There was the snap of a match being lit. A flicker of flame in the darkness. Then the flame grew bigger and brighter—he’d lit a lantern.
She could make him out now. He was facing away from her. The lantern was in his hand, casting enough light for the two of them to see by, but not enough to make this room seem any less forbidding. Bridget looked around the place. There was a low,uncomfortable-looking bed by one wall and a three-legged stool next to that. No windows. Only one door. She knew the rooms of this inn. She’d stayed in one of them. This wasn’t a room intended for guests.
The man turned to face her, unmasked for the first time.
And in the flicker of candlelight, Bridget got her first look at his face.
It was a face she had seen before—and one she had never expected to see again.
“It’s you,” she gasped, her heart missing a beat. “It’s been you the whole time!”
CHAPTER 31
“Ishouldn’t have said that to her,” Emma whispered. “I don’t hate Bridget, Papa.”
It seemed that Bridget’s departure had been the thing to finally break down the walls around Emma. She spoke now as well as she ever had. But Reeves could see that she was still deeply troubled. She hadn’t smiled since Bridget left, and finally—a full day later—he had pulled her aside and insisted she tell him what the matter was.
He could have guessed the answer for himself, of course. She regretted the way she had left things with Bridget, as he’d known she would.
“She knows you don’t hate her,” he said, rubbing his daughter’s back gently. The two of them sat before the fire in the sitting room, and Emma stared moodily into the flames. “She never thought you did. You said something you didn’t mean because you were upset. Bridget knew that.”
“What if she didn’t know?”
“She did,” Reeves said. “She told me she did.”
“Was she very angry with me?”
“She wasn’t angry at all. She was sad to be leaving you behind, too,” Reeves told his daughter. “You know how important that orphanage is to her. You got to meet some of those children, right?”
“I don’t really mind if she loves them more than me,” Emma said, but her voice was thick with sadness. “They don’t have anyone else who loves them, and I do, so… so that’s only fair, right?”
“It’s very generous of you to say so,” Reeves told his daughter. “You’re allowed to be sad about it, though. Bridget was very special to you. I know that. And you were special to her, too, Emma—even if she does have other children she needs to care for. They need her more than you do. That’s true. But that doesn’t mean she loves you any less. She just understands that you and I have one another.”
“I know,” Emma said. “But I was hoping…” She trailed off.
“You were hoping what?” Reeves pressed her.
“It’s just… I thought how nice it might be if… if she were my mother,” Emma whispered.
Reeves’ heart cracked. “I’m sorry you don’t have a mother,” he said. “I wish you did too. I know a father isn’t the same thing.”
“It’s a good thing, though.” Emma leaned her head on his shoulder. “I wanted both, that’s all. I guess that’s greedy. Those orphans don’t have a mamaora papa.”
“It isn’t greedy at all,” Reeves murmured.
“You could have married Bridget,” Emma said. “That’s what I thought was going to happen after I saw you dance with her. I thought you’d marry her, and she would become my mother, and… and we would all be a family. Why didn’t you?”
“It’s a beautiful idea,” Reeves said. “But marriage is a little more complicated than that. I don’t think Bridget wants to marry. She certainly doesn’t want to marry me.”
“Why not?” Emma stared up at him. “You’re nice.”
Reeves had to laugh. Of all the possible words that could be used to describe him,nicewas one of the very last he would have expected anyone to use. But he understood his daughter’s meaning. “We aren’t in love with one another,” he said.
“Sometimes people marry who aren’t in love,” she pointed out.
“That’s true,” Reeves said.
“So, you could marry Bridget anyway, so that she could stay here and be my mother.”
