“He—he was a great man,” he said softly. “A great father. I loved him very much.”
Kate turned to look at him, the first time she’d met his gaze since he’d lifted her chin with his fingers many minutes earlier. “Your mother speaks of him with great affection. That was why I asked.”
“We all loved him,” he said simply, turning his head and staring out across the room. His eyes focused on the leg of a chair, but he didn’t really see it. He didn’t see anything but the memories in his mind. “He was the finest father a boy could ever want.”
“When did he die?”
“Eleven years ago. In the summer. When I was eighteen. Right before I left for Oxford.”
“That’s a difficult time for a man to lose his father,” she murmured.
He turned sharply to look at her. “Any time is a difficult time for a man to lose his father.”
“Of course,” she quickly agreed, “but some times are worse than others, I think. And surely it must be different for boys and girls. My father passed on five years ago, and I miss him terribly, but I don’t think it’s the same.”
He didn’t have to voice his question. It was there in his eyes.
“My father was wonderful,” Kate explained, her eyes warming as she reminisced. “Kind and gentle, but stern when he needed to be. But a boy’s father—well, he has to teach his son how to be a man. And to lose a father at eighteen, when you’re just learning what all that means…” She let out a long exhale. “It’s probably presumptuous for me even to discuss it, as I’m not a man and therefore couldn’t possibly put myself in your shoes, but I think…” She paused, pursing her lips as she considered her words. “Well, I just think it would be very difficult.”
“My brothers were sixteen, twelve, and two,” Anthony said softly.
“I would imagine it was difficult for them as well,” she replied, “although your youngest brother probably doesn’t remember him.”
Anthony shook his head.
Kate smiled wistfully. “I don’t remember my mother, either. It’s an odd thing.”
“How old were you when she died?”
“It was on my third birthday. My father married Mary only a few months later. He didn’t observe the proper mourning period, and it shocked some of the neighbors, but he thought I needed a mother more than he needed to follow etiquette.”
For the first time, Anthony wondered what would have happened if it had been his mother who had died young, leaving his father with a house full of children, several of them infants and toddlers. Edmund wouldn’t have had an easy time of it. None of them would have.
Not that it had been easy for Violet. But at least she’d had Anthony, who’d been able to step in and try to act the role of surrogate father to his younger siblings. If Violet had died, the Bridgertons would have been left completely without a maternal figure. After all, Daphne—the eldest of the Bridgerton daughters—had been only ten at Edmund’s death. And Anthony was certain that his father would not have remarried.
No matter how his father would have wanted a mother for his children, he would not have been able to take another wife.
“How did your mother die?” Anthony asked, surprised by the depth of his curiosity.
“Influenza. Or at least that’s what they thought. It could have been any sort of lung fever.” She rested her chin on her hand. “It was very quick, I’m told. My father said I fell ill as well, although mine was a mild case.”
Anthony thought about the son he hoped to sire, the very reason he had finally decided to marry. “Do you miss a parent you never knew?” he whispered.
Kate considered his question for some time. His voice had held a hoarse urgency that told her there was something critical about her reply. Why, she couldn’t imagine, but something about her childhood clearly rang a chord within his heart.
“Yes,” she finally answered, “but not in the way you would think. You can’t really miss her, because you didn’t know her, but there’s still a hole in your life—a big empty spot, and you know who was supposed to fit there, but you can’t remember her, and you don’t know what she was like, and so you don’t know how she would have filled that hole.” Her lips curved into a sad sort of smile. “Does this make any sense?”
Anthony nodded. “It makes a great deal of sense.”
“I think losing a parent once you know and love them is harder,” Kate added. “And I know, because I’ve lost both.”