“We made a lot of mistakes, your mama and I. I was a fool.” Sophie just looked at him. Perhaps her father was finally giving up all those other women? But after wishing for it her whole life, she found she didn’t care at all.

“That’s nice, Papa,” she whispered.

George hesitated, his eyes strained. Then he left the room.

Finally, after several weeks of lying in bed, she stopped bleeding and Dr. Lambeth pronounced her well enough to get up. Sophie wearily got up and sat in the steaming bath Simone had prepared. She couldn’t look at her body now without hating it for its failures, for its inability to provide a good home for her daughter.

So she sat in the rapidly cooling water, rigidly staring at the wall until finally Simone took the soap from her mistress’s limp hand and rubbed a washcloth over her body.

Patrick walked in just as Simone was drawing Sophie to her feet and bundling her in a warm towel. Sophie moved like a sleepwalker, not even registering that her husband had entered the room.

With a nod he dismissed Simone and drew his wife over to the velvet stool before the fireplace. He helped her sit, then started toweling her long, wet hair. It was beginning to worry him, this listlessness. Dr. Lambeth said it was natural. But what did the doctor know? It wasn’t natural for his vital, laughing Sophie. A shadow of fear touched Patrick’s heart every time he saw her still face and shadowed eyes.

But he spoke of this and that until Sophie’s quiet voice cut through his talk.

“I want to go to Charlotte’s house … to see the grave.”

Patrick paused, then rubbed her hair even harder.

“We’ll leave for Downes tomorrow morning,” he promised.

“I want to go now,” Sophie replied. “And I want to go by myself.” There was something implacable in her voice.

Patrick’s heart lurched and he dropped the towel, coming around in front of Sophie and dropping to his knees before her as she sat on the low stool.

“Don’t shut me out, Sophie,” he whispered. “Don’t.” The grinding tightness in the back of his throat made it impossible to say anything more.

Sophie looked at him calmly. The bouts of tears had receded in the last two days. She felt as if she were looking at the world through a thick, cottony pile of clouds.

“Of course I’m not shutting you out, Patrick,” she replied. “I simply would like to visit the grave for the first time by myself.”

Patrick stared at her, his eyes black holes in his exhausted face. “Why?”

“I’m her mother.” Then she amended her statement: “I was her mother.”

“I’m her father,” Patrick replied.

“I carried her in my body for months,” Sophie cried, “and I have to say I’m sorry.”

“For what?”