Reeves was staggered. “It isn’t that simple.”
“I told you about my parents,” she said. “I told you how I was never enough for them. How it eventually led them to turn me out of their house. What I didn’t tell you was that I was always aware, growing up, of the fact that I wasn’t enough. My father wanted a son, and not only did he blame me for not being one, but he also blamed me for the fact that he and my mother were unable to have any more children.”
“But how could that possibly have been your fault?” Reeves protested, taken aback.
“I don’t know,” Bridget said. “I don’t think it could, although it took many years for me to come to terms with that fact. What my father always said was that they were perfectly able to have a child the first time they tried, and it was only after my birth that they struggled. That meant, in his eyes, that there must have been something about me that had rendered my mother unable to conceive again. And when you grow up hearing that message, you don’t always question it. I was sure he knew what he was talking about.”
“Even if that had been true, it still wouldn’t have been yourfault,” Reeves told her.
“Why not?”
“Because—well, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “You were only a baby at the time. I can’t think of what you could have done differently. Of course, Idon’tbelieve you had any responsibility for your parents’ inability to have a second child, nor is it your fault you weren’t the son your father wanted. For that matter, you shouldn’t feel any guilt over having been born a girl. It’s who you are. For you to be yourself is no crime at all. A decent father would be grateful for his daughter.”
“You can say all this, and yet you still blame yourself for Emma’s kidnapping.”
Reeves shook his head. That was entirely different. Frankly, the difference was beyond obvious to him. What had happened while she was a baby couldn’t possibly be her responsibility. But hehadbeen responsible for Emma.
“My father never got over the fact that I wasn’t the son he wanted,” Bridget said. “He spent his whole life punishing me for it.”
“Punishing you?” A trickle of anger, hot and unexpected, wormed its way down Reeves’ spine.
“Withholding meals, for the most part,” Bridget said. “I didn’t eat on the days he lost control of his temper. He rarely hit me. I don’t think he wanted to touch me at all.”
Every muscle in Reeves’ body tightened.
How could any man mistreat his daughter?
How could anyone mistreatBridget?
“It was a relief to be sent away to stay with Prudence’s family,” she said. “I wonder sometimes if I didn’t embrace the task of searching for a suitor because I knew that I would have to return to my parents once I had secured a match, and I dreaded that.”
“Why didn’t you tell your aunt and uncle how your father treated you? Surely, they wouldn’t have sent you back if they had known.”Or would they?Horror flooded his veins. He wanted to strike someone. He wanted to punish someone for daring to treat Bridget so horribly.
“I just couldn’t,” Bridget admitted. “I didn’t know how they might react. And if theyhadtried to come to my defense—if Prudence had done that—what might have happened to her? I couldn’t let her be the victim of my father’s wrath.”
“Bridget…”
“I only bring this up because I think you need to hear what it’s like when a daughter truly can’t trust her father,” Bridget said,her voice low. “You need to understand what a bad father really is, because maybe that will help you see that you are not one. You love Emma more than anything in this world, Reeves. Anybody can see that. She knows that. She’s frightened because of what happened to her, yes, but it doesn’t change the way she feels about you. It couldn’t. A child knows when her parent loves her and wants to protect her. Emma doesn’t see you as a failure in that regard. She understands that you would move mountains to keep her safe.”
Reeves couldn’t speak around the lump in his throat. Was it possible Emma really understood that about him? He longed to believe it.
“You are a wonderful father,” Bridget told him firmly. “You are the father your daughter needs, and she’s lucky to have you. In time, she’ll start to recover from what happened to her, and you’ll have the child you know back. Be patient with her. And in the meantime… don’t blame yourself. In no way are you at fault for what happened. I hope you hear me when I say that.”
CHAPTER 23
“What I wonder is this,” Reeves said as the two of them strolled beside the lake, holding their horses’ reins in their hands. “If she isn’t keeping quiet out of fear or mistrust of me, is it possible there’s a reason we haven’t thought about?”
“What do you mean?” Bridget asked.
She was pleased that Reeves had visibly relaxed over the past twenty minutes. Bringing him out here had clearly been a good idea on her part. But at the same time, his mind was still working a mile a minute, trying to sort out what was going on with his daughter—she’d done nothing to put a stop to that.
“Well, I would have expected that we’d see more improvement by now,” Reeves said. “I know you keep telling me to be patient, and I’m trying to be, but if there’s something stopping her from talking, I have to consider that too.”
“You think maybe she feels threatened?” Bridget asked.
“I wonder if maybe she feels there’s some sort of threat to me,” Reeves countered. “As if it might be dangerous, somehow, for me to know the truth.”
Bridget pondered for a moment. “That could be,” she said. “I’m sure she realizes that if you knew who was responsible for the kidnapping, you would immediately try to find and get revenge on that person.”
