"AHHHHHHHHHHHARRRG!" I shrieked as loud as I could and threw my shoe against the wall. "UGHHHHH!"

"Rose, calm down!" Anna cried.

I spun around and pointed an accusing finger at her. "You!" I shouted. "YOU!" I don't know why. I picked up my other shoe and thrust it as hard as I could. It hit a porcelain lamp and Kate began to cry. Anna took her from her crib and rocked her gently. "I won't give my daughter up!" I screamed. "I WON'!"

"Rose, if you don't let stepmother send her off to Essex, she'll throw both of you out on the streets, and then what? Think of the child, Rose. She's sick, and if you leave with her, chances are, she'll die."

I cringed at the thought. "Give her to me." I took my baby and began to feed her. "She needs me! And…I need her. If I agree to marry someone of mother's choosing…I may never see her again."

"Rose…"

"Jack died teaching me to love. I won't dishonor his memory by marrying a man I do not love." Then the tears started.

Anna started to comfort me, but there was a knock at the door. "Hello?" Said the man outside.

"George!" I shouted, and Anna rushed to get the door.

"Rose!" He walked right past his sister and into my embrace. He looked so different. So grown up. He looked stronger now, and he had a beard. There were tears in his eyes. "I thought you were dead."

Anna smiled upon us. "I'll leave you two alone." And she left.

I allowed him to admire Kate for a moment. He ran his hand over her soft hair. "Mary wants to have children," he said. He looked up to me and gasped. "Rose, you're crying! What is it?"

I shook my head. "It's everything! It's Mother." I laid Kate back in her crib.

"What has she done to you?"

"She's horrible. I hate her so much! And she hates me. I thought…I thought things might be different. But they aren't."

He shook his head. "She doesn't hate you. She didn't stop crying for months after you…died. She just resents you leaving her. That's all."

"Do you KNOW what she's making me DO?" He stared. "She's taking Kate away. My baby is sick, and she's sending her manor house in England to get well. She's employed a governess and everything!"

"But she'll be safe. And healthy."

"I want to raise her."

"It could be worse."

I shook my head at him. "It is. She's…she said that if she's going to pay for care and medicine for Kate, then I have to marry."

His jaw dropped. "Who?"

"I don't know. But I can guarantee that I won't be the one to choose."

"Oh, Rose." He grasped my hand and held it firmly.

Then, the tears came rolling in. "She's taking Kate first thing tomorrow morning." And I fell into his arms, sobbing.

My mother wanted her granddaughter to be raised as a lady. She assumed that I, therefore, could not be the one to raise her. It wasn't uncommon for girls to be sent away. I had used to go months without seeing my mother. I'd lived in the very same manor house to which she was sending Kate. There, I was taught strict etiquette and manors, until I was sent away to boarding school at the age of seven. I hadn't been horribly UNhappy there. But neither had I been happy. I couldn't fathom life without seeing my daughter every morning and tucking her in every night.

"She said I can spend summers with her," I told him, trying to pacify myself. "If I marry."

"Why don't you just take her and leave?"

"I would," I began, "only look at her." He bent over her crib and studied her cheeks, pink as one might have imagined Father Christmas's to be. A light cough could be heard coming from her every few minutes. "She'll die," I said, my voice breaking. "There's no other way."