“I had to talk to you.”
His heart jumped with joy, but his mind cautioned him. “This is probably not the best place.”
“It is the only place.”
She had a point, but he didn’t wish her reputation to be ruined. “What did you wish to talk about?”
She clasped her hands, not answering immediately.
“Is it about the other night?”
“It is related.”
When she didn’t continue, he took two more steps back because he wasn’t nearly as patient as she was. “Please tell me.”
“Yes. I should. I feel as if we are friends.”
They’d gone far beyond friends, but he didn’t think interrupting would help. Instead, he held his hand out for her to continue.
“Ever since that night in the library, I feel like I want to be with you. I’ve tried to read three of the four books I’ve started and I can’t concentrate.”
His heart leapt at her confession. “I’m also having a difficult time concentrating.”
“You are? Do you not feel like eating?”
He smiled. “I always feel like eating.”
The hope in her eyes disappeared, and she looked away. “Then I don’t know what it is. I feel listless, yet I don’t want todoanything.”
“Now I feel that as well.”
Her head snapped up and her gaze met his once again. “Then you know what it is?”
Damn, he knew what he hoped it was, but what if it wasn’t? “I have a theory, but I am far from an expert.”
“Then we could research it in the library. Please. Tell me your theory.”
He gestured toward the wingback chair before his fireplace. As she sat, he moved to lean against the mantel. “First, tell me how you feel about me.”
“I think you are a good man with aspirations and a plan that will succeed. I believe you to be full of humor and a bit boisterous, but just enough to make you popular among men, and your appearance makes you popular among women. You are also kind, thoughtful, and well read.”
To hear a litany of his worthiness was not what he expected, and while reassuring, it wasn’t what he wanted. He was too curious not to ask, “And what about my faults?”
She set two fingers to her jaw and thought. Finally, she gave a nod. “You hide your accomplishments for fear of what others will think and don’t let others truly know you.”
Her observation was so accurate that he was stunned into silence.
“Does that help your theory?” She lowered her hand to clasp her other one once again.
His theory? It actually didn’t. “What I wish to know is how youfeelabout me. You said we are friends. I concur. But you have otherfriends here at Silver Meadows, like your classmates and Mrs. Boyd. Would you say I’m the same kind of friend?”
“No. After the other night, you would be considered my lover.”
His entire body reacted to her statement, such that he had to walk toward the bed. Upon his reaching it, it became clear that that hadn’t been the wisest location, as it fueled his imagination.
She continued. “But, of course, you can’t be that because I am yet unmarried, and if it were known, I would remain so. My book said that such carnal relations might lead to false feelings for the other person if one is not married. Is that your theory? That I have false feelings because of the other night, and if that’s true, do you know how I can be rid of them? I’m not a false person. I value truth.”
And just like that, his body cooled, leaving his hands in a cold sweat. He turned toward her. “My theory is that your feelings may not be false.”
