Page 83

After their conversation about Mr. Cole that morning, Clara had been desperate for a distraction, so the two of them decided, since they hadn’t been able to spend Christmas together, they would have a special celebration that night.

Clara had already ordered the food from Cook, who was more than happy to oblige and went immediately to the nearby town for the necessary items, including a goose.

To surprise Mother further, Clara had plans to decorate the sitting room and small dining room with a bit of greenery—providing she could find any.

As she walked about the small property, her boots creating small imprints in the thin layering of snow across the grass, she was pleased to not only gather holly and ivy, but also hawthorn branches and even a bit of mistletoe.

Her basket grew heavier and heavier, so she held it with two hands, once more brought back to that moment at Bellthorne—when she and Mr. Cole had seen each other for the first time.

If only she could relive those moments. If only she could live them all over again and tell Mr. Cole that she wanted nothing more in this world than to marry him. That she⁠—

“Do you need a hand with that?”

Clara gasped, whirling around at the gentleman’s voice behind her.

He removed his hat, then faced her directly over the white fence that enclosed her small home and property.

“Oliver?” she breathed, her mouth propped open, unable to speak another word.

“You must forgive my intrusion.” He eyed the basket of greenery, then his dark eyes shifted back to her stunned features. “I trust I am not interrupting anything?”

“Not at all. I was simply gathering greenery as my mother and I are celebrating a second Christmas together, since we missed the first.”

“What a lovely idea. Are you settling in well enough?” he asked, eying her home with intrigue.

“Very much. It is not half so grand as Cliveley or Bellthorne, but it more than suffices our needs.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

They fell silent, then, and Clara could not help but stare. Mr. Cole—at her house. How was this reality? And they were speaking as if they hadn’t kissed. As if he hadn’t nearly proposed.

“How are you, Clar—Forgive me. How are you, Miss Hatfield?”

The sight of his firm jaw, his broad shoulders, and his handsome features was enough to cause her knees to tremble. She was finished speaking in this manner. She was ready for answers. “I am well. Forgive me, but why are you here? How are you here?”

He grinned sheepishly. “I asked my solicitor. He told me where your new home was. My family lives not a forty-minute ride from here. We would love to have you and your mother both for dinner, when you are both feeling well enough to travel.”

“We would be glad to accept such an invitation.”

He hesitated. “I do hope it was not overstepping too greatly for me to discover where you now live.”

“No,” she said at once. “No, I am very pleased to see you.”

Surprise lit his features, then she saw something shift within him, a fortitude, a strength in his stance, and she knew at once why he was there.

She was going to be given a second chance—and she was going to take it.

He straightened. “May I come through the gate?”

She nodded in silence, waiting as he did so, closing the latch behind him before facing her. His eyes dropped to the basket in her hands, and without permission, he took it from her.

“I can manage,” she said.

“I am fully aware that you can. But it does not mean I should not take it—or that I should not have taken the ones you carried before.”

His eyes delved into hers. “Clara, I must be honest with you. I did not come here merely to see if you were well or to see how you were thriving in your new home. I came here to beg you to accept my hand in marriage.”

Oliver waited as tears flooded Clara’s beautiful, sky-blue eyes. She’d always been beautiful to him, but to see her in something other than brown and grey, to see her curls shaped perfectly, her hair uncovered by a bonnet or maid’s cap, only accentuated her beauty to him all over again.