“Yes,” Frederick said sharply, stepping forward. “I did. And I am sorry for it. But your sister was miserable, and I couldn’t bear to bring her back.”
Juliet made a small sound. “Frederick.”
Rowan tensed. “You betrayed me.”
“Yes,” Frederick said. “I am sorry, my friend. I deserve your anger.”
Rowan stared at him. The room seemed too small for the force moving through him. His hands wanted something to close around. But beyond Frederick, Juliet was crying silently, and behind him, Emmeline had not spoken once.
Slowly, Rowan turned. His chest tightened so viciously that he could barely breathe.
“Did you know?”
Her eyes lifted to his and he saw everything in them. Fear. Shame. Pain. And something worse: love, or the dangerous beginning of it, wounded before it had even found the courage to stand.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“How long?”
She swallowed. “Since yesterday.”
He went cold. So cold that the anger seemed to draw inward, hardening into something that could cut cleanly.
“You knew for one whole day,” he said.
“I discovered her by accident when Aaron and I came here. She caught me when I nearly fainted. I did not know before that.”
“And instead of telling your husband the truth,” Rowan said, each word roughened by the effort to keep his voice steady, “you chose to hide it.”
Emmeline flinched as though he had struck her.
Juliet stepped forward again, her face wet with tears. “She did not tell you, because I begged her to,” she said, her voice breaking. “She did not agree easily. She told me I had until today to gather my courage and come to you myself. She said if I did not tell you, then she would.”
Rowan’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
“I was going to tell you,” Emmeline continued, stepping toward him, eyes wide. “Tonight. When you came to my chamber, I had already left my room to find you. I tried to tell you there was something I needed to say, but you said there was no time. You said there was urgent business.”
A terrible silence followed.
Rowan remembered it then. Her standing in the corridor outside her chamber, pale and sleepless, her hair half-unpinned, one hand clutched at the edge of her gown. He had cut her off.
He had not wanted explanations then. He had wanted movement, obedience, urgency. And now the memory sat between them like another blade.
Frederick’s voice was quieter when he spoke again. “She was trying to do the right thing, Rowan.”
Rowan heard them. He understood the argument. He could even see the logic of it, distantly, through the red and black ruin inside him. Juliet had asked. Frederick had orchestrated. Emmeline had been conflicted. Emmeline had set a limit. Emmeline had been on her way to him.
But logic did not ease the wound.
Frederick had betrayed his confidence and Juliet had disobeyed him. But Emmeline had made him believe he could be known and not deceived. And even if she had meant to tell him, even if the delay had been mercy rather than malice, she had still carried the secret for a day while he had trusted her completely.
Emmeline took a step closer. “Rowan.”
His name in her mouth nearly broke him. God, he wanted to go to her even then. Wanted to seize her face in his hands and demand she undo it, demand she look at him the way she hadlooked at him in bed, open and trembling. The want burned through the betrayal, making it worse. He hated that he still wanted her now.
“I am sorry,” she said. Her voice shook, but she did not look away.
He breathed out slowly and turned away from her before his face betrayed him.
