She passed on the lie by saying, “Tell me what you want?”
Bonnie walked into the room and past Louisa without answering. She looked up at Bray and said, “I have something for you.”
“You have something?” He looked at her hands. They were empty. He looked at Louisa, and she lightly shook her head.
Bonnie gave Bray a big toothless grin. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back, Your Grace, so I could give it to you. I made it for you all by myself.”
She walked over to the secretary and opened a drawer. She pulled out a small piece of canvas and walked over and handed it to him. He took it from her and looked down at it. It was a child’s painting. There were trees, flowers, and a big yellow sun in a blue sky. There was a carriage overcrowded with people in the center, and off to the side was a booth with puppets hanging in it. It took him a moment to realize she had painted a picture of their day in the park for him. His chest and throat constricted.
“It was the best day I’ve ever had,” Bonnie told him.
He looked down at Bonnie’s smiling face, and it dawned on him that he’d never been given a gift. He didn’t know what to do. All his life, his father had given him anything he wanted. His mother, too, but neither of them had ever given him a gift. He had showered gifts of jewelry on his mistresses, gifts of money on doxies, and gifts of flowers and sweets on proper young ladies for years, but no one had ever given anything to him. He was a marquis the day he was born. Who needed to give him a gift?
“I don’t know what to say.”
“How about thank you,” Louisa said from between clenched teeth.
Bray looked from Bonnie’s disappointed features to Louisa’s angry expression. How could he explain to them what he was feeling? How could he tell them how much this simple act of unselfish kindness meant to him? He had no words for this child’s gift. He felt so undeserving.
“You don’t have to keep it if you don’t want it,” Bonnie said. “It’s all right. It’s not very good anyway.”
“No, no,” he said earnestly. “Of course I want it.” Bray dropped to one knee, held out his arms, and said, “Come here and let me give you a hug.”
The little girl flew into his embrace.
Bray closed his arms around her slight frame. He wanted to hug her tightly, but she was so small in his arms, he was afraid of hurting her if he squeezed too hard. Her spindly arms went around his neck and pulled him close. She was warm and smelled like soap and sweetness.
Is this what a sister feels like?
The same feelings of protectiveness that he’d felt when he saw Gwen in the courtyard stirred inside him now. At one time or another, he’d held a woman of just about every size, shape, and age, but he’d never held a child in his arms. That strong protective instinct swelled to overflowing again, and his resolve strengthened. Bonnie had been given to him to care for. This little girl had given him his first gift, and she had made it for him. No one was taking her from him.
“Thank you, Bonnie,” he said. “Thank you. It’s the most beautiful painting I’ve ever seen. I’ll always treasure it.”
From over Bonnie’s shoulder, he looked up at Louisa. For the fourth time since he’d known her, she had tears in her eyes. Tears that once again he had caused. He didn’t blame her for being angry with him. There was a lot he didn’t know about doing the right thing, about being part of a happy, loving family.
But there was one thing he did know.
“I am her guardian, Louisa.” He turned Bonnie loose and rose to his feet. “You don’t have to like it and you don’t have to like me, but I will be your sisters’ guardian. I will be responsible for them. You will not change that.”
Gwen’s words about love invaded his thoughts. Is that why Louisa had refused to marry him? Was she waiting for him to confess that he loved her? Maybe he did love her. He didn’t know.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Louisa, and tell you I love you. All I know is that I feel differently about you than any other woman. I think about you, I want you, I want to be with you, but I don’t know that it’s love.” He took a step closer to her. “I know I told you that you would have to ask me to marry you, but now this time I am asking you properly to marry me.”
Her eyes searched his face. He knew she had feelings for him, too, but did she like him enough to marry him?
“How can I marry you when my sisters make you flinch and swear when they laugh, or cry, or play? Bray, you don’t even know how to say thank you to a little girl.”
She was right—he didn’t—but he was capable of learning.
“I can’t subject them to you or you to them,” she continued. “I’m afraid all of you will end up hating me. You don’t have the patience to live with them day after day, and I refuse to live without them.”
“I have had the patience of Job concerning the girls and this household,” he ground out fiercely.
He couldn’t believe she’d refused him again. Didn’t she know what it cost him to ask her to marry him after he’d told her that it was she who would have to ask him the next time? He had never allowed himself to be that vulnerable to anyone. Didn’t his capitulation on that tell her anything about the way he felt about her?
“I’ll marry you,” Bonnie said. The small voice penetrated Bray’s thoughts.
He looked down at Bonnie, and his throat tightened again when he saw how sincere she was. His feelings for her overwhelmed him, and he smiled at her. “I would take you up on that, missy, if you were a little older.”
