She shook her head in response to his silent plea. “...of this child. I quit, Lord Williams.” She finished, bowing briefly before scurrying out of the study and leaving a very confused father behind.

*

LEANING FORWARD SLIGHTLY, Ethan stared into the silver-gray eyes of the wailing child who laid helplessly in her crib, and he couldn't help but feel the weight of the world settle upon his shoulder. He didn't know how much of the situation he could take, neither did he know for how much longer he was capable of bearing it. Severally, through the weeks of caring for Elizabeth, he had found himself wondering about dropping her off in an orphanage. As a matter of fact, the thought began to slowly occupy a large part of his heart to the point that he found it easy to understand Juliet’s decision to get rid of the child, neither was he certain he could blame her for it.

They were cruel thoughts and Ethan battled to shove them aside long enough to consider a solution to Elizabeth’s sour mood. It seemed to him that there was simply no explanation for her tears but he knew he had to find a solution or he was afraid he would lose whatever restraint he thought he possessed and indeed ship her off to an orphanage.

Elizabeth stayed up crying all night and by the next morning, Ethan was riding into town, determined not to return without help.

Chapter Two

The wind blew against her face, lifting her red hat off of her head and carrying it into the sea of people that crowded the dock.

Gretchen released a frustrated breath but didn't bother to go after the fleeing hat. She had just spent two weeks aboard a ship to London and while it was only a few weeks, it felt like centuries. Her journey was simply dreadful and to make her predicament even worse, she was several days late to seeing about the job she had journeyed all the way to London for —a fleeing hat was the least of her problem.

Maneuvering through the dreadful, sweaty crowd, she winced as several bodies crashed against hers, making it nearly impossible to get away from the dock without losing her single travel bag in the process. Barely seeing the path before her, she tightened her grip on her bag and shoved her way through until she was emerging from the crowd breathless and sweaty as she settled into a hired coach and gave the aging coachman the address Sue, the dressmaker, had indicated in her employment letter.

Sighing, Gretchen leaned back against her seat and stretched her aching feet as she glanced out of the window at the busy streets of London. It was nothing like her home in San Francisco, she thought. Not only were there infrastructures she was unfamiliar with, her frilly white shirt and dull gray skirt paled in comparison with the colorful, vibrant display of modern fashion London had to offer.