feeling, he would have changed his mind.
“Twas the day after we returned from Chatwick Hall. The two of you took Whitney for a stroll in the park and Lord Ashington arrived to speak with me.” He glanced at his wife briefly then at Miriam. “He asked for your hand then, but we had just seen the girl. He had made no explanation for her and expected you to just accept he was keeping his bastard child. I believed he was searching for a wife to mother the child and I wanted more for you than that. I want you to have what your aunt and I have. I want you to be loved, Miriam. You deserve more.”
“Oh, Alfred!” Lady Wellington said with exasperation. “Dear, the man does love her and no matter who the girl is, she is but a child and she too needs love. How could you be so callous of something such as that?”
Miriam was looking at me now. I saw many different emotions on her face and a few terrified me while others gave me hope. Hope that I wasn’t too late. Hope that she might possibly love me too. Hope that she didn’t see Emma as her uncle did. For as much as I loved her, Emma was, indeed, just a child who needed me. Who needed to be loved. Wouldn’t Miriam understand that?
“You ignored me then, at the ball, because Uncle Alfred had refused you,” Miriam said finally.
I nodded once. “I thought perhaps my feelings for you could be forgotten or that they were not as deep as I feared. I was wrong.”
“And Emma,” she said. “She is your daughter?”
This was a question I expected. A secret I had kept to myself and only myself. Telling Miriam, and her aunt and uncle, meant that I had to trust them. Emma’s future was fragile in this society. Every decision I made would impact how it all played out for her.
“She is not. However, she is a Compton. I am going to raise her as my own. The details as to her birth will have to be a lie if she is to ever live among the world we do. She is bright. She will make her way brilliantly one day. I have no doubt of that.” I took one step toward Miriam then stopped. “When this season began, I had one goal: to find Emma a mother. Someone proper and quintessentially English. I believed if she had a mother such as that, she would grow to be a lady. For she is rather head strong and wild. However, I was wrong… about many things, it would seem.”
“Emma needs a mother who understands what it is like to feel unwanted by those who are meant to love you most. You see, she was brought to me at two years old. Her mother had left her with some old woman she barely knew with coins and a promise she’d return. She did not. The old woman got word that Emma’s mother had died and she brought the girl to me. Until that day, I had no knowledge of Emma’s existence. Emma remembers everything about her life before she came to me. I wish so often that she did not. She can tell you the color of her mother’s hair, features of her mother’s face in great detail and the way her mother said specific words, for her mother was French and spoke with a heavy accent.”
“Emma needs a mother who can accept who she is and be ready to protect her if the time arises. Emma needs a mother who is brave, loyal, loving, and kind. It is true I found all of those things in you. However, I would be lying to you and myself if I stood here and told you that I asked your uncle for your hand because of Emma.”
I closed the distance between us and took Miriam’s hand in mine. For a moment, I studied her delicate hand almost lost in my much larger one. Then I lifted my gaze to meet hers. “I did not plan to fall in love. It was something I did not believe existed between a man and a woman. I believed only in lust and attraction. Both of those fade over time and I wanted nothing to do with either when choosing a wife. You, Miriam Bathurst, changed everything. I knew you were different from that very first meeting. You were the first lady to ever