Chapter 28 #2
“You chose her instead of me,” he said, and heard, too late, the hurt beneath the accusation. “Why?”
Frederick’s face changed. The last of his practiced charm fell away, leaving him pale and plainly afraid.
“Because I love her.”
For a moment, the words seemed to belong to a language Rowan could not speak.
Rowan stared at him. “You love… Juliet?”
“Yes,” Frederick said. His eyes did not move from Rowan’s, but color rose faintly along his cheekbones. “Juliet.”
“You hid my sister in various lodgings for weeks,” Rowan said slowly, trying to make the facts fit the man before him. “You risked scandal, lied to me, let me tear half the county apart looking for her, and you are only now telling me this?”
Frederick gave a short, humorless laugh, but there was pain in it. “I assure you, I did not plan to fall in love. And I was occupied with making a wreck of my life. I did not have the leisure to announce it elegantly.”
Despite himself, Rowan almost heard the old Frederick beneath it.
“I know this is terrible timing… But I intend to marry her,” Frederick said, more steadily now. “If she will have me. And if she does, I would ask your blessing.”
Rowan’s first instinct was refusal. Violent, immediate, paternal in a way Juliet would have hated.
Then Emmeline’s lessons returned to him.
“Sit,” Rowan said.
Frederick blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Sit. If I am to hear this, you will not stand there like you are awaiting execution.”
Frederick sat, and Rowan rang for Juliet.
She came quickly, pale and anxious, stopping short when she saw Frederick, color rising in her cheeks at once. Rowan saw, to his own irritation, that the room changed when they looked at one another.
“Juliet,” Rowan said. “Do you love this man here?”
Her eyes flew to his. “Rowan—”
“Do you?”
She swallowed. “Yes.” The answer was quiet but steady.
“Did anything improper occur between you?”
“No,” she said immediately, her blush deepening as her fingers tightened around one another. “Never. He was honorable. Always.” Her voice trembled on the last word, and her gaze flicked to Frederick with such open tenderness that it seemed to soften the entire room.
Frederick rose then, abandoning all pretense of patience. He went to her and took her hands carefully, almost reverently.
“Juliet,” he said, voice rough, his thumbs brushing once over her knuckles before his grip tightened. “I made a mess of nearly everything except loving you. If you can bear a husband who is foolish, vain, occasionally unbearable, but entirely, wholly yours, then marry me.”
Juliet’s lips parted. For a moment, she seemed too overcome to answer, her eyes searching his face as if she had spent weeks wanting this and still did not trust herself to receive it. Then tears filled her eyes, spilling over before she could stop them.
“Yes,” she whispered, then gave a broken little laugh as her hands clutched his. “Yes, Frederick. Of course, yes.”
Frederick’s breath left him. His face changed completely, all the restless charm falling away until only stunned, naked joy remained. He bent over her hands and kissed them.
Rowan looked away from the ache of witnessing something so simple and feeling how far he had driven himself from it.
Juliet and Frederick had made a wreck of everything, and still they stood there brave enough to reach for each other. He had been given something precious in Emmeline, and at the first pain of it, he had stepped back into the cold.
Juliet turned to him, trembling, her happiness still shining through her fear. “Rowan?”
He looked at his sister. For a moment, he saw the girl who had run, the child who had needed him, the woman who had chosen for herself at last.
“You have my blessing,” he said.
She broke then, crossing the room to him. He stiffened as her arms went around him, then closed his eyes and held her back.
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “Do you forgive me?”
His throat worked. “I am trying.”
“That is enough for now.”
A small crash sounded from the hall before anyone could speak again, followed by Aaron’s voice. “She is awake!”
Rowan turned so quickly that Juliet stepped back.
At the same moment, the butler appeared behind Aaron, slightly winded. “Your Grace, Dr. Arbuthnot has arrived.”
Rowan was already moving.
He reached Emmeline’s chamber before the physician had finished climbing the stairs. Emmeline lay propped against the pillows, pale and exhausted, but awake. Her eyes found him at once, and whatever remained of his anger collapsed beneath the fragile relief in her face.
“You frightened us,” he said, because he could not yet say what nearly tore out of him.
“I did not mean to,” she whispered.
Arbuthnot entered, black bag in hand. “Your Grace, if I may examine Her Grace?”
Rowan moved to step back, but Emmeline’s fingers caught his sleeve. The touch was weak, small, and yet it gave him everything.
“Stay,” she whispered.
Rowan looked down at her hand, then at her face.
“I am here,” he said, and sat beside her while the physician came forward. “I am not leaving.”