Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
“Do not follow me.”
Emmeline spoke without turning, her hand still braced against the cold stone of the balcony railing and her breath still uneven from how quickly she had left the ballroom.
Behind her, the glass door closed with a soft, decisive click.
Rowan had followed her.
She felt the heat of his presence at her back despite the cool night. The balcony was narrow, half-hidden behind a spill of ivy and shadow, overlooking a small garden below where lanterns burned dimly along the path.
“Look at me,” Rowan said, his voice low.
It moved through her like a hand sliding over bare skin, and she hated that even now, even while Amanda’s words still clung to her like poisoned perfume, his voice could make her body answer before her pride had a chance to.
“No.”
“Emmeline.”
She closed her eyes.
Her name in his mouth had nearly ruined her on the dance floor. It had almost sounded like an apology then. Like a confession. Like something large and impossible had risen inside him before he stepped back, bowed, and left her standing there with his touch still burning through her gown.
He had left and Amanda had noticed. Everyone had noticed.
She drew a breath through her nose and opened her eyes to the dark garden below. “Return to the ballroom, Your Grace. I would not wish to keep you from Lord Ainsbury.”
He said nothing for a moment.
Then his boots sounded once against the stone as he stepped closer. “What did she say?”
Emmeline’s fingers tightened around the railing. “Who?”
“Do not insult me.”
A bitter little laugh left her before she could stop it. “How unfair. I thought insults were permitted between us, provided one looked sufficiently wounded afterward.”
His face remained carefully neutral, but his fingers tightened once around his gloves, the leather creaking softly in his fist.
“Lady Amanda,” he said, each syllable controlled. “What did she say to you?”
Emmeline swallowed. She would not give him the satisfaction of hearing it. She would not become pitiful before him.
“It does not matter.”
He moved closer again.
She felt him now through the bare strip of night between them.
Felt it at her shoulders, along her spine, at the back of her neck where the pinned curls left her skin exposed.
Her body wanted to lean backward by the smallest degree, to test whether he was close enough to catch her. She remained rigid instead.
“She upset you,” he said.
Emmeline turned at last.
He stood only a few feet away, dark against the spill of ballroom light, his gray eyes fixed on her with such intensity that her breath vanished. His jaw was hard, his shoulders tense beneath his evening coat, his gloves held in one hand as if he had torn them off without knowing he had done it.
He looked furious. And because some foolish, wounded part of her still wanted that fury to be for her, the sight made everything worse.
“She observed me,” Emmeline said. “That is all.”
His eyes narrowed. “What did she observe?”
She lifted her chin. “That my husband is determined to avoid me.”
Rowan went still. His hand closed slowly around his gloves. “She said that to you?”
“She said people notice these things.” Emmeline’s mouth curved, though nothing in her felt amused. “Apparently, your distance is not as private as you imagined.”
His eyes darkened. “What else?”
“She mentioned ghosts,” Emmeline said, more quietly now, and hated the small break in her voice. “She implied that a second wife must learn to contend with them.”
For one heartbeat, his face lost every trace of restraint.
The change was so swift and savage that her breath caught. His gaze cut toward the ballroom doors as though he meant to walk back inside, cross the room, and reduce Amanda to ash before the entire ton.
“She will never speak to you like that again,” he said, the words almost a growl. “Not while I draw breath.”
Emmeline’s pulse leapt, fingers tightening against the railing behind her.
Protection was easy for him in public. Authority was easy.
Threats, control, command. He could do that.
He could ruin a gentleman with one mild sentence, silence a room with a glance, make a woman like Amanda think twice before sharpening her tongue again.
But he could not sit across from his own son and allow him to be sad. He could not wound his wife and say he was sorry.
She scoffed softly before she could stop herself.
His eyes returned to her. “You doubt me?”
“No,” she said. “That is not what I doubt.”
“What, then?”
“You can defend me from Lady Amanda,” she said, her voice quiet but shaking now, because the truth was rising and she could no longer press it down. “You can make the whole room remember I am your duchess. But the moment we are alone, you retreat as if I am nothing.”
His expression tightened. “Emmeline—”
“No.” She stepped forward, blood rushing to her head. “Do not say my name like that. Do not make it sound as though you have been stopped from speaking when you are the one who keeps leaving.”
His nostrils flared. “I do not leave.”
“You do.” Her voice broke, and she hated the weakness of it. “You leave rooms while standing in them. You look at me as though you want me, and then you vanish behind business, behind distance, behind whatever ghost you refuse to name. You do it to Aaron too.”
His face hardened. “Do not bring him into this.”
“He is already in this.” The words came faster now, sharper, because the wound had become a blade and she could not stop using it. “You avoid him whenever he asks for your love. You avoid me whenever I ask for more than courtesy. And then you have the audacity to be angry that people notice.”
Rowan stepped closer. “You don’t know what you are asking.”
“Then tell me.”
He went utterly still.
“Tell you?” he repeated, his voice low.
“Yes.” Her heart was beating so violently now that she felt it in her throat. “Tell me why you look at me like that and then turn away. Tell me why you touch me as though you cannot bear not to, and then punish me for feeling it.”
His jaw clenched. “You think I am punishing you?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
For one breath, neither of them moved.
Then Rowan gave a low, humorless laugh, but there was no amusement in it. Only strain.
“You have no idea,” he said.
He came closer still, until the space between them was so narrow she could feel the warmth of him through the front of her gown.
“You think I turn away because I do not want you?” he asked, his voice roughening. “You think distance is indifference?”
“Is it not?”
His eyes dropped to her mouth, and the look alone nearly undid her.
“No,” he said. “It is the last decent thing I have left.”
Her lips parted.
“Decent?” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said, and now his voice had lowered into something dangerous, something dragged from the very edge of his control.
“Because when I look at you, I do not think of courtesy. I do not think of restraint. I think of every room where I have wanted to take your mouth simply to stop you from asking me questions I cannot answer. I think of your hands in my hair. Your voice breaking on my name. I think of you beneath me until there is nothing left in my head but wanting you.”
Heat tore through her so fiercely that her knees nearly weakened. Her anger trembled, shaken by the wound he had exposed beneath his harshness.
“Rowan,” she breathed.
His control broke.
He crossed the last breath of distance between them. His hands closed around her waist, hard and hot through the silk, and he pulled her against him with a force that tore a gasp from her mouth.
Rowan’s mouth crashed onto hers with a fierce, deep, and furious hunger. Emmeline’s mind went blank as her body ignited. Her hands flew to his shoulders, but the moment she felt the heat of him beneath his coat, her fingers clawed into the fabric instead.
Rowan groaned low into her mouth, and the sound ruined her.
He kissed her harder, his palm sliding down to the small of her back and crushing her against him.
She felt the iron tension in his arms and the hard, heavy proof of his need pressing into her thighs.
A wild, sharp heat shot through her. She gasped, and he caught the sound, his tongue sweeping into her mouth with a slow claim that turned her knees to water.
“Rowan,” she breathed against his lips.
His grip tightened. “Say it again.”
“Rowan.”
He made a rough, jagged sound and hauled her up, pressing her back against the stone railing. He set her on the broad rail, her skirts bunching around his hips as the night air rushed beneath her layers of silk.
“Hold on to me,” he commanded.
She obeyed, her arms locking around his neck as he stepped between her knees. One of his hands cupped the back of her head, his thumb dragging across her jaw before he buried his face in the curve of her neck.
Emmeline trembled, her head falling back.
He kissed her neck, biting at the sensitive skin beneath her ear. His mouth was hot and wet against her skin, his body wedged firmly between her thighs. Every layer of propriety between them became a torment. She wanted the dress off. She wanted his hands on her skin.
A burst of laughter sounded from inside the ballroom.
They froze.
The sound came nearer, then passed beyond the glass doors.
Emmeline’s breath came hard against Rowan’s cheek. For one suspended moment, he did not move away. His forehead lowered to hers, his hand still firm at her waist, and she could feel the battle inside him through the rigid tension of his body.
Then he lifted his head.
His eyes moved over her face, her mouth, her hair, which had begun to loosen from its pins. Whatever he saw there made his jaw tighten sharply.
“What I said to you was wrong,” he said, his voice rough. “At dinner.”
Emmeline’s breath caught. She had expected retreat. Not that.
Rowan’s hand remained at her waist, but his grip had changed. There was something steadier in it now, almost careful.