But things were already like this. What good would regret do now? He couldn't even save his own daughter—what kind of father was he?

Samuel looked at his friend. The fault wasn't with Sophia. "Will, she doesn't know you've always loved her," he said. "Even though Kitty was unexpected, if you'd told her from the start, maybe she would've saved Kitty for your sake." It was William's fault, though he hadn't realized where he went wrong, but he just kept shifting the blame to ...