Page 45 of Mail-Order Viscountess

He pushed off from the counter. “The study. It’s quiet there, and we won’t be interrupted.”

She followed him back through the dining room, through the great room. He opened a door on the far wall and stood aside to let her enter first.

The room was smaller than the great room but no less carefully appointed. A desk sat before a window that looked out toward the mountains. Bookshelves lined two walls, filled with volumes that ranged from leather-bound classics to what looked like ranch ledgers. Opposite the desk, a pair of chairs faced each other with a small table in between.

Thomas closed the door behind them, and the soft click made her pulse jump.

Alone again.

Just the two of them, like in the cave. Except this time, there was no storm. A different kind of survival required this intimacy.

He moved to one of the chairs and gestured for her to take the other. “Please.”

She sat, then adjusted her skirts with the hand not gripping her mug. Anything to avoid looking at him directly. To delay whatever was coming next.

Thomas lowered himself into the opposite chair, his movements still carrying that careful quality that spoke of ribs not quite healed. He set his cup on the small table between them.

“I’ve been thinking about your situation.” His voice had lost its usual lightness. “About what Hartwell said. What it means for your plans. It seems to me you have three options.” She finally met his eyes, and something in his expression made her chest tighten. “I want to lay them all out. Let you choose what’s best for you and Clara.”

Choose. The word should have brought relief. Instead, it made the knot in her stomach pull tighter. She most likely knew what those options would be, and none of them felt like real choices at all.

“Number one.” Thomas leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. “If you and Clara want to return to South Carolina, I’ll pay the fare. Whatever you need for the journey—funds, supplies, accommodations along the way. You’d arrive home with enough to establish yourselves comfortably.”

Home. Columbia wasn’t home. It was the place where her stepmother’s designs waited like a spider in its web, where her father’s weakness had failed her and Clara again and again. The place where they would both be forced back into the marriage they’d fled across a continent to escape.

Going backward had never been part of the plan.

“And the second option?” She kept her voice steady.

Thomas’s hand dropped to his side. “You stay here. Both of you. My family would be honored to have you—not as guests, but as...as family, I suppose. You could run your seamstress business from the ranch. Walnut Springs families would pay for quality work. It’s not Butte society, but you could make a living.”

The offer was generous—more generous than she had any right to expect. But the word that caught in her throat was the same one that had haunted her since they’d arrived.

Charity.

Even if she paid for her and Clara’s board from her earnings, this would simply be another cage with nicer walls. The two of them wouldn’t actually be part of the Balfour family. Just guests.

She’d spent her whole life trying to escape dependence on people who could withdraw their goodwill at any moment, and here was Thomas Balfour offering her exactly that—wrapped in kindness, yes, but dependence all the same.

“And the third?” Her voice came out smaller this time. Too small.

Thomas straightened. Just a slight movement—shoulders squaring, chin lifting—but she couldn’t miss it for what it was. This was the hard one.

“The third option is different.” He paused, and his gaze held hers with an intensity that made her pulse skip. “It would be my honor if you would consider marrying me.”

Marry. He’d actually said it. Not danced around it or implied it, but stated the act plainly.

She’d known it was coming—Clara had predicted it, his family had probably discussed it over their evening meal. But hearing Thomas actually say the words made it feel as though she’d stepped outside her body.

“I know this was never your plan.” He continued when she didn’t speak. “It certainly wasn’t mine. But I’ve come to respect you, Kate. More than respect you. The way you fight to protect your sister. The way you faced that storm without complaining. The way you see through people’s pretenses straight to the truth underneath.” He leaned forward a little. “You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met.”

Not the most extraordinary. The strongest.

The distinction shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. Extraordinary could be dismissed as flattery spoken in the heat of a moment. Strong was something else—something that suggested he’d been watching her, seeing her in ways she hadn’t realized.

Her throat tightened. She forced herself to breathe through it, to think past the way his words warmed all through her.

Clara’s voice from last night echoed back. Let someone care for you for once.