He couldn’t bring himself to regret those things, though. Those were moments that would stay with him long after she’d gone. It was part of the reason he knew he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to write to her, though she’d asked for it. It would have been far too sad, thinking about everything they had shared—even if most of those things had only taken place in his imagination.
Would she let me embrace her one final time?
Should I allow myself that, or would it be better to turn away here and now, to start breaking free of her while I feel able to do it?
He didn’t know. He had never had the opportunity to choose how he said farewell to a person before. Rosalie’s death had been too unexpected for that. And then, too, there was the fact that Rosalie… well, she simply hadn’t meant as much to him as Bridget did.
They reached his room, and he opened the door, hesitating in the hall. He wouldn’t force her across the threshold. “Would you like to come inside?”
Courage or foolishness drove her to step into the dimly lit room. As soon as she was in, Reeves felt his heart rate increase.
The last woman who had set foot in his bedchamber had been Rosalie. That had happened exactly one time—the night they had conceived Emma. It had taken only one attempt. She’d kept to her own chambers before and after that event.
And now, here was Bridget, and her presence was like a flame in a room that had been dark for too long. It kept him from seeing anything else clearly.
He swallowed. “I just wanted to give you some things before you left,” he said. “For the orphanage.”
“Oh?”
He went to the shelf beside his bed and picked up the bag he had set there. “This is for the children,” he said. “I’ve spent a lot of evenings thinking about the nights Emma spent in that orphanage. It horrifies me. I know the place is safe and as pleasant as it can be, and yet the thought of my daughter there… most of those children don’t have a father coming to collect them.”
“That’s very true,” Bridget said softly. “It’s generous of you to think about that.”
“It’s important to me to do something for the place that did so much for Emma.” He handed her the bag.
She looked inside. “Books?”
“Some of the old children’s books that Emma has outgrown,” he explained. “She has a few favorites that we’ll be holding onto, like the one we were reading from tonight. But we’re finished with these, and they should go to a new home—to children who are going to enjoy them instead of leaving them on the shelf.”
She beamed at him. “This is so generous, Reeves, truly. We never have enough books for the children. If you could see the way they read the same thing over and over, just because they have nothing else, it would break your heart. And that’s just the ones who can read at all. Many have never learned, and though I try to teach them, without enough books to practice on, that can be very difficult. This is going to help more than I think you realize.”
“I’m glad,” Reeves said, a flush of pride rising within him. He hadn’t known whether his gift would be useful or not. That she would accept it graciously, he hadn’t doubted, but what did Reeves know of the needs of an orphanage?
He hadn’t always been noble, but he had never been without a home and a family that cared for him. If he had wanted books as a child, he got them. Things like this had never been in short supply. So, he was glad to have discovered something the children at the orphanage genuinely needed, glad that his attempt to help them would be successful.
“I’ll send more books, too,” he told Bridget. “I’ll buy some and have them sent along.”
She was quiet for a moment. “You can do that, but you can’t write to me?”
He tensed.
“Never mind,” she said quickly. “I don’t know what made me say that. I shouldn’t have. Please put it out of mind.”
He couldn’t, though. It wasn’t so easy to forget her words. Besides, she was right. He wasn’t going to write to her, not because doing so was a chore, but because he was weak. He didn’t think he could manage the emotions of sending a letter to Bridget, telling her what was going on in a life she had chosen to leave behind. Sending books was different because it only required him to think of the orphans. He could manage it without having to think about her.
At least, he hoped he could.
Bridget slung the bag of books over her shoulder. He saw the way it weighed her down, putting her off balance. “Let me take that for you,” he said, holding out a hand. That was what a gentleman would do—and it was also what someone who cared for her would do. It was what he ought to do, even though she was leaving.
Bridget shook her head. “I have it.”
“Let me,” he insisted, reaching for the bag again. “It’s heavy. I’ll give it to my footmen to put in the carriage for you.”
“You can’t keep doing things for me, Reeves,” she said quietly. “I can take care of myself.”
She was right. He wasn’t going to be the person caring for her, much as he would like to have been. It didn’t make sense to reach out and do these things for her—not anymore. She would take care of herself from now on, and this was the first moment for Reeves to step back and let that happen. As muchas he wanted to show her what she had come to mean to him with continued chivalry, the separation between the two of them needed to begin.
“There’s one more thing I want to give you before you go,” he said.
