Chapter 5
Thankfully, the carriage was a large one, and Bridget got the impression that her new acquaintance must be wealthy.
She had dreaded the idea of being confined in a small space with the duke, for he made her uncomfortable, but there was as much distance between the two of them as could reasonably be expected.
Bridget sat beside Emma, who was curled up in a ball on the seat, looking tense, if not necessarily unhappy.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of candy, one of the few things that had reliably put a smile on Emma’s face while she was at the orphanage.
“Here,” she said, passing it to the girl with a smile.
“I think today calls for a little celebration, don’t you? ”
Emma uncurled herself and accepted the candy, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. She popped it in her mouth and leaned against the side of the carriage.
Bridget noticed the duke watching her, looking between her and Emma. It occurred to her that maybe she shouldn’t have done that now that the girl’s father was here. Maybe he didn’t like her to have candy. But wasn’t it worth it if it put a smile on Emma’s face?
She pulled a second piece of candy out of her pocket and offered it to the duke, mostly so that he wouldn’t feel in doubt about what was going on. “It’s peppermint,” she explained. “Emma loves peppermint.” Then she felt like a fool. “Well, I’m sure you already know that,” she said quickly.
The duke raised his eyebrows, but he said nothing and made no move to take the candy from her.
The man next to him leaned forward. He was one of the two men who had accompanied the duke into the orphanage—the other one was now driving the carriage.
This man was even taller than the duke, which Bridget wouldn’t have believed possible if she weren’t seeing it for herself.
He was muscular, too. Bridget thought he probably would have had no trouble lifting her over his head if he’d wanted to do that.
And yet, for all that, he wasn’t intimidating. Maybe it was the warm smile on his face, or the way that smile reached all the way to his eyes. It was impossible to imagine that he meant her any harm.
He held out his hand, palm up. “I’ll take that peppermint, if His Grace doesn’t want it.”
Relieved to have someone who at least appeared to be on her side, Bridget dropped it into the man’s hand.
“Thank you.” He popped it into his mouth. “Very glad to have you with us, Miss… I don’t think I got your name?”
“Bridget Wetherby.”
“Miss Wetherby.” He smiled. “Norman Dodge.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Dodge.”
“I must say, I’m grateful to you for taking care of Miss Emma for us while she was away from home. She’s like family to me,” he said.
“You aren’t family, then?”
“A close friend of the family,” he said. “I’ve been employed by His Grace for many years. Since before Miss Emma’s birth, in fact.”
That came as a surprise to Bridget. She had no experience with servants who also considered themselves family friends.
Such things would not have been possible in the house where she had grown up.
But Norman Dodge seemed at ease enough to say all this in front of the duke, which made her think there must be some truth to it.
He sat back and looked at her appraisingly. “Have you been with the orphanage for very long? You’re quite young.”
She didn’t think of herself that way—she was five and twenty, after all—but he looked to be in his forties, so perhaps it made sense that he saw her that way.
“I’ve been volunteering there for many years,” she told him.
“It’s been a passion of mine for a long time.
It only became my residence a little over a year ago, when I decided to make it my life’s work. ”
“You must have a great deal of experience with children, then,” he said. “It’s no wonder Miss Emma feels so at home with you.”
“I try my best to make children in my care feel comfortable and safe,” Bridget agreed. “I think it’s a very important thing to do.”
“Well, I certainly agree with that,” Mr. Dodge said with a warm smile. “And now I’m even more pleased that Miss Emma has been in your care all this time. It seems truly to be the best we could have hoped for her.”
Bridget was anxious to ask how Emma had come to be away from her father in the first place. The whole thing felt like a mystery she had to try to solve. But it didn’t seem appropriate to ask a question like that right in front of the duke. She was worried about how he might respond.
Perhaps I’ll have a chance to speak to Mr. Dodge about it some other time, when the duke isn’t present. He seems like someone I could turn to for answers to these things, someone who wouldn’t get angry at me for asking questions.
She hoped that was true. This would all be much easier if there were someone she could speak openly with about things while she was here. At least she knew Mr. Dodge would be at Greystone with them.
She cleared her throat. “How long is our journey?” she asked. “Will we be traveling through the night?”
To her surprise, it was the duke who answered. “These roads aren’t safe at night,” he said. “We’ll have to stop and rest somewhere.”
She was taken aback. “We’re stopping? But you were offered accommodations at the orphanage, and you said you needed to get home right away.”
“I have no interest in spending the night in an orphanage,” the duke said firmly. “Nor am I interested in leaving my daughter there. She isn’t an orphan and doesn’t belong at a place like that.”
There was something judgmental in his tone that Bridget didn’t like.
“A place like that?” she repeated. “Our institution cares for children who aren’t being cared for by anybody else, and I’m sorry to tell you that for the last week and a half, that has been true of your daughter.
Don’t fault us for caring for her when nobody else did. ”
He stiffened. “I don’t fault you,” he said. “But I do ask that you recognize that things have changed now. She is back with her father, and the services of your orphanage are no longer necessary. We’ll stay at the inn tonight.”
Bridget bit back her frustration. If they were going to stay somewhere, why couldn’t they have spent one more night in surroundings that were familiar to her? Why had it been necessary to get on the road so quickly?
It was too late to raise the question, too late to complain about it.
They were already here, and she knew there wasn’t a chance in the world of getting the duke to turn back now.
But she simmered as they rode on all the same.
He was so determined to have his own way about everything, even when the things he wanted didn’t objectively make that much sense.
They arrived at the inn a quarter of an hour later. It was a small, warm, brightly lit place, and Bridget had to admit—if only to herself—that it would be nice to have a soft bed and a quiet room, to take a bit of time to process everything that had happened today.
As soon as she was out of the carriage, though, Emma wrapped her arms around Bridget’s waist and clung to her tightly.
It occurred to Bridget that Emma might not feel ready to be alone with her father. She had certainly seemed timid around him at the orphanage. “Your Grace,” she said, “why don’t you put Emma and me in the same room? You brought me along to look after her, and I’m happy to do that tonight.”
“My daughter stays with me,” the duke said gruffly. “Emma, come.”
Emma’s arms tightened around Bridget. She didn’t move.
“I really think she wants to stay with me,” Bridget said. “And I really don’t mind. You ought to have a good night’s rest.”
“This is not up for discussion,” the duke said sharply. “I’m grateful to you for caring for my daughter, Miss Wetherby, but you are a near stranger to me. I have no intention of leaving my daughter alone at the inn with someone I hardly know. She stays with me, and that’s the end of it.”
He reached out and took hold of Emma’s shoulder.
Bridget could see that his grip wasn’t rough. But even so, Emma let out a soft whimper of distress and buried her face in Bridget’s stomach.
The duke scowled. “Emma, there’s no time for this.”
“She’s upset,” Bridget said. “Your Grace, this is the reason you agreed to let me come. Because after all she’s suffered, we agree that I know how to care for her. You have to let me do the job you brought me here to do. You have to let me care for her, to let me tell you what she needs.”
“She doesn't want to be with me? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“No. What I’m saying is that she feels secure around me right now,” Bridget said.
“She sees me as a safe person, because I was the first one she learned to trust after whatever happened to her. I don’t mean to say that she doesn’t trust you.
But she needs to see that you aren’t going to take me away from her.
She needs to know that things are going to be stable for her from now on. ”
The duke sighed. “Very well,” he said, and Bridget felt a wash of relief.
But then he spoke again. “I’ll get a room for all three of us,” he said.
Bridget’s jaw dropped. Her blood seemed to freeze. “All—all three of us?”
“That way I won’t have to leave her alone with a stranger, and she won’t have to be parted from you,” the duke said. “A perfect solution.”
“Are you the same man who was just pointing out how scandalous it was for us to stand in the vicar’s study together?” she asked, her voice shaking slightly. “And now you want me to share your bedroom?”
“It’s not a matter of what I want. It’s a matter of what you say my daughter needs,” the duke said. “If this is the best way to care for her, as you suggest, then it’s what we’ll do.”
Without another word, he turned and strode into the inn.
Bridget looked at Mr. Dodge.
“Better follow,” he said with a soft smile. “Don’t worry. He’s an honorable man. You’ll be perfectly safe.”
Oddly, Bridget realized, she hadn’t been worried about that.
She believed that he only wanted to keep his daughter where he could see her, and that was understandable.
And with Emma in the room… an eight-year-old child wasn’t exactly a chaperone, but her presence did make it highly unlikely that anything untoward would happen.
So, Bridget summoned her courage and walked into the inn, gripping Emma’s hand.
The duke was already speaking to the innkeeper. “I need two rooms,” he said. “One for my driver and manservant, and another for myself, my daughter, and my wife.”
Bridget froze.
His wife?
With a deep breath, she managed to steady herself. Of course he had said that. He needed to say something to ensure that this didn’t appear too scandalous. Still, she had to fight down the blush that threatened to creep over her face.
The innkeeper nodded. “I’ll take you right up,” he said, beckoning.
Bridget gripped Emma’s hand and followed the group to the stairs. Suddenly, she was just as anxious as the little girl beside her.