Rowan answered before she could. “Your aunt is home.”
Aaron looked up at him. “But why is everyone?—”
“She is home,” Rowan repeated, and the words closed the question like a door. “That is all you need to know tonight.”
Emmeline’s chest tightened. She watched Aaron’s face fall slightly in confusion.
Juliet bent quickly, cupping Aaron’s face with both hands. “I am tired, darling. That is all. I have missed you very much.”
Aaron’s expression softened at once. “I missed you too.”
Rowan turned away.
The movement was small, but Emmeline felt it as if he had shut her out with his whole body. He crossed the hall without another word and disappeared toward his study.
Juliet flinched at the sound of the door closing.
Emmeline stood frozen for a moment. She had imagined Rowan angry, shouting. She had not imagined that his silence would make her feel abandoned while standing in her own home.
“Goodnight,” Emmeline managed, and her voice sounded almost calm. “You should rest. Both of you.”
Aaron looked at her. “Will you not stay?”
She wanted to kneel beside him, gather him close, and explain with gentleness what the adults around him kept ruining. But her own composure was not trustworthy. She would break.
“Not tonight, darling,” she said softly. “I am tired too.”
She turned before either of them could see her face change and went upstairs.
Her chamber was dark when she entered, the air scented faintly of lavender. It was a room she had come to associate with Rowan’s hands, with the low rasp of his voice in the dark, with the terrifying intimacy of being wanted by him.
Tonight, it felt like a room belonging to a stranger.
Emmeline removed her gloves slowly and set them upon the dressing table, stared at them for a moment, then lifted her gaze to the mirror.
She looked pale. Her eyes were too bright, her mouth too still. No wonder he had noticed.
A knock came at the door and her heart leapt so violently that her hand dropped at once.
“Come in,” she said.
Rowan entered.
The sight of him stole everything from her. He had removed his coat but not his anger. It remained in the width of his shoulders, in the severe line of his mouth, in the gray eyes that fixed upon her and made the air difficult to breathe.
He closed the door.
“Why?” he asked, almost whispering.
Emmeline’s throat tightened. “Rowan?—”
“Why did you keep it from me?”
A sharp pain bloomed beneath her ribs. Her body reacted after, fingers curling against polished wood, chin lifting. She could not bear to meet him as though already condemned.
“Because Juliet was frightened,” she said. “Because she begged me for time.”
“And that was enough?” The words were cold, precise enough to cut.
