Elias sighed, his shoulders slumping. “It is a rare man who is willing to look past a woman’s ruin.”
Bridget’s hopes were dashed.
Maybe she truly wasunsalvageable.
For the first time ever, she wondered if all hope was utterly lost. Maybe she would never find her love-match. Maybe she was too ruined.Unsalvageable.The word kept echoing inside her head, like church bells heralding a death.
“There is no going back,” Bridget said.
“That does not mean we cannot move forward,” Dorothy said softly.
She gave Bridget a sympathetic smile. Dorothy was always nurturing, even when Bridget was an embarrassment to her.
“What choice do we have?” Elias asked.
Elias was still a young man, his blue eyes usually alight with mischief and good humor, but at the moment, Bridget’s poor brother looked as though he had aged a decade in the span of just a few minutes. Even his red-blond hair was in a state of disarray, as though he had run his hand through it in frustration several times. And it was all her fault.
“Maybe I have to say farewell to everything,” Bridget said.
Her brother cast her a despairing look. “To everything? Certainly not. It is true that I cannot find a solution to our current dilemma, but that does not mean there is not one. I just—I just need time to think. Gerard is right. There will be something.”
Bridget suspected that her brother did not believe it and that it was seeing her despair that made himclaimhe did.
“No,” Bridget insisted, clasping her hands together so tightly that they hurt. “I should leave London.”
“Return to the countryside?” Dorothy asked. “We tried that.”
“To no avail,” Elias said.
“No,” Bridget said. “I mean, I should leave Londonfor good. I will never return. I can take a position as a governess.”
Gerard smiled softly and stood. “Apologies, everyone,” he said. “But I have another obligation to attend to.”
Bridget could not have said if he truly did have another obligation or if he had decided that this conversation need not involve him. After planting a quick kiss on Dorothy’s cheek, Gerard left, taking the entire decanter with him.
“Excuse me?” Elias asked. “Bridget, I know that I must have misheard you.”
“You did not,” Dorothy said tiredly.
“It is a good idea,” Bridget said. “Since no one will marry me—much less love me—I can become a governess. At least, I will be able to make good use of my lessons. It would not be the life I wanted, but I could be respectable.”
And she dared to have a smoldering spark of hope. Being a governess would not be ideal, but there was still something a little romantic about it. Perhaps some wealthy and respectable gentleman would see how gracious and intelligent she was, how lovely and well-mannered, and he would be filled with the gentlemanly urge to rescue her. He would understand the injustice of her situation and restore Bridget to her proper place in the world.
Elias rubbed his forehead and sighed, the sound so mournful that Bridget almost believed he meant to destroy all her hopes. “Bridget, having a profession is a noble pursuit. It is. And Iadmire workers, especially women, but you are not trained to live a life outside of Society, outside of this family.”
Bridget’s heart sank. “You do not believe I could do it.”
“You have not been prepared to do it,” Elias said gently. “And that is no fault of yours. Most young ladies would be unprepared to become governesses.”
“Then, what am I to do?” Bridget asked. “You have left me with no other solution than to become a spinster!”
“Being a spinster would not be so terrible—” Dorothy began.
“Yes, it would be!” Bridget exclaimed, her head snapping towards her sister. “And you know that! You swore that you would become one, but the instant that you found your love-match, you abandoned those ideas. Nothing can compete with love!”
“She did,” Elias conceded. “But that does not mean there is anything disreputable about being a spinster. You have a family that is willing to support you, Bridget. But if you are so set against being a spinster, we may yet find someone willing to wed you. I cannot promise what manner of man that may be.”
“As long as he loves me, it does not matter what manner of man he is.”
