Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You are feeding him from the table.”
Emmeline looked up from her plate with an expression of such perfect innocence that Aaron almost laughed before he remembered his father was watching.
“I am doing no such thing,” she said.
Rowan’s gaze moved from her face to the small piece of chicken held between her fingers beneath the tablecloth.
Biscuit sat beside her chair, tail sweeping the floor.
“You appear to have misplaced your hand, then,” Rowan said.
Aaron made a strangled sound into his napkin.
Emmeline lowered her lashes, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her. “Perhaps I am merely ensuring he feels welcome to join us.”
“The dog cannot join the dinner table.”
Biscuit barked once.
“He disagrees,” Aaron said, then flushed at his own boldness.
For one second, the table went still enough that Emmeline felt it in her chest.
Then Rowan looked at his son, severe as ever, and said, “Biscuit disagrees with most principles of civilized conduct.”
Aaron stared at him, then laughed.
Something inside Emmeline loosened with painful sweetness. Rowan did not smile, but his eyes stayed on Aaron a moment longer than they needed to, and there was a quietness in his face that made her throat ache.
The evening had been strange in its gentleness.
After the storm of the ball, after the stolen heat in Rowan’s study that afternoon, dinner should have felt awkward.
Instead, it had opened into something almost domestic.
Aaron had spoken of Captain Morley and the shipwreck with growing excitement, stopping only twice to whisper “bark” under his breath before continuing.
Rowan had listened with grave attention, asking small questions that did not crowd the boy, and Aaron had answered him.
Emmeline had watched them across the candlelight until her heart felt too full and too fragile to bear.
She had become greedy for those small things now.
Rowan’s almost-smiles. His quiet looks. The roughness of his voice when he said her name.
The way his hands had tightened at her waist that afternoon before Aaron opened the door.
It frightened her, how little he gave and how much her foolish heart did with it.
Later, when Aaron went upstairs with Biscuit tucked beneath one arm and three adventure books under the other, the house settled into a hush.
She told herself nothing would happen and then proved herself a liar by listening for footsteps beyond the adjoining door.
A knock came.
Her heart struck once so hard that she stood still with one hand at the dressing table, staring at herself in the mirror. Her hair was loose down her back, brushed into pale waves over the thin white of her nightgown.
The knock came again.
“Emmeline.” His voice through the door nearly undid her.
She crossed the room and opened it.
Rowan stood on the other side in shirtsleeves and dark trousers, his waistcoat gone, his hair slightly disordered as if he had run a hand through it. Without his coat, he seemed larger somehow, less armored.
His gaze moved slowly over her nightgown, but helplessly enough that heat rushed across her skin.
“May I come in?” he asked.
She stepped back.
He entered, and the room seemed to shrink around him.
For a moment neither spoke. The adjoining door remained open behind him, a dark rectangle between their rooms, and Emmeline found herself looking at it.
“How is the search for Juliet?” she asked, because she needed words before his silence became touch.
Rowan’s expression shifted. “My men are still searching the countryside near the posting roads. There have been two reports of a woman matching her description, but nothing certain.”
“Do you think she is safe?”
“I think Juliet is resourceful.” His jaw worked once. “I would prefer knowing she is safe.”
Emmeline nodded, clasping her hands before her so she would not reach for him. “I hope you find her soon.”
“So do I.”
Silence returned.
This time, Emmeline did not flee from it.
She looked at the tension in his shoulders, at the shadow beneath his eyes, at the mouth that had taught her body things her mind still blushed to remember.
Want moved through her, but beneath it was something heavier.
A question that had sat between them since Amanda’s voice at the ball.
Since the dinner. Since every time Catherine’s name made him turn to stone.
“Rowan,” she said quietly.
He looked at her.
“I want to ask you something.”
His gaze sharpened, then shuttered. “Ask.”
“Are you still in love with her?”
The room went still.
His brows drew together. “With whom?”
“You know with whom.”
His eyes held hers for a long second. “Catherine.”
Emmeline’s fingers tightened together. “Yes.”
He looked away and that, more than anything, made her chest ache.
“I prefer not to speak of her,” he said.
“I know that already.” Her voice softened, though it trembled at the edges. “That is why I am asking.”
His gaze returned to her. “You think my silence means love?”
“What else am I meant to think?” The question came out more wounded than she intended, and she saw it land. “We barely speak of anything that matters. You leave me to guess at every locked door in you, and then seem displeased when I choose the wrong key.”
He exhaled slowly, and moved toward the bed, standing beside it. “I am not in love with Catherine.”
Relief moved through Emmeline so quickly that she nearly closed her eyes.
His mouth tightened. “I never was.”
The relief changed shape, becoming confusion. “Never?”
“No.”
She sat on the edge of the bed because her knees felt suddenly untrustworthy. “But she was your wife.”
“Yes.”
Rowan looked at the floor for a moment, then sat beside her, leaving careful space between them. The mattress dipped beneath his weight, and that small shift made her more aware of the bare skin at her throat, the fabric over her breasts, the warmth of his body beside hers.
“It was a sensible match,” he said. “Her family was respectable. Mine required a duchess. Catherine was quiet when we courted. Pretty. Proper. There was no reason to object.”
Emmeline felt the sadness of that as if it were her own.
“What about after you married?”
“There was respect,” he said. “At first.”
She waited.
His hands rested on his thighs, fingers slightly curled. “Not much beyond that.”
Emmeline looked down at them, those strong hands that could be so controlled at a dinner table and so devastating on her skin. “Then why does it hurt you so much to speak of her with Aaron?”
Rowan’s fingers tightened.
She regretted the question for a moment. His whole body seemed to brace against it. His jaw locked. His shoulders went still. The man beside her retreated without moving an inch.
“You need not answer everything tonight,” she said softly.
His eyes closed briefly and after a long moment, he said, “After Aaron was born, Catherine changed.”
Emmeline did not move.
“She had always been delicate. Nervous, perhaps. But after his birth…” He stopped.
Emmeline could hear her own breathing.
“She did not sleep,” he continued. “She would sit beside his cradle for hours, convinced he would stop breathing if she looked away. At first, everyone said it was natural. New mothers worry. Then she began refusing to let the nurse hold him. Then Juliet. Then me.”
His voice had gone flat in a way that made the words worse.
Emmeline’s heart twisted. “She was afraid for him.”
“Yes.” His throat moved. “And of everyone else.”
She wanted to touch him, but she did not. Not yet.
“She thought people meant to harm him?” she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.
Rowan’s gaze snapped to hers, sharp with old pain. “Yes.”
“I am sorry.”
He gave a short, humorless breath. “Do not be. You did not do it.”
“No. But you lived it.”
That silenced him.
For a moment, he looked at her as though she had placed a hand directly over some wound and somehow found it through cloth and bone.
“She grew worse,” he said, quieter. “There were days when she seemed herself. Then hours when she did not know me. She would clutch Aaron and say no one could have him. She would scream if anyone came too near.”
Emmeline felt cold despite the candlelight. “Is that why Aaron is afraid of the river?”
His hand flexed against his thigh.
“She took him there.” The words were almost too soft to hear.
Emmeline’s breath stopped.
“It was winter,” he said. “Cold enough that the edges had iced over. I had been away from the nursery for perhaps ten minutes. Less. I heard shouting. By the time I reached the grounds, she was near the river with Aaron in her arms.”
He stopped.
Emmeline’s eyes burned, but she held herself still because he was speaking as though each word had to be pulled from him by force.
“She thought someone was coming for him,” Rowan said. “I do not know who. There was no one. Only servants behind me, frightened out of their wits. I tried to speak to her. Tried to make her look at me. She kept stepping backward.”
“Rowan,” Emmeline whispered.
His face did not change, but his eyes had gone hollow.
“The ice broke beneath her. She fell. Aaron…” His breath caught for the first time. “Aaron went under with her.”
Emmeline’s hand flew to her mouth.
“I reached him first,” Rowan said. “I remember that. I remember his shawl in the water. I remember pulling him out. He was so small. So quiet for one terrible moment that I thought—”
He cut himself off.
Emmeline reached for him then. Her hand closed over his cold fingers.
“She died?” Emmeline asked, though she already knew.
“Not in the water,” he said. “From the fever afterward. I do not know what name the physicians gave it. I stopped listening after a while. She never truly understood what had happened.”
His hand turned beneath hers, no longer pulling away.
“Aaron remembers the fear,” Emmeline said softly. “Not her. But the fear.”
Rowan’s jaw tightened. “I failed them both.”
“No.”
His head turned sharply.