“I’m in no hurry. I remember this place.”
“You went to school here?”
He nodded. “Until I was seven. I missed a lot of the next year because of the turmoil surrounding my father’s disappearance. After we moved, I was provided with tutors, then I attended school and university in Valmont. They were admirable places of learning, but never had the atmosphere I remember from the Castle School.”
She thought the same and considered herself fortunate to be able to enroll Jeffrey in such a wonderful place, one of the key reasons she was determined not to jeopardize her position at the castle. Did Rowe suspect that when he threatened her job in order to gain her cooperation?
A fresh wave of anger toward him swamped some of the attraction. Whatever his effect on her, she should remember that he wasn’t above using blackmail to get his way. “You must have more pressing things to do than wait for a group of schoolkids,” she said pointedly.
“Undoubtedly, but they can wait. I want to meet your son.”
Fear shrilled through her like a fire alarm. She didn’t want him to meet Jeffrey. Rowe had no idea of his relationship to the child. If he remembered Natalie’s letter at all, he wouldn’t necessarily connect Natalie with Kirsten. Bond wasn’t an uncommon surname. As far as he knew, Jeffrey was Kirsten’s son. As long as she kept it that way, she and her child were safe.
She didn’t feel safe at all.
Other parents drifted up to collect their children. Many greeted her warmly, although they left her alone in deference to the man beside her. She was aware of their speculative glances at Rowe and their murmurs of recognition. The automatic preening gestures from the women, touching their hair and smoothing their dresses, weren’t lost on her, either.
She resisted the urge to feel proud of having Rowe at her side, but it was hard when he was obviously making such an impression on the other mothers. Occasionally she had wished for a more conventional family structure, for Jeffrey’s sake if not her own, and Rowe’s presence gave her more of a taste of what it would be like than she wanted.
He could never be part of that structure, she told herself firmly. She would work with him because she must, but to think of him as anything but her temporary boss was courting disaster.
The doors of the school swung open and a group of six-year-olds surged through, marshaled by their teacher. Among them, Kirsten spotted Jeffrey with his best friend, Michael, a red-haired terror whose father was head groundsman at the castle.
Jeffrey looked up and saw her, his small face lighting with pleasure. She felt an answering rush inside her, filling her with such love for him that she could barely restrain herself from pushing through the crowd of children and grabbing him up in a hug. She knew he considered himself a big boy now and wouldn’t thank her for being what he called smoochy in front of his school friends.
Seeing the maternal pride and love on Kirsten’s face as the children appeared, Rowe felt a stirring of jealousy. When he had attended school here, he had been collected by a nanny; his mother hadn’t collected him until the day his father vanished, and her appearance at the school was indelibly connected with tragedy in his mind. These days the unexpected appearance of his mother still sparked a twinge of anxiety in him, until he assured himself that nothing was wrong.
Kirsten’s son apparently had no such problem. From the way the little red-haired boy and his darker-haired companion made a beeline for her, the child was eager to be with her.
Before they reached her, the redhead peeled off and threw himself into the arms of a man in castle uniform waiting on the sidelines, proudly thrusting a paper kite under the man’s nose. “Daddy, Daddy! Look what I made.”
The dark-haired child came to Kirsten, also trailing an object made of brightly colored paper. “I made a kite, too, Mommy. We flew them in the garden today. Mine flew the best.”
“I’m sure it did, sweetheart.” Crouching down, Kirsten enveloped the boy in a hug, her eyes gleaming.
Rowe watched them, feeling a frown furrow his brow. His glance went from the red-haired child chattering to the man he called Daddy and back to Kirsten. Her son had inherited none of her bright coloring, but there was no mistaking the bond between them.
He suppressed a smile as he saw Jeffrey squirm out of his mother’s arms. He was at the age when being cuddled in public was embarrassing. He had felt the same at that age, Rowe thought. Releasing Jeffrey with a wry expression, Kirsten stood up.
Only then did she seem to remember Rowe’s presence. Color flooded her face and she took the child’s hand in what looked to Rowe like a protective gesture. He didn’t like the way he felt left out. He and Kirsten might not have gotten off to the best start, but he had tried to smooth things over. What more did she want?
“Jeffrey, say hello to Viscount Aragon. Rowe, this is Jeffrey,” she said. He got the feeling she would have preferred not to make the introduction.
“Hello, Viscount Aragon,” Jeffrey repeated dutifully. Being the kind of school it was, the children were taught early how to behave around royalty.
“Hello, son,” he said. He dropped to the child’s level and met huge, dark eyes that struck him as familiar somehow. Probably because Jeffrey looked a lot like himself at the same age. Same lustrous dark hair falling over his eyes. As a boy, Rowe had been forever brushing his hair out his eyes. For a meeting with the monarch when he was five, his nanny had even used her hairspray on it in desperation, he recalled with an inward shudder.
He offered his hand and the little boy shook it solemnly, the comparative size of their hands giving Rowe a strange sensation. This was how a son of his would look if he had one. In fact…He dismissed the thought out of hand. Kirsten’s record didn’t name her child’s father, but Rowe knew without a shadow of doubt that if they had ever gone to bed together, the occasion would be burned into his memory.
Kirsten wasn’t the kind of woman you made love to, then forgot about. He wondered if some man had done just that, or if Kirsten had made the choice of single parenthood herself. Either way, Rowe knew if Jeffrey had been his son, he would never have walked away, no matter what.
“Mind if I take a look at your kite?”
Jeffrey glanced at his mother for reassurance. She nodded and Jeffrey held out the mangled paper object. “Miss Sims put the string on, because we’re not s’posed to use the stapler yet, but I did the rest,” he explained.
Rowe restrained the smile he felt tugging at his mouth. “You can’t be too careful with staplers,” he agreed. “I got a staple in my thumb once.”
Jeffrey looked fascinated. “Did it hurt?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe, and there was lots of blood. I didn’t make a fuss, though.”
No, he wouldn’t, Kirsten thought, hovering nearby. One quality she suspected Jeffrey had inherited from Rowe was the desire to keep his feelings concealed.
Now where had that idea come from? She barely knew the man, except through her sister’s experience. She didn’t want to concern herself with his feelings or, worse, see signs of him in Jeffrey. Jeffrey was her child, hers alone. Watching them together as Rowe admired the kite, she couldn’t help wondering for how much longer.
“I have to get Jeffrey home,” she said, unable
