“To you,” he said. “I could ask you to marry me.”
“You could indeed,” she said after a short silence. “A gentleman and a man of property. And you might be happy here, back with your family.”
“Yes,” he said.
She released herself from his arms and leaned back against the tree again while her eyes searched his face.
“Or,” she said, “you could continue to live in your rooms above the smithy and visit me at my cottage. You could continue to be Boscombe’s carpenter and a wood-carver. You could even ask me to marry you and come to live with me at the cottage. And keep your rooms as your working space.”
He swallowed. “Yes,” he said.
They gazed at each other in silence for long moments.
“What do you really want to do, Matthew?” she asked at last.
“I want to be able to offer you a life at least somewhat similar to what you are accustomed to,” he said.
She shook her head. “It is not what I asked,” she said. “What do you want? The life of a gentleman here or the life you have lived for the past twenty years and more?”
He hesitated, though there was only one true answer.
“I want you,” he said.
He might be way out of line. He might be destroying their friendship once and for all as well as any hope of a different sort of relationship with her.
“If I did not exist,” she said, “what would your decision be?”
He continued to gaze mutely at her. For she did exist. It was impossible to imagine his life without that fact.
“I must confess,” he said at last, “that the prospect of living in a house with a red front door has a certain appeal.”
Her eyes smiled and then her lips too and she laughed softly.
“You can have it,” she said. “We can have it.”
He took both her hands in his and squeezed them tightly as he bowed his head over them and rested his forehead against them.
For more than thirty years the impossible dream. Was it really possible now?
He went down on one knee before her without releasing her hands and looked up at her. Her smile had faded, but her eyes were still bright.
“Clarissa,” he said. “Will you take the utterly foolhardy step of marrying me? When all I have to offer is a steadfast and lifelong love?”
He watched the smile return, slowly and softly.
“It sounds good enough to me,” she said. “Especially since I love you too—steadfastly and forever. Yes, Matthew, I will.”
He kissed the backs of her hands and got to his feet.
“On the understanding that you will have a mere carpenter for a husband,” he said.
“And a superbly talented wood-carver,” she said. “And that we will have a cottage by the river in which to live,” she said. “Yes, I will.”
She came back into his arms and raised her face to his.
“With a red door,” he said. “That is not negotiable.” He kissed her.
They smiled at each other afterward, and she laughed and flung her arms about his neck.
