“Well,” Frederick murmured, adjusting his gloves with theatrical calm, “that went about as well as one might hope when a bride disappears, and another appears in her place.”
Rowan turned his head enough to pin him with a flat look. “You are not amusing.”
“No,” Frederick agreed at once, for once sensible enough not to press. “But I am useful, which is why you continue to tolerate me.”
Rowan exhaled once through his nose, the sound almost a huff, and reached out to clap a hand against Frederick’s shoulder. “You were useful.”
Frederick blinked at the rare praise, then grinned faintly. “I shall have that embroidered on a pillow.”
Rowan would have answered, but a smaller body collided with the side of his coat before the words formed.
“F-Father!”
Aaron had all but skipped across the yard, the solemnity that had been forced upon him earlier now broken into urgent curiosity, his dark hair falling into his eyes.
The boy stopped in front of him and tipped his face upward. “Who was th-that p-pretty lady y-you w-were standing with?”
The question arrived so abruptly that Rowan’s thoughts snagged on it for a heartbeat.Pretty lady.It was an innocent child’s phrase, and yet the words struck too close to the thing Rowan had been trying not to dwell on since he had left Lady Emmeline at the other chapel.
Her beauty lingered on him, even now.
He looked down at his son and made himself answer evenly. “Her name is Lady Emmeline Greene. She is an acquaintance of ours.”
Aaron’s eyes widened with immediate interest. “A-an ac-ac-acquaintance?”
“Yes.”
The boy considered this with grave deliberation that always made him seem at once younger and older than his seven years. “Is sh-she c-coming back?”
Rowan’s shoulders tightened. “No, she is not.”
Aaron’s mouth turned down, though only briefly. “Wh-where is A-Aunt J-Juliet?”
There it was again, the question Rowan was already sick of answering and yet could not entirely resent when it came from the child. He bent slightly, enough that his voice did not have to carry.
“Your aunt has gone on a short trip,” he said. “She will return.”
“When?”
“When she is ready.”
Aaron frowned. “B-but wh-why did she leave on th-the w-wedding d-day?”
Because she panicked. Because she ran. Because I do not know where she is, and I am beginning to suspect I do not know her nearly as well as I once believed.
None of that could be given to a child.
Rowan straightened. “That is enough questions.”
Aaron looked briefly stung, though his curiosity did not quite surrender. “D-did the p-pretty lady g-get l-lost too?”
Before Rowan could shape an answer that would not sound harsher than he intended, Frederick swooped in with almost criminal timing.
“I need your help,” he said, dropping into a crouch before Aaron with exaggerated seriousness. “I require a far more important task than locating lost people now.”
Aaron’s attention shifted at once. “Wh-what task?”
Frederick leaned closer as though confiding state secrets. “I need a man of rare discernment to determine whether the cook at Ironford House truly knows how to make a cake worth eating.”
