“No, I agree completely,” Bridget said. She took the seat opposite Agnes. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”
Agnes let out a short laugh. “I thought you never would.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I knew this was coming, of course,” Agnes said. “You could only be here for so long without wanting to know more about my brother. I was sure you were going to ask me the very first night. But I suppose you needed time to settle in before trying to find out why he is the way he is.”
“Well… to tell you the truth, that wasn’t what I was going to ask,” Bridget said.
Agnes raised an eyebrow. “No?”
“I don’t understand him, don’t get me wrong,” Bridget said. “But I don’t think I’ll be here long enough for it to matter. I think he and Emma are on the road to getting along well with each other again. Once he’s capable of taking care of her and making her feel at ease, he’ll be sending me back to the orphanage, so there’s no need for me to understand very much about him, really.”
“I suppose you have a point there,” Agnes said. “But what did you want to know?”
“It’s Emma that interests me,” Bridget said. “Specifically, I was wondering what happened the night she went missing, because she hasn’t been able to tell me much, and the duke… well, you know. He’s not the easiest person in the world to talk to.”
“Not by a long shot,” Agnes laughed. Then she sobered slightly. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I can tell you much more than you already know.”
“I don’t know anything,” Bridget said. “Anything you could offer would be helpful.”
“I wasn’t there when it happened,” Agnes said. “The only thing I know is that Reeves and Emma were making their annual visit to Emma’s mother’s grave. They go every year on the anniversary of her death. They were gone longer than I thought they would be, but I didn’t think too much of it until Reeves came back shouting that Emma had been snatched on the road home. I always expected that those visits might start to take a little longer when Emma got older. I imagined she would grow more curious about her mother.”
“What was her mother like?” Bridget asked.
Agnes hesitated. “The truth is, we didn’t know Rosalie that well,” she said. “Her marriage to my brother was an arrangement. She was a part of the inheritance that was waiting for him after the war, if he wanted her. He was never opposed to the idea of marriage—I think he saw the social benefit—and he wanted an heir, so he went along with it. But Rosalie died only a year later, shortly after Emma’s birth. She was a good woman, but we didn’t have much time to get to know her, so I couldn’t tell you that much about her. Not as much as I’d like to. Not as much as I’m sure Emma is going to want to know, one of these days.” She sighed. “It’s tragic that we can’t give her more than a year of her mother. I don’t know whether Emma has fully felt that lack yet, but I know that she will.”
“That is sad,” Bridget said softly. Her little charge’s life had already been full of grief before this kidnapping had even happened.
The two women sat in silence for a moment, but then Bridget spoke again.
“He wanted an heir—but he doesn’t seem disappointed that his child isn’t a boy,” she said. She was thinking of her own parents. They had never been happy with a daughter, her father in particular. It was a fact that had hung like a shadow over her entire life.
“He loves Emma,” Agnes said simply. “She means the world to him, even if she isn’t the heir he once dreamed of. You may notsee it yet, Bridget, but my brother is a good father. All he wants is for Emma to be happy. But it’s difficult for a man raising a little girl on his own in the best of circumstances—and these are hardly the best of circumstances.”
Bridget nodded slowly. She could see what Agnes meant. And she did believe that the duke cared for his daughter. It was obvious that he did, and it was obvious that the current situation caused him a great deal of pain and suffering. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him to lose Emma, to have to wonder where she was, if she were safe, whether he would ever see her again. Bridget wasn’t a parent herself, so she could only guess at the feelings, but she had cared for many children in her time, so she thought her guess was probably pretty good.
The door to the library opened. The duke stood there, his hands on his daughter’s shoulders. “Agnes,” he said, “I wonder if you might take Emma to bed for me so that I can speak with Bridget for a moment.”
“Of course.” Agnes held out her hand to Emma, who took it. She glanced back at Bridget. “You know,” she said, “if you want to borrow that book I was reading… I’ve read it many times, and I think you might enjoy it.”
She winked at Bridget, then led Emma from the room.
The duke had left the door open, probably for the sake of propriety, and he watched as his sister and daughterdisappeared down the hall before turning back to Bridget. “What book was she talking about?”
“I don’t know what it was,” Bridget confessed. She pointed to the table where Agnes had left the book she’d been reading. “I didn’t get a look at it. It’s nice of her to offer it to me, though.”
The duke gave a snort. “She’s teasing you. That’s one of her romances. My sister loves those books.”
“Oh,” Bridget felt heat rush into her face. “I thought… well, I thought she was just being kind.”
“I’m sure she meant it kindly, but she also meant to have a bit of a laugh. You, being a young, single lady, coming from that orphanage… I’m sure she thinks you haven’t been exposed to anything.”
I haven’t. Bridget didn’t say that aloud, though. This was embarrassing enough. “Your Grace…”
“You can call me Reeves,” the duke interjected.
“No, I couldn’t.”
