The Bride Price by Karen Jones Delk

up trade routes to the East. When I began to prosper as a merchant, I did send for you.”
    “You did?” Guarded but willing to believe, Bryna watched her father.
    “Aye, but Mother Veronique convinced me that my life was still too unsettled to bring up a child.
    “Now wait—” he cautioned when the girl’s mouth dropped open in surprise, “—I’ll not hear any angry words about that fine lady. She was right. ‘Twouldn’t have been fair to drag you halfway around the world and hand you over to a native nurse. You see, I could not remarry, for I’ve compared every woman to Cathy.”
    “So you and Mother Veronique decided that if I did not have a mother, I could not have a father, either?” Bryna muttered rebelliously.
    “Bryna Jean-Marie O’Toole, look at me,” Blaine ordered quietly, rising to stand before her,
    Unwillingly she obeyed and was surprised to see tenderness and entreaty in his blue eyes. “You do have a father,” he informed her gently, “though not a very good one. I realized recently that you would soon be a woman full grown and I had never known you. I’ve never told you that I love you. I’ve never asked you to forgive me.”
    “To forgive you?” she repeated warily.
    “Yes.” Silently Blaine awaited his daughter’s judgment.
    Bryna sat very still, her gaze fixed on the night beyond the terrace doors. At last she sighed and shook her head as if to clear it. “Next to pride and patience, Sister Françoise’s favorite subject was forgiveness.”
    Blaine exhaled in a rush, realizing for the first time that he had been holding his breath. Taking her hands in his, he pulled her from her chair and asked urgently, “Then you’ll forgive me, petite maîtresse?”
    “I will try to forgive you, but I warn you, I do not know if I can forget.”
    “‘Tis not much time, but you have six weeks to find out.” He grinned weakly when she stared at him with shock. “That is how long you have given me, isn’t it, ‘til your eighteenth birthday?”
    “Another of Mother Veronique’s letters?” she asked ruefully.
    “Aye.”
    “Six weeks may be enough, but it could take longer. We shall see.” Unexpectedly her lips curved in a smile. “I wouldn’t want to make it too easy for you, Blaine O’Toole.”
    He swooped suddenly and planted a kiss on top of her head. “Daughter, you’re a woman after my own heart. Take as long as you like, chère, take as long as you like.”

CHAPTER 4
    The heat of the day was not quite over when Bryna wandered through the empty rooms of Blaine’s luxurious home, the skirt of her pink cotton dress swaying, her bare feet slapping softly on the cool tile floor. Enervated by the heat of Tangier, the girl understood the native custom of kef, rest during the afternoon, but she couldn’t sleep. While the teeming city was quiet, she roamed the deserted house.
    Accustomed to being surrounded by people at Hotel Ste. Anne, she was oddly unsettled by her solitude. Here, even the servants napped in the afternoon. Morocco and its customs still felt so alien to her, she wondered if she would ever be at ease.
    At last she padded out into the tiny walled garden below the house, burning her feet on the sunbaked steps. She found a shady spot under a tree and plopped down with a mighty sigh, uncaring that she was soiling her skirt. She leaned her head against the puny tree trunk and closed her eyes.
    Suddenly it occurred to her that she missed Blaine. She had seen him off on a business trip at dawn that very morning, but already she missed him. She would not have believed it five days ago.
    After a while—she did not know how long—Bryna became aware of the sun, scorchingly hot through the fabric of her skirt. Swatting drowsily at an insect that droned around her face, she opened her eyes to discover the lower half of her body was no longer in the shadow of the tree. She must have dozed off. Shifting to take advantage of the shade that was left, the girl lethargically