Lizzie drew her hands free.
“Do you not love Papa?” she asked.
Claudia sighed. “Oh, I do,” she said. “But life is not that simple, Lizzie.”
“Why not?” Lizzie asked. “People always say that.Whyis life not simple? If you love me and you love Papa and we love you, what could be simpler?”
“I think,” Joseph said, “we had better go out for a walk. This triangular discussion is definitely not fair to Miss Martin, Lizzie. It is two against one. I will raise the matter with her again when we are alone together. Here, take the dog’s leash and show us how you can find your way out of the house and around to the lake without any other help.”
“Oh, I can,” she said, taking the leash. “Watch me.”
“I intend to,” he assured her.
But as the three of them stepped outside a couple of minutes later, Lizzie stopped and cocked her head. Even above the sound of the water gushing from the great fountain she could hear something else, it seemed. Miss Thompson and the other girls were approaching. She held up a hand in greeting and called to them.
“Molly?” she cried. “Doris? Agnes?”
The whole group approached and bobbed curtsies.
“I am going to come with you,” Lizzie announced. “My papa wants to be alone with Miss Martin. He says it is unfair to her for there to be two against one.”
Miss Thompson regarded her employer with pursed lips and eyes that danced with merriment.
“You will not be leaving today after all, then, Claudia?” she said. “I shall let Wulfric know. Go and enjoy your walk.”
And she shepherded the girls—Lizzie included—back into the house.
“Right,” Joseph said, offering his arm. “It is one on one, fair odds, a fair fight. If youwishto fight, that is. I would far prefer to plan a wedding.”
She clasped her hands firmly at her waist and turned in the direction of the lake. The brim of her straw hat—the same one as usual—waved in the wind.
Eleanor had been waiting up for her last night—or rather early this morning. Claudia had poured out much of the evening’s proceedings, and Eleanor had quite possibly guessed the rest.
She had repeated her offer to take over the running of the school, even to purchase it. She had urged Claudia to think carefully, not to choose impulsively, and not to think in terms of what sheoughtto do rather than what shewishedto do.
“I suppose,” she had said, “it is a cliché and an oversimplification to advise you to follow your heart, Claudia, and I am not at all qualified to offer such advice, am I? But…Well, this is really not my business, and it certainly islongpast my bedtime. Good night.”
But she had poked her head back about the door seconds after leaving the room.
“I am going to say it anyway,” she had said. “Follow your heart, for goodness’ sake, Claudia, you silly thing.”
By this morning it seemed that everyoneknew.
It was all excruciatingly embarrassing, to say the least.
“I feel,” she said as she strode in the direction of the lake, Joseph beside her, “as if I were on the stage of a theater with a vast audience gathered all about me.”
“Waiting with bated breath for your final lines?” he said. “I cannot decide if I am part of the audience, Claudia, or a fellow actor. But if I am the latter, I cannot have rehearsed with you or I would know what those final lines are.”
They walked in silence until they came to the bank of the lake.
“It is impossible,” she said, noticing that the wind was creating white-topped waves on the water.
“No,” he said, “not that. Not even improbable. I would call it probable, but by no means certain. It is that small amount of uncertainty that has my heart knocking against my ribs and my knees feeling inadequate to the task of holding me upright and my stomach attempting to turn somersaults inside me.”
“Your family would never accept me,” she said.
“My mother and my sister already have,” he told her, “and my father has not disinherited me.”
