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“Well, I don’t know what he is, but he’s some kind of monster,” Rose said evenly. “Only a monster looks like that. And he’s rude besides, walking in and disrupting your wedding day like he did.”

Amanda sighed. She leaned back against the high back of the chair and wrapped her arms around Rose. It was a technique that only worked about half the time—the girl was so willful that sometimes she resisted being held like this, and she was really a bit too old for it. But today she went along with it, leaning her head against Amanda’s shoulder. Amanda was reminded of the fact that Rose had never had any parents to speak of. No one had held her like this in a very long time. No wonder she resisted it so much of the time. And then, too, no wonder there were times when she needed it.

Amanda stroked Rose’s hair gently as she spoke. “The most important thing to me,” she said, “is that you and I are able to stay together, Rose. That’s what matters more than anything else. And the Duke of Mortridge is offering that. I was worried that Lord Oakwell wouldn’t want to have a child in his life. But the duke is happy to have you, and that means you and I can stay together.”

“Really?” She looked up into Amanda’s eyes. “He wants me?”

“He wants me to be happy. I told him the only way that was ever going to happen was if you were with me, and he agreed.” She smiled down at the little girl. “He isn’t a monster.”

“But he is horrible to look at,” Rose murmured. “Really horrible.”

“I don’t think he’s so bad,” Amanda said. “He has scars, that’s all. If he didn’t have them, he’d be fairly handsome.”

Rose’s eyes went wide. “You think he’s handsome? Are you in love with him?”

Amanda had to laugh. “Of course, I’m not,” she said gently. “I hardly know the man. That’s not what any of this is about, and you know it. All I’m saying is that I think we can live happily in his house. I think he’ll give us a good home, and that there’s no reason for us to feel afraid of him.”

Rose nodded. She settled back in Amanda’s arms. “If he does turn out to be a bad man, I promise to protect you from him.”

There was a lightness in her voice that let Amanda know that was a joke. She smiled. “I know nothing bad can happen to me when I have you by my side,” she agreed. “You’re such a help to me, Rose. You always have been, since the day I took you in.”

“That’s why you took me in, isn’t it?” Rose asked with a laugh. “Because you needed help. That was what you said that day.”

Amanda smiled as she remembered it. “I didn’t think you would come with me if I didn’t say something like that,” she said. “You didn’t trust me at first. You didn’t trust me for a long time.”

“I didn’t understand what you wanted with me,” Rose said. “When ladies spoke to me, it was to tell me to shoo, or sometimes threaten to call the authorities to have me dealt with. So when you started talking to me, I was sure it was some sort of trick. Some trap. I thought you were trying to get me to let my guard down so that you could do something like that.”

“You were such a fierce little thing,” Amanda recalled. “You had dirt on your cheek.” She touched the place on Rose’s cheek where the dirt had been smeared. “And you seemed angry, too. But it occurred to me that day that you were probably more afraid than you were angry. You were like a little wolf who’s been backed into a corner and is snarling because it’s frightened, and because it wants you to know that you’re going to be bitten if you don’t leave it alone.”

“I did think about biting you.” Rose laughed.

“Do you remember that I went away and came back?”

Rose nodded. “You said that if I waited right where I was, you’d bring me something to eat.”

“I thought you would probably run away,” Amanda said. “But I went to get you some bread anyway, just in case, and when I got back you were still there.”

“I still thought it was a trick. I thought if you offered me the bread and I took it, you would start screaming that I had stolen it from you.”

Amanda hadn’t known that. “But you did take it,” she said. “Why did you take it if you thought I was trying to trick you?”

“I was hungry,” Rose said. “I figured I could probably run faster than you, because you were wearing all those big skirts. And I knew I could run faster than fat old Constable Peters.”

“Be nice, Rose.”

“Well, he chased me around all the time,” Rose protested. “I knew I could outrun him easily. So if you yelled, I would run away, and I would still have the bread. The joke would be on you. I was hungry enough that it was worth taking a risk.”

Amanda smiled at the memory. “You ate that bread so fast. After that, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I was going to get you to come back home with me. I knew you needed a home and someone to care for you, and I wanted to be that person…and you’re right. It was because I needed help. I was so lonely, living on my own with my husband off to war. I needed someone with me.”

“What would have happened if your husband had come home and found me there and gotten angry?” Rose wanted to know. “Would he have let me go on living in his house?”

“George wouldn’t have minded at all,” Amanda said with a smile. “He was a good man. He would have liked you very much, Rose. He would have been glad to have you as a part of our family. I’m still very sad that we never got to live together with him.”

“Were you in love with him?” Rose asked.

“No,” Amanda said. “I was fond of him. I liked him, and he liked me, and I was happy to be his wife. It would have been a good life with him if he had made it home. I wish he had.” She sighed. “But we weren’t in love. It was never like that between us.”

“Then you’ve never been in love,” Rose observed.