He straightened his cuffs and returned to his table. He opened his notebook, resolving to put the odd girl out of his mind entirely.
But really.
She hadn't even asked his name.
1
He was going to laugh. Clarissa's smile grew wider as she waited for it.
Any moment now, Edmund would laugh. And then she would laugh. And then they'd both laugh together at the absurdity of what he'd just said.
Clarissa waited.
But the Reverend Mr. Edmund Poole did not laugh.
He stood in the doorway of the vicarage with his hands clasped in front of him and his gaze fixed on a point somewhere near her left shoulder.
And he did not laugh.
"I'm sorry, I—I must have misheard you." She let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "For a moment there, I thought you said you were engaged."
Edmund's throat moved as he swallowed.
Clarissa's smile held. No. No, no. She was surely mistaken. Or perhaps he was mistaken. Or perhaps…
Perhaps Edmund did not know what the word engaged meant. He always had suffered from a poor vocabulary. Or perhaps…perhaps…
She swallowed hard. Her cheeks were beginning to ache, and the silence continued to stretch.
And her mind was running out of viable reasons to explain why her beloved—the man she'd fought to marry—had just informed her he was already engaged.
She shook her head again, so at a loss, she couldn't think of a single word to say. And for Clarissa, that was saying something. More often than not, she had too much to say, and the trouble was getting it all out with some semblance of clarity.
But now…
"I don't—" She swallowed hard. She hated the way he was looking at her. There was so much regret in his eyes. So much resignation.
But I won. She wanted to say that but couldn't. She'd already given her well-rehearsed speech. He'd stood there and listened patiently, like he always did when she went off on a story in which he knew the end would not come quickly.
He'd nodded calmly as she'd babbled about how she'd fought a marquess for him. Well, all right, perhaps it hadn't been so much of a fight as a plea. But she had pleaded for Lord Blackwood to put an end to the engagement her parents had so desperately wanted. She had looked the most terrifying gentleman in London in the eye and asked him to step aside.
And he had.
She'd done it. This morning she'd been so excited to tell Edmund she'd won. And now?—
"I don't understand," she said. To her amazement, her smile was still in place. Apparently, it had frozen right along with her lungs and her chest.
"Clarissa," he started. And then he stopped as if weighing his words. But just the way he said her name so carefully…
That told her everything his words had not yet confirmed.
"No," she said. "No, that's—Edmund. I spoke to the marquess. I told you I would and I did. There's no obstacle. There's nothing standing between us. I wrote you a letter, did you not receive my?—"
"I received it."
Clarissa blinked. He'd interrupted her, and that was startling. He never interrupted. He was far too patient for his own good in that way.
"Then you know," she continued. "You know what I did. So when you say engaged, you surely don't mean—" She stopped.
