He nodded and crossed the room to show her. The drawing was earnest and wildly inaccurate, all sails and flags and a row of uneven little circles that might have been portholes or cannon mouths, depending upon the interpretation.
At the bottom, in careful, wavering letters, he had written:FOR FATHER.
Emmeline’s throat tightened.
“It is beautiful,” she said.
Aaron looked pleased for one fragile second, then worried. “Do you think it will make him smile?”
The question undid some quiet seam inside her.
For three days, Ironford House had been holding its breath. Rowan rose early, shut himself in his study, and emerged only when duty required it. Whenever Emmeline entered a room, his gaze found her at once and then withdrew with such careful control that it felt more intimate than indifference could have done.
“I think,” Emmeline said carefully, “that your father will be very glad to know you thought of him.”
Aaron’s gaze dropped to Biscuit, and he released the puppy at last. Biscuit tumbled to the rug, shook himself, then immediately climbed into Emmeline’s lap.
“I brought him to cheer you,” Aaron said.
The ache in her chest sharpened. “Me?”
“You do not smile much either.”
Emmeline stared at him.
Children noticed everything one wished to hide. Their innocence made them merciless.
“I am sorry,” she whispered.
Aaron’s brow furrowed. “You need not be sorry. I only thought Biscuit could help.”
Biscuit, who had placed his chin upon her wrist, sighed with theatrical exhaustion. Under other circumstances, she might have laughed properly. Instead, the sound that escaped her was soft and broken enough that Aaron studied her with open concern.
“He does help,” she said, stroking the puppy’s silky head. “Very much.”
But it was not enough. Nothing was. The heaviness remained, settled into the walls, into the carpets, into the silence at supper when Rowan sat across from her and treated her with such immaculate courtesy that she wanted to weep.
Worse still, her body had begun to betray her.
The faintness came in small waves, never long enough to frighten anyone properly, but often enough that Emmeline had begun to fear it herself. Standing too quickly made the room tilt. Too much heat in the conservatory sent a shiver through her knees. Once she had had to grip the back of a chair until the black spots at the edge of her vision cleared.
By the fourth day, she could not stand it any longer, so Emmeline went to see her father.
Weston House felt quieter than she remembered, smaller than Ironford House, but warmer in a way that struck her the moment she stepped through the familiar entrance. Her father came to the drawing room with his spectacles still in one hand, his gray hair slightly disordered, his expression softening the moment he saw her.
“My dear,” he said. “This is a lovely surprise.”
The tenderness in his voice nearly broke her composure.
She went to him and allowed him to kiss her cheek. “I hope I am not interrupting you.”
“You could never interrupt me.”
That was not true, and they both knew it, but she loved him for saying it.
They sat together near the window, tea between them, and for several minutes, Emmeline managed to speak of ordinary things. The weather. Aaron’s puppy. Juliet’s return, though she smoothed the edges of that tale until it scarcely resembled truth.Her father listened, nodding gently, but his eyes never stopped studying her.
At last, he set down his cup. “What is the matter?”
