‘Well, I’d hoped your father would be here for this, Alexander, but Amalie, I want you to know that we have his blessing.’
She glanced between them, not liking the way Alexander looked at the ground, avoiding her gaze. Amalie held her daughter tighter to her chest.
‘Have his blessing for what, exactly?’
‘Amalie, you must understand that we cannot have you living with us,in society, as an unmarried mother with a…’ Her voice drifted away, and she gave a tight smile. ‘Well, we cannot have a child in the family without a father, can we?’
Amalie stared back at her. ‘But you said I was welcome, you said?—’
‘What my mother is trying to tell you is that we’re to be married,’ Alexander said. ‘I will marry you and raise my brother’s daughter as my own, thereby erasing all hint of a scandal.’
‘But—’ Amalie’s heart began to race.
‘Oskar would have wanted this,’ he said. ‘I know it doesn’t feel right, but my mother isn’t wrong this time. If we want to give his daughter the future she deserves, this is the only way.’
‘You’d marry me?’ Amalie asked, feeling at once overwhelmingly grateful but also nauseated at the thought of marrying a man,anyman, so soon after Oskar, not to mention his brother. ‘I cannot ask that of you, I?—’
‘You don’t have to,’ he said, somewhat drily. ‘My mother is the one who asked me, and I could see no good reason not to accept. My brother adored you, Amalie, and I shall care for you in his absence and try to be the very best father I can be to your daughter.’
Alexander moved closer to her then, taking a ring box from his pocket and falling to one knee as Amalie tried to hold back her tears.
‘Amalie, will you marry me?’ he asked.
She nodded, quickly, not wanting to say yes because it felt like a betrayal of Oskar’s memory, but knowing that she had to give her consent for her own sake, and for her daughter’s.
‘You will accept me as your daughter-in-law?’ Amalie said, glancing over at his mother.
‘I will.’
‘Then yes, Alexander, I will marry you, if you’re certain you’re not being coerced into this union.’
He looked into her eyes, and she saw both pain and kindness there. He was a man mourning his brother, but he was also agood man, the kind of man who would do whatever he had to do to keep his brother’s daughter close.
Alexander took the ring from the box and slid it onto her finger. It was a setting of three diamonds, each one larger than the single one Oskar had given her, on a gold band that fit snugly against her skin. She couldn’t take her eyes from it as he rose, feeling the weight of it and imagining that this would be the ring she’d now wear for the rest of her life.
‘Thank you,’ she said, standing on tiptoe to press a light kiss to his cheek. ‘I will never, ever forget your kindness in my moment of need, Alexander.’
His cheeks coloured and she held Aina out to him, gently placing her in his arms.
‘This, Alexander, is your nie—’ She stopped herself and smiled, forcing the words out. ‘Yourdaughter, Aina. Isn’t she beautiful?’
As if on cue, Aina woke and stretched one perfect little pink fist from the within the blanket, her mouth twisting as she yawned and opened her eyes. And as Amalie leaned into Alexander, she could almost imagine that it was Oskar whom she was standing beside, both men different yet so similar in many ways. Even the faint scent of his cologne reminded her of him.
‘You’re to be married this week, in a private ceremony,’ his mother said, interrupting the quiet moment between them. ‘Alexander will be travelling for work after that and you shall accompany him, and when he returns, we’ll tell everyone that you both married privately some time ago. No one will dare ask questions, not if we have our story carefully planned out.’
Alexander passed the baby back to Amalie then as she began to cry. ‘I’ll do whatever you ask of me,’ Amalie said. ‘But may I be shown to my room so that I can feed and change my daughter?’
A short time after settling in, after she’d fed and bathed Aina, there was a knock at the door. She straightened her dress, still wearing what she’d arrived in, and called out. ‘Who is it?’
‘Alexander.’
She took a deep, shaky breath and opened the door. But the smile he gave her told her that she had nothing to worry about.
‘I wanted to speak to you without my mother overhearing,’ he said. ‘May I come in?’
‘Of course.’
She noticed that he left the door open, for which she was grateful. There was a fine line between speaking in private and making it appear as if they might be acting inappropriately, and she certainly didn’t want to jeopardise her new relationship with the family.
