“Well, that’s generous of you.”
“I mean it,” she said. “I think you’re right that she needs to learn to separate herself from me if she’s going to heal. She needs to see that she can return to her normal life, that I’m not the only safe person for her. But we can’t force her into that lesson. It might need to happen gradually. Ripping her away from the only person who’s made her feel safe recently isn’t the way to go about it. If it were that simple, Iwouldgo back home tonight, because I do not want to be here.”
“You don’t?” He raised his eyebrows.
“I was happy in my life at the orphanage,” she said. “I was doing work that needed to be done, and it made me feel good to do it. And now I’m here at this inn with you, pretending to be your wife, and no matter what you say about it, Your Grace, I am notconvinced that it won’t damage my reputation to have stayed in a room with you.”
“You think it’s going to hurt your reputation and yet you did it anyway?”
“I did it for Emma.” Was this not clear to him? “She’s more important than my reputation. She needs me, and I’ll do whatever I have to. If you don’t feel the same way, I don’t know how to explain it any more clearly, but as her father, youshouldwant to do all you can for her.”
“Of course I do,” he said, his voice a low growl. “I don’t appreciate you insinuating that I might not. She’s my child. I would move heaven and earth for her. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do. She knows that. You might think you’re the only person she can trust, but I assure you it isn’t the case.”
Bridget blew out a breath of air, watching as it turned to fog in the cold winter night. “We don’t have to fight each other.”
“Then stop fighting me,” he said. “Come back to the bedroom. It’s cold out here, and we have a long journey ahead of us tomorrow. That was the whole reason for stopping for the night—to rest up for tomorrow. And now neither one of us is doing that.”
Bridget nodded. Even though she found him frustrating, he had a point. But she didn’t know if she would be able to rest while sharing a room with him. It was a discomforting thought.
She looked up at him.
The moonlight had caught his eyes, and for the first time, she noticed that they were bright green, just like Emma’s. In fact, he looked a great deal like Emma, enough to make her embarrassed that she had doubted his claim to be her father. Of course, the two of them were related. Nothing could be more obvious.
And yet, looking at him now, it wasn’t just his similarity to his daughter that stood out to her. He was also deeply, devastatingly attractive. She almost had to look away. It was embarrassing to find someone so handsome. She felt as if he couldn’t help but realize what she was thinking, and heat rose to her cheeks.
If he did notice, he didn’t say anything about it. “Come back to the room,” he told her.
Oh, perfect. Go back to the room with the handsome man who makes me feel like a helpless girl.
But she wasn’t helpless. She had stood up for herself with him. She had convinced him that she ought to come along on this journey. She had convinced him not to separate her from Emma, for the moment. If she could do all that, she could manage to be in a room with him without losing her composure, couldn’t she?
I’ll have to, because he doesn’t see me that way. He doesn’t admire me. He barely tolerates me. And I don’t think much of him either, for that matter! He might be good to look at, but he’s difficult and cantankerous and thinks everything is about him.
Reminding herself how much he frustrated her was a good thing. It made her feel less drawn to him. Her body cooled, and her mind cleared.
“All right,” she agreed. “Back to bed, then.”
“Good,” he said, turning and opening the door behind him, holding it so that she could pass through first. “We set off again first thing in the morning.”
CHAPTER 7
Reeves slept unevenly for the rest of the night.
He felt sure with every passing moment that something was about to go wrong. It was impossible to relax. He had guessed that having Emma back would be disconcerting in this way—that he’d worry constantly about losing her again. That was painful, but not unexpected. But he hadn’t guessed, and never could have, what it would be like to have someone like Miss Wetherby tagging along. He had never imagined, even when he’d told her that she could come, that he would fear losing hertoo.
Monstrous of her to insist on joining me, to persuade me that Emma needs her, and then to make me fear her running away!
He wasn’t being fair, and he knew it, of course. He understood that Miss Wetherby had not been running away. He believed what she had said about going out for some air.
But she could have guessed how sneaking out the way she had would impact him, couldn’t she? She could have anticipated that it wouldn’t look good. Either she had guessed, and she hadn’t cared, or else she hadn’t bothered to think very hard about the impact she was having, and either way, he was bothered. It was going to be more difficult than he had anticipated to have her around.
As the sky outside the window began to lighten, he finally dozed off, though it was the kind of sleep that left him aware of the fact that he was sleeping and fretful that he was going to be woken from it at any moment. He did his best to sink deeper into slumber, but it was impossible—every sound jarred him, made him wonder if he was hearing the door opening and one of his travel companions slipping out on him yet again.
When he finally awoke, he felt as exhausted as if he hadn’t slept at all. He lay on his back on the settee, aching from trying to fit on the too-small surface, staring up at the ceiling. Though he knew they needed to get back on the road as quickly as possible, a part of him wanted to delay, to lie here as long as he could. The thought of forcing himself back into the carriage and bumping along the road home was abysmal after that wretched night of poor sleep.
It wasn’t going to get any easier, though. With a low groan, he forced himself upright and looked over at the bed.
Emma was sitting up, her eyes wide. When she saw him, she pressed a finger to her lips and pointed to the pile of blankets beside her.
