CHAPTER 27
There was the longest pause before she choked out, “What?”
“No, no, please don’t take it the wrong way!” he said, throwing up his hands quickly.
“Is there more than one way to take it?”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking helplessly awkward. “I just did not think such a question would garner such a look?”
Her hand then went to her face. “What kind of look?” she asked, somehow feeling more distressed with each passing question.
“I don’t know,” he cried desperately, and the two of them fell into silence.
“Mr. Wilson,” she said finally, “if this is due to your feeling the need to take responsibility for seeing me in such a state—”
“No, no,” he cut her off. “It is nothing of the sort.”
“Then…is this something you have been considering?”
“No,” he admitted, almost looking ashamed.
“Then…am I to assume you saw my clothes hugging my body and wished to marry me?” Did she not just say that such a man was no better than a rogue?
“It is nothing like that, Miss Daria. I would never do you the disservice of such a proposition being based solely on lust.”
“Then what?”
“I do not know. I simply felt as though I needed to protect you.”
“And so you jumped to marriage?”
“Extreme, I know,” he admitted, almost reluctantly. “But once I said marriage in the context of another, my heart cried out at the thought, and now that I am considering it, I find the proposition quite pleasing indeed.”
“Even the idea of living on this island?”
He nodded.
“Your livelihood is in town.”
“I could no doubt do carpentry here or travel back and forth. It is not so far a row. And you would stay the keeper of the house of course. The idea of my wife making as much money as I do is quite appealing actually.”
How strange. She thought she would be alone forever and now within the course of two days, as many men proposed to stay together for forever.
“Mr. Wilson.”
“Oh please, do not reject me with quite so little thought.”
“I haven’t said a word yet,” she said, smiling incredulously.
“No, but I know that face quite well.”
“How can you when you see it twice a year at most?”
To that, he actually laughed. “Then at least let me come visit you. Let us talk. Let us see. And then you can reject me.”
She laughed. “Why bother if you think I’ll reject you later still?”
“Simple,” he said. “I don’t.”