“I shall see you later, Your Grace,” she said.
The promise beneath the words nearly finished him.
Then she turned and left with Aaron and the dog, her skirts whispering through the doorway, leaving the study in ruins and Rowan gripping the edge of his desk like he had just survived a battle.
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.
