Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 73963 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73963 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Silence was only but for a moment.
“Oh my,” Lady Wellington blurted out loudly.
I kept my eyes locked on Miriam who continued to stand as stiff and determined as she had been before my proclamation of undying love. Something I never thought I’d find myself doing. Yet here I was doing just that.
“Nicholas asked me to marry him. I believe his feelings run deeper than you give him credit,” she said.
Nicholas may have asked for her hand but so had I. I needed the confirmation that she did not know of my meeting with her uncle and my request to marry her. I now had it, yet I did not want to be the one to tell her of that meeting. I wanted nothing more than to have Miriam in my life and by my side forever and with her would come her family. She had no father, but she had an uncle and she cared for him. She respected him. Unsure how to explain myself without telling her the exact truth would be almost impossible.
“He asked for your hand in marriage first,” Alfred Wellington’s voice filled the room.
I did not take my eyes from Miriam. I watched as she looked at her uncle, clearly confused by his words. Over the past two weeks, I had thought many things of Alfred Wellington and none of them were fond thoughts. The man had so bluntly informed me that he did not care that I was an earl. I was not good enough for his niece. She deserved more than to just be the mother of my bastard. Hearing Emma called a bastard had been all it took to end my request. I had left 18 Mayfair without another word.
“What do you mean?” Miriam asked at the same time her aunt asked, “WHAT?” rather hysterically.
Wellington sighed and shot a look in my direction. I then met his gaze and waited to see what it was he was going to tell Miriam. The truth was I never said what all I had come to say that day. His accusation about Emma and my temper had been enough to end our meeting. I realized too late I should have stayed and pled my case. Perhaps if he had known the depths of my 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.”