“Then she needs to know that the people around her are going to protect her,” Bridget said staunchly. “Now more than ever, she needs us to show her that she isn’t alone.” She looked around at the half-decorated room. “And I think you should cancel this ball.”
“Absolutely not,” Reeves said firmly. “The ball goes ahead as planned.”
“Reeves, really, at a time like this …”
“This is already decided. I am not going to allow someone to break into my house and steal even a scrap of happiness away from my family. I’m not going to show the intruder that he’s scared me. Hehasn’tscared me. I’m alert to him, but I’m not afraid. And we’re going to find out once and for all who it was that kidnapped my daughter!”
His voice rose slightly at the end, and once more, Emma looked over toward the pair of them. Her face was stricken.
Oh, no,Bridget thought, realizing at once where this was almost certainly going.
She didn’t have a chance to say anything. Bridget turned away from them and fled the room.
CHAPTER 21
Bridget rounded on Reeves. “You just can’t control yourself, can you?”
“What does that mean?” Reeves demanded, his gaze still on the place where his daughter had disappeared. He was far from being in the mood for Bridget’s reprimands. “I didn’t do anything this time.”
“You really believe that?” she asked. “You frightened her. Saying out loud that you were going to identify the kidnapper like that… she must have believed you were going to interrogate her again, the way you did the night we first arrived here. That’s why she ran away.”
Guilt blossomed in the pit of Reeves’ stomach, but he pushed it down. “I wasn’t going to question her,” he said. “And even if I were… she’s going to have to answer those questions eventually, you know. I’ve agreed to be patient about this, but patiencedoesn’t mean waiting forever. Eventually, I’m going to have to get some answers.”
He really hadn’t meant to ask Emma anything more about her kidnapping. Especially after last night’s events, it seemed unwise to push her any farther than she was ready to go. But it was hard to resist arguing with Bridget when she was so loud and insistent. He wanted to push back at her. He wanted her to hear him say that she was in the wrong, even if he wasn’t at all sure that she really was.
“You can’t make her give you answers before she’s ready!” Bridget said, her cheeks growing pink. “If someone was in her room last night, if she was aware that her kidnapper is still stalking her, that’s probably proved a setback to her. She probably feels less ready than ever to talk to you.”
“She has to,” Reeves said, even though a large part of him agreed fully with what Bridget was saying. He wished he could simply tell her that he knew her to be right, but things weren’t that simple. “Shedoeshave to tell me eventually. I understand it’s hard for her, and I wish I could see it as you did. I wish I could just shelter her forever. But if the kidnapper is still targeting us, I do have to find out who he is. Talking about what happened might upset her, but I would rather her be upset than in actual danger. And to be honest, I’m surprised you don’t agree with me on that matter!”
“I do agree,” Bridget insisted. “You don’t truly believe that I don’t want her protected just because I want us to care for her emotional well-being, do you? She’s upset. We can mounta guard around her, as you said. We shouldn’t force her to talk about what happened, though, any more than you should cancel the ball. That would also be allowing your enemy to control your responses.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you believed I should cancel the ball.”
“And you insisted that you shouldn’t,” she fired back. “Don’t ask me to make this argument for you when you already made it for yourself. You’re more than happy to go ahead with something a little risky when it isn’t something I suggested.”
“You think that’s the issue here? You think I’m pushing Emma for a name because you told me not to?”
“I think if it had been your own idea, you would recognize the value in it,” Bridget said, folding her arms across her chest. “I think you resist it because it came from me, that’s all. And I’m not going back to the orphanage,” she added. “You’d have to tie me to a horse and send me away against my will. I’m going to stay here and help Emma, because I truly believe that she needs me now more than ever.”
Reeves closed his eyes and sighed. “I don’t intend to try to force her to tell me anything,” he said. “I wish she would. And I can’t pretend to enjoy the fact that you always jump to this topic. But that isnotwhat I was thinking about in this instance, Bridget.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “It isn’t?”
“No,” he said. “You’re right. What happened last night was alarming. And I do want to know who the guilty party is. But seeing the way she reacted last night when she woke up and realized what was going on… no, I’m not going to force her into anything more challenging right now. I meant what I said. If I could protect her from everything, simply put her into a safe room so that she would never have to face any of this, I would do that. Any father would do that.”
A shadow crossed her face, and Reeves recalled the struggles Bridget had confided in him with her own father. Maybe she was thinking that hewouldn’tdo that. And she would probably be right. If he had turned her out of his house simply for failing to find a husband… well, that was something he would never in a million years have done to his own daughter.
He shouldn’t have spoken to her that way. He shouldn’t have talked about what a good father would do, because her own father wouldn’t have treated her the way he was describing. That was unfair.
Suddenly, he felt a burning urge to meet the man who had been so cold to Bridget, and to find out what he could have been thinking.
How miraculous that she came to be such a compassionate person in the face of an upbringing like that.
She cleared her throat, perhaps sensing her own vulnerability. “If you weren’t thinking of interrogating Emma, what did youmean by saying we were going to find out who her kidnapper was?”
“Iammore determined than ever to hunt the fiend down,” Reeves said. “That much is absolutely true. He can’t be allowed to stalk and haunt our family like this. And by having the ball, maybe we’ll lure him out into the open. Maybe the opportunity to come into our house will be too much for him to refuse. If he does, I’ll identify him. I’ll figure out who came into the house that wasn’t on the guest list.”
“Unless he is on the guest list,” Bridget said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.”
