He waited, giving her space to speak. When she didn’t, he sighed and continued. “Do you not see that what you did was rude?”
Abigail frowned, drawing her knees up beneath the coverlet as if trying to retreat into herself. “I suppose,” she mumbled. “I do. I didn’t mean to…I’m sorry.”
Valentine nodded. “That pleases me to hear. Truly.”
Abigail turned her face toward him. “I’ll say sorry. Properly. Tomorrow.”
He brushed her hair back. “That’s good, Abigail.”
“Papa?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think Mama would be angry with me?”
Valentine paused mid-motion, his hand still near her temple. “Angry?” he echoed.
Abigail turned to look at him for a brief moment, then looked down at her fingers. “Because I like Cecilia. I mean, not completely. But a little. Is that wrong?”
The question hit him harder than he expected. For a moment, he had no words.
He sat back slowly and crossed his arms. “No,” he said at last. “No, Abigail. It isn’t wrong.”
“But Mama was my mother,” she said, as though reminding him. “She should come first. Shouldn’t she?”
Valentine swallowed as the memory of the past pressing in like fog. “Your mama,” he began quietly. “She loved you very much, Abigail.”
He gave her hand a small squeeze. “If she could see you now, I think she’d want to make sure you were still being looked after. That someone was tucking you in at night, and making sure you had someone to play with.”
Abigail sighed. “But it feels like Cecilia is taking her place.”
“No one can take your mama’s place, dear,” he said. “She will always be yours, in your heart. But,” he paused. “She’s not here anymore, and I think if she could, she’d whisper to you that it’s all right to let someone else be kind to you too.”
There was silence before Abigail’s brow creased. “Would she have really wanted that?”
He hesitated — just for a moment — then spoke. “She would have wanted that, yes.”
It was not the same as saying she had been loving. It wasn’t a lie either. The truth was that Abigail’s mother had died moments after childbirth, never once having held the daughter she had resented the thought of. But it was not a truth for Abigail to carry. Not now. Not yet, and certainly not like this.
Abigail didn’t need to know that her mother’s memory was one Valentine had learned to bury. Not tonight.
So he gave her the only truth he could offer.
“I should let you sleep,” Valentine said, feeling the urge to escape the conversation.
“No, Papa. Stay,” Abigail insisted.
“No, you need your sleep, Abigail,” he insisted. “Go to bed.”
Abigail’s small pout was barely visible in the dim light, but she obeyed, turning onto her side and pulling the coverlet higher with a sigh. Valentine lingered a moment, watching the slow rise and fall of her shoulders before he started to retreat.
He closed the door with care and lingered outside for a breath or two, listening to the hush that settled in its wake. But peace did not come. Not truly. He knew the brief conversation about Bianca, Abigail’s mother, had unearthed too much. Guilt. Regret. The uncomfortable stirrings of memories he had long buried.
Frustrated, he turned on his heel and headed to his study, ready to bury himself in work so he didn’t have to think.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Be careful, Cecilia, else you’ll fall.”
