Chapter 6
Emma was asleep in minutes, but Bridget lay awake, trying to convince her body to relax.
She and Emma were sharing the room’s only bed. The duke had pulled a blanket over to the settee and was lying there. His body was too big for it, and his feet hung off the end. Bridget watched them in the darkness, wondering whether he was still awake, waiting to see if he was going to move or not.
He didn’t.
So perhaps she was the only one lying awake.
Perhaps she was the only one who felt strange and uncomfortable with their current situation.
Was it possible that this seemed normal to the duke?
Sleeping in a room with a woman he hardly knew?
She just couldn’t turn her mind from the knowledge that there was a man a few feet away from her, no matter how hard she tried.
With a sigh, she sat up, moving slowly so as not to disturb Emma. The fact of the matter was that there was no chance of her getting any sleep tonight. And lying in this room pretending otherwise was only making matters worse for her.
She eased herself slowly out of bed, eyes on Emma as she moved to make sure she wouldn’t jostle her awake.
But Emma was sleeping more heavily than she ever had at the orphanage, which Bridget tried to take as a good sign.
It must mean that she was feeling comfortable.
Whether that comfort came from having her father restored to her, or from the knowledge that Bridget was still with her, Bridget couldn’t guess.
But it was good to see this child, who had suffered so much, finally able to relax.
She tiptoed to the door, glancing over at the duke as she went. His eyes were closed, his breathing deep and even. Good.
She opened the door as slowly as she could, freezing when it creaked a little. She glanced over her shoulder, but no one had moved. Letting out a sigh of relief, she slipped through, closed the door behind her, and hurried down the hall.
There was a door that led to a balcony, and she stepped out onto it, eager for a breath of fresh air.
The night was bitingly cold, but that was all right.
The cold was energizing, and it felt better than the warm stuffiness of the room she’d left behind.
Bridget looked out over the grounds, which were small but well-tended and a pleasant sight in the moonlight.
She sighed. This was going to be a long winter.
“What are you doing?”
She whirled, gasping, and backed up so quickly that her back collided with the balcony railing and she almost lost her balance. The duke’s hand flashed out and caught her before she could fall.
“I thought you were asleep,” she managed.
“I was, until you snuck out of the room,” he said. “Then I had to follow you.”
“Why? Am I not permitted to step out on my own?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped.
She didn’t think she was. Things had been increasingly difficult since this man had walked into her life earlier this evening, and Bridget wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find out that he expected to control her every move.
Why else would he have followed her out tonight instead of staying in the room with his newly recovered daughter?
His scowl deepened. “I thought you might be running away,” he said. “Returning to your orphanage. And if you were, I thought I should know about it.”
“Why would I do that?” She was stunned. “I had to fight to get you to allow me to come with you in the first place. Do you really think I’d turn around and leave at the earliest opportunity?
Haven’t I made it clear enough that I think Emma needs me and I don’t want to abandon her?
You still think I’m just trying to leave? ”
“I don’t know,” the duke said. “I see the way you look at me. I hear the way you speak to me. You have no respect for me. No regard. You may have decided that you have no interest in being a part of my household—that helping Emma isn’t worth it.
“If you think that, you don’t know me at all,” Bridget said coolly.
He folded his arms across his chest. “Of course, I don’t know you at all,” he said. “I just met you today. The only things I know about you are that you work at an orphanage and that you insist on having your own way more than any woman I’ve ever met.”
“My way? You truly believe anything that’s happening is my way?
” She scoffed. “It wasn’t my idea to leave the only home I know behind at a moment’s notice, Your Grace.
It isn’t my idea to be sharing a room at an inn with a man I hardly know.
It certainly isn’t my idea to be posing as your wife.
Can you imagine what people will say if they hear about this? We’ll be ruined.”
He shook his head. “We’re far away from anyone who would care,” he said.
“No one is going to hear anything, apart from the innkeeper, and innkeepers don’t pay too much attention to these matters.
He may or may not know there’s no Duchess of Greystone, but he’s unlikely to give it much thought.
What he cares about is the coin in his pocket.
And as for me, what I care about is my daughter.
You told me that she needed you. You told me you needed to be with us for her sake. Is that true?”
Bridget squared her shoulders. “I believe it is.”
“Then why are you sneaking off in the night like some common thief?”
“For heaven’s sake—I stepped out of the room to get some air because I couldn’t sleep,” she snapped. “I’m sorry you find that so suspicious, but it’s nothing for you to lose any sleep over.”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” the duke said.
“You looked like you were sleeping.”
“Well, I wasn’t. I was awake the whole time,” he told her. “You’re not the only one who finds our accommodations difficult.”
That was hard to believe. Perhaps he was bothered by having a near-stranger in the room with him, but it wasn’t the same. He was so much stronger than she was, so much larger. She was no threat to him. “The arrangements were your idea,” she reminded him.
“Of course they weren’t.” He scowled. “I didn’t want this any more than you did. I wanted to share a room with my child. It’s that simple. You’re the one who insisted that she couldn’t leave your side.”
“You saw her. She didn’t want to leave my side,” Bridget reminded him. “She was afraid to be away from me.”
“Well, she’s not going to get over that fear if we keep indulging it,” the duke said.
“She needs to be shown that nothing bad will happen to her if she separates from you. Until she sees that for herself, she’s just going to continue clinging like this, and she’ll never begin to heal from what she’s been through. ”
“You’re right,” Bridget said.
He raised his eyebrows. “I’m right? I thought you disagreed with everything I was doing and saying.”
“Not everything,” she countered. “I don’t disagree when you say something true.”
“Well, that’s generous of you.”
“I mean it,” she said. “I think you’re right that she needs to learn to separate herself from me if she’s going to heal.
She needs to see that she can return to her normal life, that I’m not the only safe person for her.
But we can’t force her into that lesson.
It might need to happen gradually. Ripping her away from the only person who’s made her feel safe recently isn’t the way to go about it.
If it were that simple, I would go back home tonight, because I do not want to be here. ”
“You don’t?” He raised his eyebrows.
“I was happy in my life at the orphanage,” she said.
“I was doing work that needed to be done, and it made me feel good to do it. And now I’m here at this inn with you, pretending to be your wife, and no matter what you say about it, Your Grace, I am not convinced that it won’t damage my reputation to have stayed in a room with you. ”
“You think it’s going to hurt your reputation and yet you did it anyway?”
“I did it for Emma.” Was this not clear to him? “She’s more important than my reputation. She needs me, and I’ll do whatever I have to. If you don’t feel the same way, I don’t know how to explain it any more clearly, but as her father, you should want to do all you can for her.”
“Of course I do,” he said, his voice a low growl.
“I don’t appreciate you insinuating that I might not.
She’s my child. I would move heaven and earth for her.
There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do. She knows that.
You might think you’re the only person she can trust, but I assure you it isn’t the case. ”
Bridget blew out a breath of air, watching as it turned to fog in the cold winter night. “We don’t have to fight each other.”
“Then stop fighting me,” he said. “Come back to the bedroom. It’s cold out here, and we have a long journey ahead of us tomorrow. That was the whole reason for stopping for the night—to rest up for tomorrow. And now neither one of us is doing that.”
Bridget nodded. Even though she found him frustrating, he had a point. But she didn’t know if she would be able to rest while sharing a room with him. It was a discomforting thought.
She looked up at him.
The moonlight had caught his eyes, and for the first time, she noticed that they were bright green, just like Emma’s.
In fact, he looked a great deal like Emma, enough to make her embarrassed that she had doubted his claim to be her father.
Of course, the two of them were related. Nothing could be more obvious.
And yet, looking at him now, it wasn’t just his similarity to his daughter that stood out to her.
He was also deeply, devastatingly attractive.
She almost had to look away. It was embarrassing to find someone so handsome.
She felt as if he couldn’t help but realize what she was thinking, and heat rose to her cheeks.
If he did notice, he didn’t say anything about it. “Come back to the room,” he told her.
Oh, perfect. Go back to the room with the handsome man who makes me feel like a helpless girl.
But she wasn’t helpless. She had stood up for herself with him.
She had convinced him that she ought to come along on this journey.
She had convinced him not to separate her from Emma, for the moment.
If she could do all that, she could manage to be in a room with him without losing her composure, couldn’t she?
I’ll have to, because he doesn’t see me that way. He doesn’t admire me. He barely tolerates me. And I don’t think much of him either, for that matter! He might be good to look at, but he’s difficult and cantankerous and thinks everything is about him.
Reminding herself how much he frustrated her was a good thing. It made her feel less drawn to him. Her body cooled, and her mind cleared.
“All right,” she agreed. “Back to bed, then.”
“Good,” he said, turning and opening the door behind him, holding it so that she could pass through first. “We set off again first thing in the morning.”