“May I Eat What You Didn’t Finish?” My Son Asks the Cold Duke—Unaware He’s His Father

Chapter 12

Julian heard the story secondhand, from Mrs. Vale, who delivered it with a straight face and a twinkle in her eye. He found Rowan in the stillroom, packing preserves into jars, and stood in the doorway watching her for a moment before she noticed him.

“Sam says I may call him whatever I like,” he said.

Rowan’s hands stilled on the jar. “He told me.”

“He also told me that you eat when he reminds you to, but not always when you should.”

“He talks too much.”

“He talks exactly the right amount.” Julian crossed the room, stopping a respectful distance away. “Rowan. I want to do this properly. I want to court you. I want to give you time. I want to earn your trust, not demand it.”

She looked at him, this man who had been a boy when she loved him, who had become a stranger when she needed him most, who was now standing before her with nothing but hope in his eyes.

“Seven years,” she said.

“I know.”

“Seven years of hunger. Seven years of lies. Seven years of raising our son alone.”

“I know.”

“Seven years of thinking you had thrown me away like a mistake.”

His voice cracked. “I know, Rowan. I know.”

She set down the jar. Her hands were trembling. “I do not know how to forgive you.”

“I know.” He stepped closer, close enough to touch, though he did not. “I do not ask you to forgive me today. I only ask you to let me stay. Let me be here. Let me prove that the boy who loved you in the orchard is still somewhere inside this man.”

The silence stretched. Outside, Sam’s laughter rang across the courtyard as he chased a leaf chased by the wind.

Rowan thought of the letter. The years of shame. The cold rooms and empty cupboards. She thought of the night she had held Sam for the first time, hours after his birth, when she had looked at his tiny face and promised him that she would be enough.

She thought of Julian’s hand on hers in the library. His voice when he said her real name. The way he had looked at Sam as if the boy were the most precious thing in the world.

“I do not know how to forgive you,” she said again. “But I am willing to learn.”

The first snowfall came to Northwood Abbey in late November, blanketing the grounds in white. Sam had never seen snow fall on a place that belonged to him, and he spent the morning running through the gardens with the boot boy, leaving footprints in the fresh powder.

Rowan watched from the library window, a cup of tea warming her hands. The tea was Julian’s — imported from India, rich and fragrant. She had tried to refuse it at first, insisting that kitchen tea was perfectly adequate. Julian had simply looked at her until she stopped arguing.

“You are stubborn,” she said now, without turning.

“I learned from you.” He came to stand beside her, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. “Sam asked me if he could have a sword.”

“A sword?”

“A wooden one. For practice. He says he needs to defend the abbey from geese.”

Rowan’s lips twitched. “There are no geese at Northwood.”

“Not yet. But he is planning ahead.”

She shook her head, watching Sam’s small figure dart across the snow. “He is too much like you.”

“Impossible. He is too much like you.” Julian’s voice softened. “He has your heart. Your stubbornness. Your habit of feeding people who forget to eat.”

Rowan’s eyes burned. She blinked quickly, focusing on the snow.

“Mrs. Fletcher is better,” she said. “The medicine you sent helped.”

“Good.”

“She asked about you. She remembers you as a boy. She said you once helped her carry firewood when you were twelve.”

“I remember.” Julian’s voice was quiet. “She gave me a biscuit and told me I would grow up to be a good man. I thought about that biscuit a lot, in the years after you left.”

Rowan looked at him. His profile was sharp against the white light from the window, his jaw set, his eyes fixed on the garden where Sam was now attempting to build a snowman with limited success.

“I thought about you,” she said. “Every day.”

He turned to her. The air between them felt thin, charged with something that had been waiting for seven years to find its way back.

“Rowan—”

“Don’t.” She held up a hand, though her voice was gentle. “Don’t say anything you’ll regret.”

“I won’t regret it.” He took her hand, slowly, giving her time to pull away. “I have regretted too many silences. I will not add another.”

She did not pull away. Her fingers were cold, and his were warm, and the contact felt like a door opening somewhere deep inside her chest.

“I am afraid,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“I am afraid that if I let myself love you again, something will take it away.”

“I know.” He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “I am afraid too. But I would rather be afraid with you than safe without you.”

Sam’s voice rang out from the garden. “Mama! Come see! The snowman looks like Mrs. Vale!”

Rowan laughed — a real laugh, the kind that surprised her. She looked at Julian, and for a moment, she saw the boy from the orchard looking back at her.

“Come,” she said, pulling her hand free. “Before he decides the snowman looks like you.”