Chapter 32
“You abandoned us for weeks and weeks without a word.”
Emily stood before George at the breakfast table, her small fists planted on her hips, chin lifted in perfect imitation of Louise’s battle stance. Her brother sat frozen with his teacup halfway to his mouth, clearly unprepared for confrontation from a six-year-old.
“Emily, I—”
Her palm connected with his shoulder with a sharp smack that echoed through the morning room. George’s tea sloshed dangerously.
“You scared Louise so much she cried at night when she thought I was sleeping.” Emily’s voice trembled but held firmly. “You’re supposed to be the big brother. You’re supposed to protect us, not run away.”
George’s face flushed as he opened his mouth to respond. Aaron met his gaze across the table, his expression hardening. Whatever George had intended to say died unspoken.
Louise, from her place by the sideboard, added a look of her own.
George’s mouth snapped shut. He set down his teacup with careful precision and nodded. “You’re right, Emily. I should have been better.”
The child studied him for a long moment, then turned on her heel and marched to her chair with a dignity that would have impressed a duchess.
Aaron fought an inappropriate urge to applaud.
“George,” Louise’s voice carried forced brightness as she moved toward her brother, “may I present Lady Merrow? Lady Merrow, my brother, Lord Sulton.”
George rose immediately, executing a bow that might have been elegant if his hands hadn’t been shaking. “Lady Merrow. I cannot adequately express my gratitude for your kindness to my sisters.”
“Kindness?” Cecilia’s eyebrow arched as she swept into the room, Buttercup padding behind her. “My dear boy, hosting your sisters has been the most entertainment I’ve had in years. Although I must say, you look rather worse for wear than I expected of an earl.”
George’s fingers went to his bruised jaw, a souvenir from Aaron’s tackle the night before. “Yes, well, circumstances have been—”
Buttercup’s low growl cut him off. The dog stood bristling beside Emily’s chair, his lips pulled back just enough to show impressive teeth.
“Good boy.” George extended his hand toward the dog. “We haven’t met, but—”
Buttercup turned his massive head away with deliberate disdain and pressed against Emily’s leg instead. The child wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his fur.
George’s hand dropped. Even the dog found him wanting.
They gathered at the table, leaving too much space between them. Aaron watched Louise serve herself with careful precision, her fingers white against the spoon. She kept her gaze fixed on the dish.
The space between them felt vast as an ocean, even though only polished mahogany separated their places.
“Must we leave today?” Emily’s question dropped into the silence like a stone into still water.
Louise’s hand stilled on her teacup. “Darling, we’ve discussed this. The duke and Lady Merrow have been more than generous, but we have our own home.”
“I don’t want our own home.” Emily’s lower lip trembled. “I want to stay here with Buttercup and Lady Merrow and Cook, who makes special biscuits and—” Her voice cracked. “This is home.”
“Emily.” Louise reached for her sister, but the child jerked away.
“No! You don’t understand! We were happy here. Really happy. Not pretend happy like when you smile, but your eyes are sad.” Tears rolled down Emily’s cheeks. “Why do we have to leave?”
She bolted from the room before anyone could answer. Louise rose to follow, but Emily’s footsteps were already thundering up the stairs.
Louise pressed her fingers to her temples. Aaron’s hand moved involuntarily toward hers across the table, then froze. George watched the aborted gesture with sudden, sharp interest.
“Excuse me.” Louise fled after her sister without looking at any of them.
The morning room fell silent except for Buttercup’s whine as he padded after them.
“Well.” Cecilia set down her teacup with unnecessary force. “George, you’re an idiot.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me. Your sisters found safety and happiness here, and now you’re dragging them back to that cold house with its memories and debts.”
George’s jaw clenched. “It’s their home.”
“A home you abandoned.” Cecilia rose from her chair with regal fury. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to comfort a heartbroken child whose world is being upended. Again.”
She swept out, leaving Aaron alone with George. They sat in mutual discomfort, the breakfast cooling between them.
George stared at the door they’d gone through, then turned to Aaron with an expression of dawning comprehension. “She loves you.”
Aaron’s gaze snapped to George, who seemed to have found his courage again in his sisters’ absence.
“Louise. She watches you when she thinks no one’s looking. Like you hung the moon and stars specifically for her.”
Aaron picked up his coffee cup to avoid responding. The liquid had gone cold, bitter on his tongue.
“And you love her.” George continued with the air of a man with nothing left to lose. “You look at her like she’s the only real light in a world of shadows.”
“Your point?”
“My point is that I’m taking her away and you’re letting me.” George leaned forward, his earlier timidity completely gone. “Why?”
Aaron set down his cup with excessive care. “Because it’s what’s best for them.”
“According to whom?”
“According to society. According to propriety. According to—”
“According to fear.” George’s voice held surprising compassion. “You think you’re protecting her, but you’re just afraid.”
Aaron’s hand clenched on the table. “You know nothing about—”
“I know I ran because I was afraid. Afraid of facing my failures, afraid of disappointing them more than I already had.” George’s fingers drummed against the wood. “Don’t make my mistake, Your Grace. Don’t let fear dressed up as nobility cost you everything.”
Before Aaron could respond, footsteps approached. Louise appeared in the doorway, Emily’s hand in hers. The child’s face was blotchy from crying, but she held her head high.
Behind them, Cecilia wore an expression of grim determination.
“Emily has agreed to help me walk Buttercup every morning,” Cecilia announced. “The beast is simply too much for me to manage alone.”
Emily’s face lit up like Christmas morning. “Really? Every day?”
“Every single day. Rain or shine. Though perhaps we’ll skip the blizzards.”
Emily threw her arms around Cecilia’s waist, then turned to Louise with hope blazing in her eyes. “May I? Please?”
Louise’s gaze found Aaron’s across the room. He saw everything she couldn’t say written in the depths of her eyes. The longing. The resignation. The questions she wouldn’t ask because she already knew the answers.
“Of course, darling.” Louise’s voice emerged steady despite the tears Aaron could see her fighting back. “We’ll visit every morning.”
“With Miss Whitfield, too?” Emily looked at the governess who had appeared in the doorway. “She’s teaching me German.”
“Ja, kleine.” Miss Whitfield smiled. “We will continue your lessons wherever you are.”
Within an hour, their meager belongings were packed. Aaron stood in the entrance hall, watching George direct the loading of a hired carriage. Louise helped Emily into her coat while the child clung to Buttercup, whispering promises into his fur.
“Every morning,” Emily told the dog solemnly. “I’ll bring treats from Cook.”
Buttercup’s tail drooped as if he understood perfectly.
Aaron wanted to speak, wanted to find words that would change everything. But his throat closed around every attempt. This was right. This was necessary. This was—
Louise stood before him, properly distant, properly polite. “Thank you, Your Grace. For everything.”
Their eyes met, held. The world narrowed to that singular point of connection, everything they couldn’t say passing between them in silence. Aaron’s hand twitched toward hers, then fell.
She turned away and gathered Emily. Walked through his door and out of his life with footsteps that echoed like drumbeats in the marble hall.
Aaron stood frozen until the carriage rolled away, then retreated to his study. The brandy decanter called to him despite the early hour. He poured three fingers, then set the glass down untouched.
The house felt cavernous. Empty. Wrong.
Through the window, he watched Buttercup pad through the garden, sniffing at places where Emily had played. The dog looked as bereft as Aaron felt.
“This is for the best.” He spoke aloud to the empty room, needing to hear the words even if he couldn’t believe them.
His mother’s poetry book sat on his desk where he’d left it the night before. It fell open to a page marked with his mother’s careful script beside Lord Byron’s words:
“The great object of life is sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain.”
His mother’s note read: “Better pain than numbness. Better to break than never to have bent. Love, even lost, proves we lived.”
Aaron closed the book and pressed his palms against his eyes. The hollow ache in his chest expanded with every breath, filling spaces that Louise and Emily had occupied with their laughter, their trust, their love, he didn’t deserve and couldn’t accept.
Cecilia appeared in the doorway without knocking. “You’re a fool.”
“So, I’ve been told.”
“They’re gone.”
“I’m aware.”
She crossed the room and placed her hand on his shoulder. “It’s not too late.”
Aaron looked up at his aunt, seeing his mother’s eyes in her face, his mother’s stubborn faith in love’s triumph.
“Yes,” he said quietly, finally. “It is.”
Buttercup’s mournful howl echoed from the garden, and Aaron envied the dog’s freedom to grieve openly what Aaron would mourn in private for the rest of his life.