The Merchant's Bride

DECEMBER 6, 1796

AEGREMONTH

"She is insane!" cried the woman, her hand squeezing at her chest showed how heavily her organ was pounding underneath.

"Of course." The man frowned and sighed. "She is your daughter after all." 

"My—my daughter? How about your insolent and loose little sister? Is she not? Ah!" the woman slapped her palm onto her forehead, and almost slumped in the divan nearby. She held up her posture.

"My wasted life!" she said, wailing. "What have I been doing all these years of raising my children? I can not for the love of me even believe that — Ah, my heart! It is frantically shredding apart.

"I cannot say if that girl's fickle mind is the thing that aggravates me most or if it is her utterly delinquent conduct. Well, I know who should take the blame. And it is not my sweet naive child. It is that bastard of a man. That rake!"

"Her lover…"

"He is not!" the woman whimpered. "The gods forbid it."

"What gods? The demons, you mean."

"Shut it! Your manner is upsetting me the most."

"As it should, because all of this," the man pulled a finger out at her, "is your fault!"

"Good gracious! No, when did I? You — You cannot," she floundered over many beginnings. "Tell me you did not— in any way just now — did you just imply that this thing, that is happening, this disgrace on the Blenntmort name, that this reproach, is… is my fault?"

"Yes, mother. It is yours and yours alone. It is your bloody damn fault!"

"Aha." She clapped her hands up in the air, laughing cantankerously. "You are a fool, Rochester. And for that, this baby has become your duty."

"What? You mean, raising her?"

All Eloise did was twitch her eyebrows.

"You want me to raise this girl?"

After a lengthy pause, Rochester saw that he could not win against his mother. Chewing his lips, he riled on his heels and stopped just before the baby's cradle, a sophisticated wooden exhibit.

All it took was one forlorn glance at her features; golden hair and silver-blue eyes just like her mother. His mind was troubled. If she was going to become his responsibility, that was going to pose a problem for him. Perhaps, not an effect he would deal with in the present, but much sooner than in the distant future. He was going to have to get married someday.

Rochester watched and saw the baby giggle. His eyes got teary. She was only an infant. Barely two months old, her mother had absconded away in search of her runaway lover and the girl's father. That man was a Fraud and Rochester hated him the most.

But this girl, this delectable beauty before him who was looking straight back at him was too docile to be in such a critical situation.

If her mother never returned, what then?

One final look and Rochester concluded the step he was going to have to take. He was certainly not her father neither was he certain that he could fill in the gap for her mother. But he hoped that his future bride would. In time, he was going to have to find her but now; now he was more in love with the picture of this perfect little thing. Except that she wasn't a thing.

She was now an integral part of him and he, no matter the circumstances surrounding her birth, would have to love and protect her for the rest of his life.

Rochester spun on his heels to steal one last look at his oppressor. Nothing left much to say, he mouthed the single phrase "fine, I'll do it" before stomping towards the fireplace where he halted, sipping the view of the slowly vanishing embers.

It was a freezing December.