact with him felt dangerous now. His palm was warm through the fabric. His thumb rested too still, as though movement itself would be a confession.
Emmeline kept her eyes lifted. Looking anywhere else would mean looking at his mouth, his throat, the strength of his shoulders beneath the black evening coat.
“How is Aaron?” Rowan asked.
The question caught her off guard.
“With Miss Harrow, asleep by now, I imagine. Unless Biscuit has overthrown the nursery.”
“I meant after the dinner.”
He had not forgotten.
Her throat tightened and she looked past his shoulder for half a second, watching the chandeliers fracture into brightness. “He was quiet the next morning.”
Rowan’s hand tightened at her waist almost imperceptibly.
“And then?”
“He asked if I was still angry.”
Rowan’s step altered by a fraction, so slight no one else would have noticed. Emmeline felt it because her whole body was attuned to him.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“I told him I was not angry with him.”
His eyes held hers. “That was not what he asked.”
Emmeline’s breath caught, and the dance brought them closer through the turn. Her skirt brushed his leg. His hand steadied at her waist, and the heat moved through her in one slow, devastating sweep.
“I told him adults sometimes say things badly when they are hurting,” she said.
Rowan’s face tightened. “Generous.”
“Accurate.”
His gaze burned. “And did you tell yourself the same?”
For a moment, the music, the room, the watching ton all blurred beneath the force of him.
He had not apologized. He still had not apologized. Yet the question held something raw enough to scrape against the place in her that wanted to believe he regretted it.
“I told myself,” she said quietly, “that hurt explains cruelty. It does not undo it.”
His breath shifted.
They turned again, and this time Rowan’s hand slid more firmly around her waist, pulling her close enough that her breath caught against his chest.
Emmeline felt every inch of him through the movement—the hard strength of his body, the heat beneath his evening coat, the dangerous restraint in the fingers flexing once against her gown.
“Emmeline,” he said, and her name in his mouth nearly ruined her.
She looked up.
His eyes had darkened, the gray turned storm-heavy beneath the chandelier light. He looked as though the next words might cost him too much.
Then the music ended and applause scattered through the ballroom. Rowan released her too quickly, the loss of his hand feeling indecent.
“I must speak with Lord Ainsbury,” he said, his voice rough. “Forgive me.”
He bowed and left before she could answer.
Emmeline stood at the edge of the floor, breathless and burning, furious with herself for wanting him to stay.
She made her way toward the beverage table because her hands needed purpose and her throat had gone dry. She had barely lifted a glass when a voice like sugared glass sounded at her side.
“Your Grace.”
Emmeline knew that voice before she turned.
Lady Amanda smiled at her as though they were dear friends reunited after a charming delay. She wore pale gold and diamonds, her dark hair arranged in careful waves, her beauty polished to the point of cruelty.
“Lady Amanda,” Emmeline said.
“I have been hoping to speak with you,” Amanda said, drawing closer with a softness that made Emmeline’s stomach tighten. “How do you find marriage?”
“Agreeable enough.”
“How brave.” Amanda sighed delicately. “Truly, I admire you.”
Emmeline set her glass down without drinking. “For what?”
“For managing so beautifully.” Amanda’s eyes flicked toward Rowan across the room. He stood with two gentlemen near a column, his profile severe, his attention apparently fixed on business. “It cannot be easy.”
Emmeline’s fingers brushed the stem of the glass. “What cannot?”
Amanda’s smile turned almost sympathetic. “Having a husband so determined to avoid you.”
Emmeline did not move. She would not give this woman the satisfaction of watching the blow land.
Amanda continued, voice low and sweet. “Forgive me. I do not mean to pry. It is only that people notice these things. The way he leaves after one dance. The way he keeps to business, to distance. Poor thing. I suppose a second wife must always contend with ghosts.”
Emmeline’s pulse beat once, hard enough to hurt.
Catherine’s shadow seemed to step between them, pale and untouchable. A woman Rowan would not speak of. A grief he would defend with cruelty. A place in his life Emmeline had been warned she could never occupy, no matter how eagerly she played at it.
She lifted her chin. “You seem very interested in my husband’s habits.”
Amanda’s eyes flashed, though the smile remained. “Concern only.”
“How generous. I had mistaken it for envy.”
For the first time, Amanda’s composure cracked.
Then she laughed softly. “I should not envy what appears so difficult to keep.”
Emmeline felt the words strike, but she smiled. “Then we must both be grateful you were never asked to try.”
Amanda’s color rose.
Across the room, Rowan’s head turned.
Emmeline felt it immediately, as surely as if he had touched her.
His gaze found her through the shifting crowd, and for one terrible second she wanted him to come.
Wanted him to cut through the ballroom and stand beside her, because some injured part of her still wanted to be chosen publicly enough that Amanda’s words would shrivel in the air.
But she could not bear to need that, especially after everything.
Lady Amanda followed her gaze and smiled again, colder now. “How very fortunate you are, Duchess.”
“Yes,” Emmeline said. “I am.”
She left before Amanda could answer.
She moved with measured grace through silk and perfume and candlelight, past watching eyes and murmuring mouths, until the ballroom doors opened before her and the corridor beyond received her with blessed quiet.
Only then did her breath falter.
She pressed one hand to the wall, the cool paper beneath her palm grounding her, closing her eyes.
The worst of it was that Amanda was telling the truth.