Rowan moved when expected, Aaron close at his side again, and together they crossed toward a knot of lords and ladies already brightening with interest at the sight of him. Blackmere introduced him, then the boy, and the attention that had first settled on Rowan with the usual polite hunger shifted at once toward Aaron.
“And this is your son?” Lady Fairford said, bending slightly as though children were some delicate foreign species. “How handsome.”
Aaron said nothing.
“Yes,” Rowan answered.
“How old are you, my dear?” asked Lady Hartwell, smiling too widely.
Aaron’s mouth opened. “S-s?—”
“He is seven,” Rowan said smoothly.
Lord Pembroke laughed. “Shy, is he?”
“No,” Rowan replied. “Discerning.”
That won a few small smiles, but the attention did not ease. Questions kept coming, light at first, then sharper in the way idle questions often became when asked by people who had never been denied the right to satisfy their curiosity.
“Do you ride yet?”
“Does he read Latin?”
“Will he go to Eton?”
Aaron tried once more. “I?—”
“He rides adequately for his age,” Rowan said. “And reads what he ought.”
Mrs. Willoughby, all powder and confidence, tilted her head. “Why does the boy stammer?”
The question landed like a slap.
Rowan looked at her. “He is speaking to strangers.”
“Yes, but does he always speak so?” she pressed, as though discussing a flaw in a horse’s gait.
Blackmere attempted a laugh. “Come now, Mrs. Willoughby?—”
“I only ask out of concern.”
Aaron had gone very still beside him. Rowan felt the change in the boy’s breathing and his small hand curling into itself at his side.
“It is nothing that concerns the company,” Rowan said.
The woman blinked, then smiled but it did not reach her eyes. “Of course. I only thought perhaps, if he were encouraged to slow down and speak clearly?—”
“I s-speak c-clearly,” Aaron burst out, and the effort of forcing the words made his face flush at once.
Lady Hartwell bent toward him, smiling as though coaxing a skittish pet. “There now. Again, but slowly. Take your time.”
Aaron’s eyes widened.
Blood rushed to Rowan’s head. He should end this. He knew he should. Yet for one second, he hesitated, because of that cursed instinct to control the damage himself.
That second was enough.
Aaron shook his head sharply, turned, and bolted.
