She tiptoed to the door, glancing over at the duke as she went. His eyes were closed, his breathing deep and even.Good.
She opened the door as slowly as she could, freezing when it creaked a little. She glanced over her shoulder, but no one had moved. Letting out a sigh of relief, she slipped through, closed the door behind her, and hurried down the hall.
There was a door that led to a balcony, and she stepped out onto it, eager for a breath of fresh air. The night was bitingly cold, but that was all right. The cold was energizing, and it felt better than the warm stuffiness of the room she’d left behind. Bridget looked out over the grounds, which were small but well-tended and a pleasant sight in the moonlight. She sighed. This was going to be a long winter.
“What are you doing?”
She whirled, gasping, and backed up so quickly that her back collided with the balcony railing and she almost lost her balance. The duke’s hand flashed out and caught her before she could fall.
“I thought you were asleep,” she managed.
“I was, until you snuck out of the room,” he said. “Then I had to follow you.”
“Why? Am I not permitted to step out on my own?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped.
She didn’t think she was. Things had been increasingly difficult since this man had walked into her life earlier this evening, and Bridget wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find out that he expected to control her every move. Why else would he have followed her out tonight instead of staying in the room with his newly recovered daughter?
His scowl deepened. “I thought you might be running away,” he said. “Returning to your orphanage. And if you were, I thought I should know about it.”
“Why would I do that?” She was stunned. “I had to fight to get you to allow me to come with you in the first place. Do you really think I’d turn around and leave at the earliest opportunity? Haven’t I made it clear enough that I think Emma needs me and I don’t want to abandon her? You still think I’m just trying to leave?”
“I don’t know,” the duke said. “I see the way you look at me. I hear the way you speak to me. You have no respect for me. No regard. You may have decided that you have no interest in being a part of my household—that helping Emma isn’t worth it.
“If you think that, you don’t know me at all,” Bridget said coolly.
He folded his arms across his chest. “Of course, I don’t know you at all,” he said. “I just met you today. The only things I know about you are that you work at an orphanage and that you insist on having your own way more than any woman I’ve ever met.”
“My way? You truly believe anything that’s happening is my way?” She scoffed. “It wasn’t my idea to leave the only home I know behind at a moment’s notice, Your Grace. It isn’t my idea to be sharing a room at an inn with a man I hardly know. It certainly isn’t my idea to be posing as your wife. Can you imagine what people will say if they hear about this? We’ll be ruined.”
He shook his head. “We’re far away from anyone who would care,” he said. “No one is going to hear anything, apart from the innkeeper, and innkeepers don’t pay too much attention to these matters. He may or may not know there’s no Duchess of Greystone, but he’s unlikely to give it much thought. What he cares about is the coin in his pocket. And as for me, what I care about is my daughter. You told me that she needed you. You told me you needed to be with us for her sake. Is that true?”
Bridget squared her shoulders. “I believe it is.”
“Then why are you sneaking off in the night like some common thief?”
“For heaven’s sake—I stepped out of the room to get some air because I couldn’t sleep,” she snapped. “I’m sorry you find that so suspicious, but it’s nothing for you to lose any sleep over.”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” the duke said.
“You looked like you were sleeping.”
“Well, I wasn’t. I was awake the whole time,” he told her. “You’re not the only one who finds our accommodations difficult.”
That was hard to believe. Perhaps he was bothered by having a near-stranger in the room with him, but it wasn’t the same. He was so much stronger than she was, so much larger. She was no threat to him. “The arrangements were your idea,” she reminded him.
“Of course they weren’t.” He scowled. “I didn’t want this any more than you did. I wanted to share a room with my child. It’s that simple. You’re the one who insisted that she couldn’t leave your side.”
“You saw her. She didn’t want to leave my side,” Bridget reminded him. “She was afraid to be away from me.”
“Well, she’s not going to get over that fear if we keep indulging it,” the duke said. “She needs to be shown that nothing bad willhappen to her if she separates from you. Until she sees that for herself, she’s just going to continue clinging like this, and she’ll never begin to heal from what she’s been through.”
“You’re right,” Bridget said.
He raised his eyebrows. “I’m right? I thought you disagreed with everything I was doing and saying.”
“Not everything,” she countered. “I don’t disagree when you say something true.”
