“No,” Emmeline said, and hated that her voice trembled. “It was not enough. It was terrible. I knew it was terrible.”
“Yet you did it.”
“Yes.”
“I searched for her.” His jaw flexed once. “I sent men across the country while Aaron asked for her.”
“I know.” Her voice broke on that one, and she saw something flicker in his face, but it vanished almost at once. “Do you think I did not carry that?”
“I do not know what you felt,” Rowan said. “You chose not to tell me.”
Emmeline swallowed. “She believed that if she came back before she was ready, she would be forced into obedience again.”
His eyes hardened. “So you agreed with her.”
“I understood why she was afraid,” Emmeline said, stronger now. “That does not mean I thought you a monster.”
“But you thought me dangerous enough to be kept ignorant.”
She flinched.
His eyes caught and he looked as though he regretted the blow. Then his control returned, smoother and colder.
“Juliet is my sister,” he said. “I had the right to decide how and when she returned.”
“No,” Emmeline said, before fear could stop her.
Rowan went still.
She drew a breath, her pulse beating hard in her throat. “No. You had the right to know she was safe. To hear the truth. But not to decide for her.”
The silence that followed was so sharp she could hear the fire settle. His face changed almost imperceptibly into something that looked painfully close to hurt.
“You speak very easily now of rights,” he said. “Where were mine yesterday?”
The words gutted her.
Emmeline took a step toward him. “I was wrong not to tell you.”
“And I am meant to accept that because you werekind?” The contempt in that last word nearly broke her.
Her eyes burned, but she refused to let the tears fall. “Do not make compassion sound like vanity.”
“Do not make betrayal sound like compassion.”
The room seemed to tilt beneath her. She stared at him, seeing the fear buried beneath his anger. He had opened himself by inches, and the first pain had driven him back behind iron. She could almost see him building the wall between them with every word.
“I did not intend to wound you,” she whispered.
“But you did wound me.”
Emmeline had to grip the dressing table to keep from reaching for him.
She moved closer before she knew she had decided to, drawn by the ache in his voice.
“Rowan,” she said softly.
He stepped back. “No.”
