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.
