“Oh…” Prudence smiled, color coming into her cheeks. “We weren’t going to say anything. We didn’t want to take attention away from Reeves on the night of his party.”
“What weren’t you going to say?” Bridget demanded. “Are you expecting a baby, Prudence?”
“I am,” Prudence smiled. “We just found out last week.”
“Oh, this is marvelous news! Of course, I’m glad you told me!” Bridget enthused. “It’s so exciting! And no wonder you’ve been asking me if I wouldn’t like to be a mother—it must be at the forefront of your mind right now!”
This made sense of everything, and it was honestly a relief to discover. It meant that she could set aside the things her cousin had just been saying. They had no strict relevance to her own life. Prudence was excited about the idea of becoming a mother right now for obvious reasons. That didn’t mean Bridget needed to follow the same path. Prudence probably didn’t even think it would be a good idea for Bridget to do that. She had been talking about her own life change, that was all.
It should have been good news, but Bridget couldn’t help feeling a twinge of sadness.
An idea had been awoken in her by what Prudence had said—a possibility she had never allowed herself to consider before. And now she found herself wondering—what would it be like if shewereto become a mother? If, instead of an orphanage full of children who would never truly be hers, she had one or two who always would?
She thought again about Emma.
It was a tempting thought.
But even if it were something she wanted, it was entirely impractical. A woman couldn’t become a mother without a husband. And Bridget had long since abandoned hope of ever having any such thing.
CHAPTER 25
“Are you excited to be at the ball today, Emma?”
Emma clutched her father’s hand tightly and looked away from Gareth. Reeves suppressed a sigh. He had held out hope that this event would jostle Emma out of her resistance to speaking, but so far, that hadn’t happened. Even her Uncle Gareth didn’t seem able to get anything out of her—though perhaps that shouldn’t have been so surprising, since Reeves himself hadn’t gotten her to talk either.
Gareth looked up at Reeves. “Is it something I said?”
“No. She still hasn’t started speaking again since she got home.”
“Still?” Gareth frowned. “Doesn’t that worry you, Reeves? I mean, at first, maybe it was understandable, with all she had been through. But she really should be starting to talk again.”
It made Reeves uncomfortable to hear his own argument out of someone else’s mouth, and he found himself taking Bridget’s part. “We can’t rush her,” he told Gareth. “She’ll speak in her own time, when she’s ready.”
“Well, I don’t see why she shouldn’t speak now,” Gareth said. He bent down to Emma. “We know you know how to talk, Emma. You were the chattiest little girl I knew before all this happened. Now, maybe it’s tempting to stay quiet, but I’m sure your father would be happy with you if you said something. He did go to all this trouble to throw a ball for your return, after all. Aren’t you grateful for that?”
Emma cowered.
Anger prickled at the back of Reeve’s neck. “Will you excuse us?” he said to Gareth, his voice tight. “We should make the rounds and see to it that all the guests have been greeted.”
He pulled Emma away. She followed him willingly, her gaze traveling upward to his face.
“Don’t listen to Uncle Gareth,” Reeves said, once he was confident that Gareth was out of earshot. “He wants you to be all better, just like we all do, but he doesn’t understand that you need to take your time. You’ll speak when you’re ready to, right?”
Emma nodded, her face relaxing.
“Then there’s no hurry,” Reeves assured her. “Would you like to take a break from the ball? You could go and sit in the library with Aunt Agnes.”
Emma nodded more vigorously this time, and Reeves felt a surge of gratitude for his sister and for the fact that she was so much better with Emma than his late wife’s brother. “You run along,” he told her.
Emma let go of his hand, flung her arms briefly around his waist, and then ran off to the library.
“Is she all right?”
He turned and found himself face-to-face with Bridget. It was the first time he had been with her since the ball had begun in earnest, though he had caught sight of her across the room a few times. She was hard to miss, dressed in a beautiful lavender gown, her hair pinned up in a way that accented her facial features.
“Where did you get that gown?” he asked. “I know you didn’t bring that with you from the orphanage.”
She laughed. “Could you imagine wearing something like this to work at an orphanage?” She spun around, causing her skirts to flare out ever so slightly, and Reeves was hard pressed not to stare. “No,” she went on. “I borrowed this from Agnes. It’s lucky for me that we’re close enough in size that I’m able to fit into her things—though I could tell the moment I put this on thatit wasn’t going to be an exact fit, of course. Not like something tailored to me would be.
