“I have a generous mind,” Frederick said lightly, shifting in his chair as he spoke.
Rowan’s eyes narrowed, and the faintest trace of amusement touched his mouth. “Are you smitten?”
Frederick choked so violently on his drink that he had to turn his head aside, one hand pressed to his chest while his face flushed an unmistakable red.
The sound was so undignified that Rowan nearly smiled despite himself. Frederick reached for his handkerchief, coughed once, and glared with more offense than force.
“Smitten?” he repeated. “Good God, Rowan, you wound me.”
“You are blushing.”
“I am flushed from the brandy.”
“You have had half a glass.”
Frederick looked down at the glass as though it had betrayed him. “A potent half.”
Rowan allowed the faintest curve to touch his mouth. “I have known you nearly twenty years, and I have never seen you blush.”
“I have also never heard you discuss your wife’s color with the intensity of a physician examining a fatal contagion.”
The smile vanished as quickly as it had come.
Marriage had changed him. He thought of her in his bed, her sandy blonde hair loosened across his pillow, mouth swollen from his kisses. He wanted her constantly now. He wanted her laughter. Her temper. Her trust.
Frederick drained his glass and stood too suddenly, the chair scraping back beneath him. “I must go.”
Rowan looked up slowly, his eyes narrowing with faint amusement. “To your dancer?”
Frederick adjusted his cuff without looking at him, but his mouth curled. “I might as well visit her and get the matter out of my system.”
“You look very certain that such a remedy will cure you,” Rowan said, leaning back in his chair as he watched the brittle ease in Frederick’s face.
“It has never failed me before,” Frederick replied, his smile bright and unconvincing.
Rowan studied him for another moment, taking in the too-careless set of his shoulders, the bright disorder beneath his charm, and the fact that Frederick was suddenly very interested in his gloves. “Enjoy, then.”
Frederick’s grin returned, but it sat poorly on his face. “Always.”
He left quickly.
Rowan watched him go, unease settling beneath his ribs with quiet persistence.
It was near midnight when the footman knocked on the study door.
Rowan had been working for the better part of three hours, though little of the estate report before him had truly entered his mind. The figures blurred into columns of duty and ink, while his thoughts returned again and again to Emmeline.
“Enter,” he called.
The footman stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He was one of the men Rowan had employed privately in the search for Juliet, a narrow-faced, capable fellow named Pierce.
He bowed once. “Your Grace.”
Rowan set down his pen. “You have something.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Pierce’s eyes flicked once to the closed door, then back. “I found the supplier of the paper used for Lady Juliet’s most recent note.”
Rowan’s body went very still.
