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“I’m afraid I didn’t have much of an appetite before.”

“Why is that?” she asked in a whisper, her eyes no longer darting to the bottom of the stairs.

He knew she was not going to let him off easy, so he figured he may as well be honest. “Miss Bowles. She has made it clear that she desires to receive a proposal from me by the end of the house party. I have no intention of marrying her, and I am rather concerned as to how to make that clear when she does not allow me a single moment of peace to tell her.”

He’d done everything he could to dissuade the woman—hinting that marriage was not in their future, pointing out the beauty of other women, cutting her off throughout the meal—but she was incessant. She’d even attempted to gain another forfeit that evening so Oliver might kiss her. He’d only narrowly escaped by hiding behind Millie and Wesley.

Clara stared at him, her features stoic, though her suspicious gaze had faded.

Good. He did not know when it had become important for him to have her believe him. He supposed everyone liked to be trusted, but he hadn’t cared if a woman did so for years. He’d always swallowed up any desire by finding more women to kiss.

Of course, that only ever gave him temporary relief. It was a rather vicious cycle—one that appeared to be weakening, which he’d never thought possible.

“You truly do not wish to pursue her any longer?” Clara asked, her arms folded over her chest.

“I did not wish to pursue her in the beginning.”

“Other than to kiss her?”

He grimaced. “I admit to that being my primary objective of getting to know her, but after I saw her true character, I learned swiftly that she is not the sort of woman I wish to attach myself to in any way.”

“When did you discover her true character?”

“That afternoon gathering greenery,” he replied. “When she laughed as you fell.” A stirring occurred in his chest at the memory. One of anger and defensiveness—of a desire to right a wrong he’d tried to ignore until that point. “I should have said something in your defense. I should have stopped her from treating you that way.”

Clara raised a flippant shoulder. “I am but a maid, sir. She had every right to⁠—”

“No. No person has a right to laugh at another’s misfortune. No matter their station.”

She seemed to contemplate his words, but he couldn’t be sure if she believed him before she took to questioning him again. “Have you found someone else to pursue, then, to add to your list of conquests?”

He cringed at the word, though he’d used it himself in the same regard only days before. “I cannot say that I have.”

At least not as a conquest. His pursuit of Clara, his desire to tease her and to get to know her, could hardly be labeled as such.

“Do you have any intention of ever attaching yourself to a woman?” Clara pressed. “Through marriage, I mean.”

Why did she seek such knowledge? Was it because she was interested? The notion was fascinating, to say the least. He couldn’t say he minded it. In truth, he was flattered—if only because of how greatly she’d seemed to despise him less than a week earlier.

Still, the conversation was shifting into uncharted territory. “In truth?”

She nodded firmly. The curl that had slipped out of her maid’s cap tapped lightly against her temple.

“I do not have a desire to marry. The entire arrangement sounds as dull as a hunt that ends with no prized fox. But I have promised my parents and my sisters that I would do my best to find myself a wife by the end of next year—beginning after Epiphany, and I shall do my best to not disappoint them.”

“So did you choose to attend the house party as a way to find that wife or to, let us say, end your bachelorhood on a high note?”

He winced at her calling him out. “If I admit to that, you will think even less of me than you already do.”

“Forgive me, sir, but I do not think that possible.”

He paused, staring at her to decipher if she was in jest. Finally, a sparkle twinkled in her eye, and he released a sigh of relief.

Rubbing his hand at the back of his neck, he shook his head. “Do you not think you have humbled me sufficiently yet, Clara? You certainly have a way with words.”

A sorrowful look fell across her features before she looked toward the window, the candlelight flickering pretty shadows across her features. “My father used to say that about me,” she said softly.

Oliver leaned in. She had never spoken of anything so personal with him before. He waited with bated breath as her eyes stared up at the stars through the window. But in the next moment, she blinked and faced him again. “Now answer my question, sir.”