Chapter 25
“Are you excited to be at the ball today, Emma?”
Emma clutched her father’s hand tightly and looked away from Gareth.
Reeves suppressed a sigh. He had held out hope that this event would jostle Emma out of her resistance to speaking, but so far, that hadn’t happened.
Even her Uncle Gareth didn’t seem able to get anything out of her—though perhaps that shouldn’t have been so surprising, since Reeves himself hadn’t gotten her to talk either.
Gareth looked up at Reeves. “Is it something I said?”
“No. She still hasn’t started speaking again since she got home.”
“Still?” Gareth frowned. “Doesn’t that worry you, Reeves? I mean, at first, maybe it was understandable, with all she had been through. But she really should be starting to talk again.”
It made Reeves uncomfortable to hear his own argument out of someone else’s mouth, and he found himself taking Bridget’s part. “We can’t rush her,” he told Gareth. “She’ll speak in her own time, when she’s ready.”
“Well, I don’t see why she shouldn’t speak now,” Gareth said.
He bent down to Emma. “We know you know how to talk, Emma. You were the chattiest little girl I knew before all this happened. Now, maybe it’s tempting to stay quiet, but I’m sure your father would be happy with you if you said something.
He did go to all this trouble to throw a ball for your return, after all. Aren’t you grateful for that?”
Emma cowered.
Anger prickled at the back of Reeve’s neck. “Will you excuse us?” he said to Gareth, his voice tight. “We should make the rounds and see to it that all the guests have been greeted.”
He pulled Emma away. She followed him willingly, her gaze traveling upward to his face.
“Don’t listen to Uncle Gareth,” Reeves said, once he was confident that Gareth was out of earshot. “He wants you to be all better, just like we all do, but he doesn’t understand that you need to take your time. You’ll speak when you’re ready to, right?”
Emma nodded, her face relaxing.
“Then there’s no hurry,” Reeves assured her. “Would you like to take a break from the ball? You could go and sit in the library with Aunt Agnes.”
Emma nodded more vigorously this time, and Reeves felt a surge of gratitude for his sister and for the fact that she was so much better with Emma than his late wife’s brother. “You run along,” he told her.
Emma let go of his hand, flung her arms briefly around his waist, and then ran off to the library.
“Is she all right?”
He turned and found himself face-to-face with Bridget.
It was the first time he had been with her since the ball had begun in earnest, though he had caught sight of her across the room a few times.
She was hard to miss, dressed in a beautiful lavender gown, her hair pinned up in a way that accented her facial features.
“Where did you get that gown?” he asked. “I know you didn’t bring that with you from the orphanage.”
She laughed. “Could you imagine wearing something like this to work at an orphanage?” She spun around, causing her skirts to flare out ever so slightly, and Reeves was hard pressed not to stare.
“No,” she went on. “I borrowed this from Agnes. It’s lucky for me that we’re close enough in size that I’m able to fit into her things—though I could tell the moment I put this on that it wasn’t going to be an exact fit, of course.
Not like something tailored to me would be.
“What happened to all your gowns when you left your parents’ house?” he asked her. “You didn’t bring anything with you?”
“I didn’t really have anything, truth be told,” she said.
“My parents made it the responsibility of my aunt and uncle to dress me for the Season when I went to stay with them. They gave me secondhand things from Prudence and her older sisters—and no, I didn’t take those things with me when I left.
They never really felt as if they were mine. ”
“You should have told me all this,” Reeves said. “I would have seen to it that you had something special to wear tonight.”
“I do have something special, though,” she pointed out. “This gown is a dream. I know it’s not the same as having something of my own, but it does feel like a treat to be wearing it.”
“Well, we shouldn’t let it go to waste,” Reeves decided. “Will you dance with me?”
Her face changed. At first, he thought she was angry—there was a new tension around her eyes that he hadn’t seen there before.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I’d be honored.”
“The honor would be entirely mine,” he assured her, and led her out onto the dance floor.
At once, Reeves was aware that he hadn’t thought this through.
The last time he had been this close to her had been down by the lake, and there, too, he had acted on impulse, without really thinking about what he was doing.
It seemed that Bridget brought out this side of him.
He was going to have to be extremely careful about it, because he knew he couldn’t afford to give in to his impulses where she was concerned.
She’ll be leaving soon, he reminded himself. She’s put it off as long as she can, but we both must be hoping that Emma will resume talking soon, and once she does, Bridget will go.
The thought saddened him greatly.
Of course, there was still the fact that he had no idea who had kidnapped Emma in the first place.
He was no closer to solving that particular mystery.
His hopes that the kidnapper might show himself at the ball had proven to be for nothing.
There was nobody here who hadn’t been expressly invited, and no sign of anything suspicious happening.
Perhaps the kidnapper had sensed that he would be walking into a trap by coming here tonight.
“You haven’t done this recently, have you?” Bridget asked, interrupting Reeves’ thoughts.
“What?” It took him a moment to catch up.
“Dancing,” she clarified. “Socializing, really. My cousin says you never have anyone to visit you here at your home.”
“No, well, I haven’t seen a need to,” he said. “Why would I invite people here? My home is my sanctuary, and besides, I know what happens when people are exposed to me.”
“What do you mean?” She frowned.
“You haven’t noticed?” He glanced around, surprised that it had escaped her. He couldn’t have missed it if he’d tried. “Everyone is staring at me.”
“Don’t you think that’s because they see so little of you?” she asked him. “This is a novelty for people—being here at Greystone, actually setting eyes on the elusive Duke. Of course they’re staring.”
He barked out a humorless laugh. “You give them too much credit,” he told her.
“They’re staring because of my scars. Because they so rarely get the chance to examine my face up close, and now that chance is upon them.
Everyone has their own tale to tell about how I got these scars, and after tonight, I’m sure the stories will circulate once again. ”
“How did you get them?” Bridget asked.
He looked at her. There was none of the usual eager curiosity on her face. She wasn’t salivating after gossip. “Why do you want to know?”
“It seems important to you,” Bridget said. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I just thought maybe you would.”
She was right, he realized. He did want to tell. Maybe because she was one of the only people who had never seemed that interested—maybe that was enough to make him want to open up about what had happened.
“It was Norman,” he said. “Debt collectors were after him. It wasn’t his own debt—his father left him with a bad legacy. But debt collectors don’t care who accrued the debt. All they care about is getting paid, and if it’s not happening quickly enough for their liking, they turn violent.”
“They went for Norman?” Bridget repeated. “That’s awful.”
“He’s one of the best friends I have. One of the only friends I have, really. I had to put a stop to it,” Reeves explained. “When I intervened, one of the men cut my face.”
Bridget gasped. “That’s horrible,” she murmured. “I had no idea something like that had happened to you.”
“Well, I wouldn’t take it back,” Reeves said. “I had to stand by Norman.”
“Of course you did,” Bridget agreed. “I would have done just the same for the orphans under my care. We stand up for the people we care about. I have a lot of respect for that, Reeves.”
He hadn’t expected to earn her respect. In his mind, this was a story of mixing with lowlifes. But now he saw it from another perspective. For the first time, he felt a bit of pride in his own actions.
“Anyway,” he said, clearing his throat, “it was mere days after that when I went away to war. I had assumed that people would think I got my scars in battle and would leave it at that, but a rumor seems to have spread that I was seen with scars before I left. And in this instance, the rumor is true. So, people are left to speculate—where did they come from? How did I get them?”
“You could tell people the story you told me. It certainly isn’t shocking,” she said. “I think most people would respond the same way I did. They would think highly of you for it.”
“Maybe they would,” Reeves said. “But I don’t have to explain myself to anyone. Let them stare, if that’s what they want to do. Unless someone takes the time to ask me, the way you did, I don’t see why I should tell them anything.”
Bridget nodded, seeming to accept that. “So, you went off to war,” she said. “And then … when in the midst of all this did you marry Emma’s mother?”
The musicians stopped playing briefly, but then they began a new number. Reeves knew this was an opportunity to dodge Bridget’s questions, to let her go and walk away.
But he didn’t want to.
He pulled her into a second dance. She came along willingly, gazing up at him.
“When I returned,” he said. “That was just after I found out the late Duke of Greystone had died and that I was his closest living heir. A far distant cousin of mine—I never met the man, actually. I had no idea I was in line to inherit from him. It took me completely by surprise.” He chuckled.
“I had a friend when I was at the front—a tiny little man. Great with a blade, but shorter than you, even. He used to tease me about everything he could think of. He had the sharpest wit of anyone I ever knew. And when the letter came letting me know I was going to be a duke, I thought I would never hear the end of it.” For a moment, he smiled fondly at the memory.
Then he continued. “But the title came with the offer of a wife, and I knew I needed one. I had no experience in society. I had no way of knowing what was expected of me or how I ought to conduct myself. I don’t know what I would have done without her as a guide in those early days. ”
“Were you very close?” she asked.
“I would say we were friends,” Reeves said. “But no… not close friends. Not the sort who share confidences, or even much of one another’s time.” He hesitated, hardly able to believe what he was about to say, but it was the truth. “I’m probably closer to you than I ever was with her.”
Bridget stared up at him, her eyes wide.
Reeves tried to process the implications of his own words.
They were true. Bridget was someone he could confide in.
She was someone he found himself looking forward to seeing.
None of that had been true of Rosalie. He had been fond of her in much the same way as he was fond of his butler—she had been pleasant and had served the purpose she was in his life to serve.
Bridget was different. Bridget was exciting. When he was with her, he felt awake. Alive.
But what could he possibly have intended by telling her that?