Chapter 22
Reeves spent the remainder of the morning on his own, throwing himself into preparations for the ball. It seemed like the only thing he was capable of doing, the only thing that stood a chance at helping him get his life back on track.
It wasn’t until after lunch—a meal he ate standing up so that he wouldn’t have to leave his work even for a moment—that Bridget came to him again.
“I need a bit of your time,” she said.
It was a mark of the fact that they were getting to know one another better that he wasn’t shocked at her audacity.
He was growing used to this sort of thing from her.
And though he wanted to tell her firmly that she couldn’t insist on things from him, he had been through this enough times to know how that was going to go.
“Very well,” he said. “I was thinking of taking a break anyway.”
She nodded and led him from the ballroom out into the foyer, and then toward the front door. He frowned as they made their way to it. “Are we going outdoors?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Not another picnic, I hope?”
She chuckled. “You did enjoy the first one. Don’t try to pretend otherwise. But no, that’s not what I have in mind for us today.”
“Will Emma be joining us?”
She paused, turning to face him. “Emma is with Agnes,” she said. “I thought you could use some time to yourself.”
“You thought I would want to be without her?”
“I know you’ll never admit it,” Bridget said. “I know how hard it is for you to even think such a thing right now. It feels like you’re saying you’re ungrateful to have her back. But that’s not what it means. You want to take a break from worry, Reeves. That’s all it is. And you should have that.”
She turned and continued out the door before he had a chance to respond.
Reeves stood frozen for a moment. She had so easily given voice to something he was feeling—something he hadn’t even been willing to admit to himself.
What was more, she didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong or shocking about what she had described.
She wasn’t appalled at him for wanting a bit of distance from his daughter. She seemed to think it was normal.
And maybe it is. The way she describes it, she certainly makes it sound normal.
It’s true that being around Emma right now is a source of anxiety.
All I do is think about what a failure I am.
I don’t want to be apart from my daughter…
but I do want to stop having that thought, if only for a few hours.
He didn’t argue as she led the way down the front steps and across the lawn. His eyebrows lifted, though, when he saw her intended destination. “The stable?”
“I thought it might be nice to take a ride.”
“It’s a bit cold for that, don’t you think?”
“We have cloaks,” she pointed out. “And the horses will keep us warm. I think it will be all right. Besides, I haven’t seen much of your estate yet beyond the house. I’d like to take the opportunity to see a little more, especially if I’m going to be returning home soon.”
“I thought you were adamant that you would not be leaving any time soon,” he reminded her, lifting his eyebrows.
“Not if I have any say in the matter,” she agreed. “It remains to be seen how much say I will have. I can be stubborn, and I know it, but I can’t force you to keep me in your house if you’ve truly decided I ought to go.”
Reeves didn’t know what to say. She was right, of course. He hadn’t given her any indication that he intended to let her stay—he wasn’t sure he did intend it. But sending her away against her will didn’t feel right at all.
She didn’t appear to be waiting for an answer. She had turned toward one of the horses as if intent on bringing it out of its stall.
“Not that one,” Reeves said. “That one is too energetic.” He went to one of his mildest horses and led it out for her. “You can take this one.”
“I’m sure I can handle any of them,” she said.
“Do you ride, then?”
“Not for a few years. Not much opportunity at the orphanage. But growing up, I rode quite a lot,” she said. “Sometimes it felt as though that was my only refuge—the only way to get away from my parents and the constant demands they placed on me.”
He brought out his own favorite horse and was about to help her onto the one he’d selected for her, but she stepped into the stirrup and swung herself up all on her own. Positioning her skirts carefully about her legs, she took the reins in her hands and gave him a small smile. “Shall we be off?”
He had to admit, he was impressed. He mounted his own horse and kicked it into a slow walk, leading her out of the stable and into the grass outside.
They rode in silence for a while. Reeves was unsure of what to say, of how to make sense of this whole situation. Why had she brought him out here? She must have some goal in doing so—it couldn’t have been simply to give him a break from his worries.
Without meaning to, he turned his horse’s head toward the lake at the back of the grounds. Bridget followed along. It was as good a destination as any, and one he had often chosen for himself when going for a ride during happier times.
As the horses settled in, Bridget spoke at last. “I’ve been thinking about what you said this morning,” she said. “About how you blame yourself for the kidnapping.”
Well, that was blunt. Of course he’d known she would be pondering it, but even for her, to bring it up so bluntly was bold. He said nothing.
“There are a lot of things parents can do wrong by their children,” she said.
“I certainly know my share when it comes to that. I was raised by parents who failed me, Reeves, parents I couldn’t possibly trust to keep me safe.
And I want you to hear me when I say that you are not like that in the least. You are a completely different sort of man. ”
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do here,” he said. “But you can’t convince me that what happened wasn’t my fault.”
“What happened was the fault of the kidnapper,” she said.
“I’ve tried to convince you of this before.
And I think you know I’m right. I think you take responsibility for it because you want this to be something you can control.
If it’s your fault, you know what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future.
If it’s your fault, hating yourself becomes the solution to your problem, and that’s something you can do. ”
Reeves was staggered. “It isn’t that simple.”
“I told you about my parents,” she said.
“I told you how I was never enough for them. How it eventually led them to turn me out of their house. What I didn’t tell you was that I was always aware, growing up, of the fact that I wasn’t enough.
My father wanted a son, and not only did he blame me for not being one, but he also blamed me for the fact that he and my mother were unable to have any more children. ”
“But how could that possibly have been your fault?” Reeves protested, taken aback.
“I don’t know,” Bridget said. “I don’t think it could, although it took many years for me to come to terms with that fact.
What my father always said was that they were perfectly able to have a child the first time they tried, and it was only after my birth that they struggled.
That meant, in his eyes, that there must have been something about me that had rendered my mother unable to conceive again.
And when you grow up hearing that message, you don’t always question it.
I was sure he knew what he was talking about. ”
“Even if that had been true, it still wouldn’t have been your fault,” Reeves told her.
“Why not?”
“Because—well, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he said.
“You were only a baby at the time. I can’t think of what you could have done differently.
Of course, I don’t believe you had any responsibility for your parents’ inability to have a second child, nor is it your fault you weren’t the son your father wanted.
For that matter, you shouldn’t feel any guilt over having been born a girl.
It’s who you are. For you to be yourself is no crime at all.
A decent father would be grateful for his daughter. ”
“You can say all this, and yet you still blame yourself for Emma’s kidnapping.”
Reeves shook his head. That was entirely different. Frankly, the difference was beyond obvious to him. What had happened while she was a baby couldn’t possibly be her responsibility. But he had been responsible for Emma.
“My father never got over the fact that I wasn’t the son he wanted,” Bridget said. “He spent his whole life punishing me for it.”
“Punishing you?” A trickle of anger, hot and unexpected, wormed its way down Reeves’ spine.
“Withholding meals, for the most part,” Bridget said. “I didn’t eat on the days he lost control of his temper. He rarely hit me. I don’t think he wanted to touch me at all.”
Every muscle in Reeves’ body tightened.
How could any man mistreat his daughter?
How could anyone mistreat Bridget?
“It was a relief to be sent away to stay with Prudence’s family,” she said. “I wonder sometimes if I didn’t embrace the task of searching for a suitor because I knew that I would have to return to my parents once I had secured a match, and I dreaded that.”
“Why didn’t you tell your aunt and uncle how your father treated you? Surely, they wouldn’t have sent you back if they had known.” Or would they? Horror flooded his veins. He wanted to strike someone. He wanted to punish someone for daring to treat Bridget so horribly.
“I just couldn’t,” Bridget admitted. “I didn’t know how they might react. And if they had tried to come to my defense—if Prudence had done that—what might have happened to her? I couldn’t let her be the victim of my father’s wrath.”
“Bridget…”
“I only bring this up because I think you need to hear what it’s like when a daughter truly can’t trust her father,” Bridget said, her voice low.
“You need to understand what a bad father really is, because maybe that will help you see that you are not one. You love Emma more than anything in this world, Reeves. Anybody can see that. She knows that. She’s frightened because of what happened to her, yes, but it doesn’t change the way she feels about you.
It couldn’t. A child knows when her parent loves her and wants to protect her.
Emma doesn’t see you as a failure in that regard.
She understands that you would move mountains to keep her safe. ”
Reeves couldn’t speak around the lump in his throat. Was it possible Emma really understood that about him? He longed to believe it.
“You are a wonderful father,” Bridget told him firmly.
“You are the father your daughter needs, and she’s lucky to have you.
In time, she’ll start to recover from what happened to her, and you’ll have the child you know back.
Be patient with her. And in the meantime…
don’t blame yourself. In no way are you at fault for what happened. I hope you hear me when I say that.”