“Aaron—”
He was already gone, small body cutting across the grass between chairs and skirts and bright summer silk.
Rowan swore under his breath and strode after him.
The boy ran straight to Lady Emmeline, colliding with her skirts.
“Aaron,” she turned at once with immediate softness. “What has happened?”
The boy shook his head, breathing too hard.
“Aaron,” Rowan reached them a moment later. “Come here.”
Aaron’s fingers clutched at the side of Emmeline’s gown. He shook his head again.
“Aaron.”
“No.” The word came muffled, but firm.
Emmeline lifted her gaze to Rowan’s, and in that instant the warmth she gave the child vanished from her face. She looked at him with that steady opposition he had come to recognize too well.
“He is upset,” she said.
“I can see that.”
“Then do not speak to him as though he has committed an offense.”
Rowan’s jaw tightened. “He ran from a conversation.”
“He is a child.”
The words struck too close because they were not wholly untrue.
“Aaron,” Rowan said, forcing his attention back to the boy, “come here.”
Aaron pressed himself more firmly against Emmeline’s side.
Something in Rowan snapped taut. The child was his son.Hisson. And yet, when frightened, he had run not to him, but to the woman Rowan had known for scarcely a fortnight.
“Do not make him more afraid of you than he already is,” Emmeline said, low enough that only he could hear.
He took one step closer. “You presume too much.”
“And you insist on too much,” she shot back, her own voice dropping. “He is not a soldier, Your Grace.”
He barely had time to answer it before Aaron suddenly pulled back enough to look up at him.
“Don’t tell Lady Emmeline off.”
Rowan froze.
There had been no stammer. None.
The realization struck all three of them at once. Aaron seemed not to understand it, only to know that he had spoken and that his father had gone still. Emmeline looked from the boy to Rowan, and the astonishment in her face mirrored his own.
He opened his mouth.
Then Frederick appeared like a man sent by fate solely to rescue the moment.
