Somehow, Cal had the self-control to stay away. Weeks passed, and for that one day every week, Rose was able to hide away with the only person that made her feel like there was hope in the world, and Cal didn't poke his nose into it once. Not even when Lovejoy would leave them alone for thirty minutes—sometimes an entire hour—at a time, already mindlessly bored with the task of watching over his boss's ill-behaved fiancée.

Even when they would notice Lovejoy strolling away (for a cigarette or a strong drink, who was to say), Jack and Rose didn't try to pull what they had done that first day they met up. Now that Rose was allowed around the backyard again (the wedding further postponed for vague "business purposes"), there was no reason for them to be holed up in her bedroom, which was suspicious from the start.

After hearing from Lovejoy that the first meeting had taken place in Rose's bedroom, Cal had laid down the law and explained (while fighting the urge to call Lovejoy an imbecile) that all future meetings should be in open spaces, or at least with doors open. Lovejoy had nodded his head while holding back a yawn; he wasn't stupid, he just didn't care. In his mind, Cal had been manipulated far more than he realized. Those two were going to find some way to each other anyway; now that Cal had allowed their rendez-vous to happen, Lovejoy saw no point in watching them for hours on end—in his professional opinion.

Rose supposed she could find some way to grab Jack and knock out a quickie, but she figured the one time was pushing her luck; and besides, for the time being, she genuinely enjoyed spending her time with him in other ways. Since they began convening in the back garden, she took pleasure in lounging around with a book or a sketchpad while soaking in the sun; they would read stories out loud or make drawings together, even though Rose had the risky potential of ruining every single line that Jack put down.

Sometimes they would play games. Jack had challenged her once to draw him without looking at the paper, and Rose had to bite her lip to prevent herself from laughing the entire time she kept her eyes glued to his charming face. When she had felt like she was finished, she glanced down at the monstrosity she had produced and thought she was going to suffocate that day from the inability to take in a breath. She'd collapsed backwards on the grass while laughing hysterically, and Jack couldn't help doing the same once he had caught sight of the mess of squiggles and spirals that looked more abstract than human.

Sometimes, Rose would start feeling that seductive energy pooling under her skin before Jack had to leave, but by then it was too late and she had to seek out other means to take care of her sexual frustration. Of course, Jack was too much of a gentleman to instigate anything without her showing the desire first, so if he ever felt the same way during their sessions, she wasn't entirely sure. Occasionally, behind a well-hidden bush, by the way he would wrap his arms around her waist from behind and plant kisses on her cheek and neck, she wondered if he was frustrated by the circumstances, too.

One of their scheduled meetings fell on a particularly special day in July, and Rose was still figuring out how she wanted to spend it minutes leading up to his arrival. Her emotions were starting to throw her around like a roller coaster, and she could no longer tell if she was feeling frisky or irritated or both.

When she met him at the door, she was greeted with a prolonged hug, followed by a lingering kiss emanating with enough passion, she was surprised Cal couldn't pick up on it from wherever he was caging his jealousy. "Happy birthday, Rose." He handed her a small gift wrapped in newspaper.

"You remembered..."

"Of course I did. I'd never forget."

She unwrapped the present, revealing a new copy of Little Women. "It's only the first book," he explained, "you know, so you won't be bothered by the second one. You can make it your own ending." He paused, pink patches spreading across his cheeks as some of the excitement for the day fizzled out. "And I was hoping that one day, our child can read it, too."

Rose's own unpredictable emotions took on a tinge of sadness at the reminder of the baby that was theirs, but not theirs to keep. A bump indicative of more than just bloating was barely protruding now, filling Rose with some anxiety whenever she would see it while dressing in the morning. Her despairing thoughts dissipated, though, when she opened the cover of the book and saw a doodle of a stuffed teddy bear holding a bouquet of roses on the title page, signed, To my love on her birthday… JD. She felt tears brimming at her eyes already. "Oh, Jack… I love it. Thank you."

After safely tucking the book away in her nightstand, Rose headed outside to meet Jack, and was intrigued by him splaying out on a blanket with a picnic basket. "What's this?"

He sat up as she dropped onto her knees. "A very special birthday lunch, of course."

Rose glanced at Lovejoy standing far away at the gate of the garden, smoking a cigarette and not giving them a single look.

"Trudy brought it out while you were gone. I asked her if she could help me put this on last week," Jack explained when he saw Rose's quizzical expression.

"Ah, that makes a lot more sense. She's too kind to me. I'll have to thank her," Rose said as Jack poured her a glass of wine. "Hopefully, I can stomach all of this."

"Are you still nauseous?"

"Not as much, but my tastes have definitely changed, sometimes even overnight. For example, I used to love these shortbread cookies with strawberry jam that Constance, our cook, would make. But now, since just last week, I can barely take a bite without wanting to spit it out." She accepted the starting plate of cheese and crackers, knowing that that was something she could handle.

"Huh. I'm sorry to hear that, because…" He uncovered a small dish of the mentioned cookies, smiling apologetically. "I asked Trudy to make them for you."

Rose laughed though her stomach roiled at the sight. "I appreciate the thought and effort, but it seems like you'll have to eat them for me."

"Hey, I won't complain about that."

The afternoon ended up being an experiment of sorts, as they went through the simple dishes and Rose discovered more things she couldn't stand, or weird combinations she wanted to put together. "I guess I don't like turkey anymore. But this…" She grabbed a fresh chunk of melon and dipped it in some ketchup. "This is surprisingly delicious. Sweet and acidic."

Disturbed, Jack said, "I'll take your word for it."

After lunch, they laid down on the blanket and watched the fluffy clouds pass through the sky. "That one looks like a horse, don't you think?"

"I don't see it," Rose said, looking at where he was pointing.

"Okay, so it's more of a...rock."

Rose squinted at a couple of mingling clouds and said, "Those two. They look like…" She wrinkled her nose in concentration. "Never mind, I don't know if it's appropriate to say."

"I have some ideas," he said while his hand traveled up her arm and to her chest. She playfully slapped him away.

Because time kept pressing forward despite how much Rose wished it could remain still, the moment came where Jack had to leave. He helped her up off the ground, his hands encircling her waist as her arms snaked around his neck. "I gotta go now." He brushed a curl off of her forehead. "Happy birthday, Rose."

As he kissed her, her grip around his neck tightened, indicating her desire to not let him leave. "I wish you could stay, for today at least," she whispered while their noses touched.

"I know. I do, too. But we had fun, right? And who knows, maybe the more we keep up the good behavior, the more likely you-know-who will agree to more time every week."

If Rose wasn't upset at him leaving, she would have made some joke about how eventually, that good behavior was going to have to be broken. But now she nodded her head in agreement, and then pulled him into a final hug as it dawned on her that this had been the best birthday she'd celebrated in years. Just another mark of how Jack made her life more amazing.

That morning, Rose dressed in black. She didn't feel a year older; she felt ten years older. For weeks, her father had been dying, and the scramble to save his business had begun. The DeWitt Bukater iron company was likely going to be bought up in the next couple weeks, and Rose and her mother were going to be left with a funeral, a family legacy, a home full of possessions and staff, and an empty bank account.

Rose sat down in the chair next to her father's bedside, her eyes already wet from looking at his emaciated figure in the bed. She grabbed his cold hand and squeezed it to remind him that she was there. He was able to produce a weak smile as he said, "Happy birthday, pumpkin."

She shook her head. "There's nothing exciting about fifteen, Papa. Not when you're bedridden like this."

His breaths were raspy, the cancer having spread to his lungs. "It's still your special day. Here, I got you something." He weakly gestured to a tiny black box on the nightstand.

When Rose opened it, she was astounded by the beauty of the necklace: an unblossomed rose bud encased in glass. "This… It's beautiful."

"I sent Jamie out to get it. I remember seeing it in a windowsill months ago, and thought you can keep it as a reminder of your own blooming beauty and grace," he said as Rose clasped the necklace around her neck.

Beauty and grace. Everything she had been raised to be, the only values that mattered. One day she would shake the hand of some rich man who saw that beauty and grace as a lovely perception to wed. She put on a faux facade while rubbing the glass pendant. "It's lovely, Papa. Thank you."

Unlike her mother, who either chose to ignore her or simply didn't see past her daughter's behavior, Henry DeWitt Bukater always knew when Rose wasn't being completely truthful or was putting on an act. He had raised a bright-minded, free-spirited young lady, but he understood that those traits didn't matter in their world. "I know your mother's traditional behavior drives you mad," he started to say, "so you aggravate her nerves sometimes. But she's only doing what she thinks is best for you. Be open to what she has to say when I'm gone… She'll be the only parent you have left, and she does care for you, more than you may know."

Rose's eyes started to run over with tears. "I don't know about that," she whispered before dropping her face into her palms to muffle her sobs.

After a couple minutes of Rose's crying and sniffling, her father said, "I'm sorry, pumpkin."

She lifted her head up, her nose and eyes having turned tender and red. "For what, Papa?"

"The financial mistakes I've made… Your mother will figure out some way to make them disappear, I have no doubt…" He appeared devastated. "I'm sorry if that means you will have to marry well."

Marry well? Wasn't that the expectation of her from the moment she was born? "I thought I had to marry well regardless…"

After a hacking series of coughs, her father settled down and continued, "You may be too young still to understand. The money… It's gone… And I'm sorry. I always wanted you to marry who you chose, not who had the most wealth."

Rose held his hand as he coughed more, getting closer to the day where he wouldn't be able to take in another breath. "Rest now. We'll talk more later." She left the room feeling oddly calm, despite the implication that she was going to be bid off to the richest suitor. Fifteen years old, and her whole life was already planned out for her. What was there to look forward to with every passing year?

Five days later, he was dead, and Rose decided there really wasn't anything to look forward to anymore. She would just need to go through the motions: get married, birth children, play the perfect wife until God finally put her out of her misery—if she didn't take herself out first.

No one had entered the study since Henry had died. For a while, it was too painful for Rose to bear; but then she had to travel around so often, it wasn't until recently that she was truly settled back into her home. She had three years to grieve and process. Without being able to access her father's garden, that felt like enough time to unlock the doors.

The room was dim due to the curtains being shut, lit only by the streams of light peeking through the cracks. Undisturbed layers of dust settled on every bookshelf and table. Rose crossed over to his desk and sat down in the plush chair, neither upset nor pleased.

Instead, she felt calm and at peace, as if she was in a welcoming church. Since being caged here, she had not felt that way without Jack. As much as Trudy tried to make her comfortable, she was in a constant state of unease in this house.

She hadn't prayed in a while. Would anyone hear her in here? She closed her eyes and clasped her hands, supporting her elbows on her father's desk, and silently recited a couple of prayers she knew by memory. Would anyone listen to the whore carrying the bastard child?

After completing her prayers, she opened her eyes and just stared at the bookshelves flush against the wall across from her, so tall they touched the ceiling. Her vision was blurred by some roiling thoughts that had overcome her during her solemn silence.

She couldn't read the titles from her position, but she could guess what was there. Mark Twain novels. Charles Dickens. George Eliot. Thomas Hardy. Before her father had passed, Rose had devoured his entire collection, then persuaded him to read some of her choices, like Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. They had formed an unofficial book club of sorts, and it would irritate Ruth when she would find Rose reading one of her father's books instead of focusing on her studies.

If her father had survived, she wasn't certain he would have saved her from the same fate. Maybe he would have been more vocal, even aggressive, towards Cal if he was aware of the abuse; but maybe, if her father was alive, Cal would have just hidden his anger better. No threatening her or bruising her with a mere wall between them and her mother.

For many years when she was little, she didn't see her parents much at all, though she knew her father loved her. When she was older, he started to spend less time doing business and more time with her, an action her mother found incomprehensible. He only ever wanted the best for her. Would he say the same if he was here right now?

She spoke into the still air. "Papa… I don't know if you can hear me or not. I wanted to say…" She felt a bit silly talking to nothing, but she continued. "Life has been difficult since you left us. Mother sold me off to the first suitor who took interest in me at my cotillion. He just so happens to be heir to a millionaire's fortune. I've been with him for two years now…" She looked down at her left hand, where she kept the ring finger barren most of the time. "He's a bad man. He's controlling and manipulative. Mother tries to ignore it. I know I can't go through with this… I don't know if I can live if I go through with this."

She grabbed a hardcover book left on the desk to ground herself. "But I met someone. I think you would have liked him. He has no money, but he takes care of me…" The cover became visible as she swept the dust away with her hand. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Many years had passed since she had last read this story. She grazed the shiny title print with a finger as she recited in a whisper, "He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." Catherine had fallen in love with a man she couldn't marry, then married someone considered more appropriate. It was unfortunate, then, that Catherine had fallen into despair and didn't survive after giving birth.

"We're supposed to be having a baby…" She trailed off as she felt her throat constrict. After taking a couple deep breaths, she continued, "I believe we are meant to be, but maybe I'm supposed to bring this baby into the world as the living reminder of what should have been, but couldn't be. Our souls together in the life of another person…"

Rose opened the book to where a page had been bookmarked. I'm tired of being enclosed here. I'm wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there: not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart: but really with it, and in it. A shiver traveled up her spine.

A wave of fatigue washed over her then, and as she was setting the book aside to read for another time, she noticed a tiny slip of paper poking out from another page. Her father had underlined a sentence in the print, and written it down on a separate strip of paper.

She burned too bright for this world.

Had her father known all along that she was bursting at the seams of the clothes she was made to wear, a blazing fire that her mother had tried fruitlessly to tame? Rose could have asked him then and there, but she knew she would never get a response.