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And if this rapprochement were to take place, she must begin it at once because so little time and opportunity was left! Whether he had vexed her first or she him did not matter—if it could even possibly have been determined or agreed upon.

She folded her hands, the fingers of the left invisibly clutching the thumb of her right. “Mr. Langworthy,” Sarah uttered, “perhaps ‘chat’ isn’t exactly what I mean. In fact, I know it isn’t. I wouldn’t ask you to ‘chat’ with me, much less insist you do so. What I wanted to say was that—”

She faltered as his eyes narrowed in curiosity. Or puzzlement. Or both. Then, with another swallow, she pushed ahead. “Ahem. What I wanted to say was that I—owe you an apology.”

When he straightened in his chair, blinking rapidly, Sarah felt a dart of pleasure. Ha! For once she had caught him off guard.

“I cannot think what for,” he answered warily.

His trepidation contrarily gave her confidence.

So much so that she would have patted his knee, if it had been permissible.

“Because, Mr. Langworthy, you did not need to come and see Bash and me, but you did. And you certainly did not need to offer to tie yourself to us for the rest of your life, but you did. My husband Sebastian never spoke to me of any of this—his…the demands he placed upon you—which means no one but yourself would have known if you had chosen to ignore his requests. But you did not choose to. Never mind that what he asked of you was so…excessive. So unreasonable. Therefore, I apologize. Because I was…affronted. Short with you. When really it was Sebastian who lay at the bottom of it all. Sebastian, who should have been the object of my anger. I vented my feelings on you, however. And therefore I was dismissive of your offer, instead of recognizing what it must have cost you.”

She had practiced this speech in her mind—before she caught cold, at least—until she could deliver it thus, without qualifications and with evident sincerity.

A silence fell, one so complete that even the fire refrained from crackling, and no sounds carried to them from either kitchen or street.

Throughout it, Mr. Langworthy stared so long into the uncrackling fire, his brow furrowed and eyes in shadow, that Sarah began to doubt herself.

Had she accidentally said more than she intended to?

Had she interpolated something which he received with offense?

She could not guess that her companion’s reserve stemmed from his own mental struggle. For he was like a fencer who stood with foil upraised, expecting to ward off a thrust to the head, only to have his opponent slip beneath his guard and pierce his heart.

For she had pierced it. With her honesty. With her clear, frank gaze. With her willingness to humble herself.

She asked for his pardon, as if he had not himself, at every opportunity, done what he could to vex her. To repay her for her rejection.

A hit, Langworthy. A very palpable hit.

What else could he call it, when she proved herself the more generous person? The better person?

At last he turned to look at her again, and Sarah could not tell if he flushed, or if it was merely the reflection of the fire which made his face glow.

“Mrs. Sebastian,” he said, in a gentle voice she had never heard from him before. “You quite shame me.”

Her eyes widened and lips parted. “Shame you? Sir, that was not my intention.”

“Of course it was not, which is precisely why I am ashamed. I have behaved badly to you.”

“Mr. Langworthy!” Sarah breathed, her hand lifting—again with that urge to touch him, heaven help her! She let it drop back to her lap. “If you think to beg my pardon, which it certainly sounds like you are about to, I must insist you wait your turn.”

“Very well,” he agreed hurriedly. “If you persist in thinking it necessary, I admit I did come away from our first interview with my self-regard bruised—”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I was quite curt with you.”

“—So I accept your apology and thank you for it. But, Mrs. Sebastian, I hardly offered for you in a winning manner. In fact, I suspect, had I asked a dozen ladies to marry me that day in the way I asked you, not a one of them would have treated me differently.”

To their mutual surprise, she chuckled. “Indeed, if there had been a dozen ladies and they knew of each other, they might have treated you more and more shabbily as the day went on. Because worse than being someone’s second choice for a bride is being someone’s third or fourth or twelfth.”

“While I did arrive in Iffley embittered over Miss Pence’s defection, it is not true that you were a second choice, Mrs. Sebastian.”

“You are very right, Mr. Langworthy,” she answered, “for one would be hard put to call me your ‘choice’ at all. If you only knew the scold I would like to give Sebastian over the whole matter! Never mind my personal feelings, to discover he ‘assigned’ me to another—but to be you would be even worse! To be the person so peremptorily saddled with someone else’s wife and child! ”

“No, no, I must contradict you there,” he returned, beginning to smile. “Considering how often and how tiresomely he boasted of you, I am certain he thought he was doing me the greatest of favors.”

Something odd was happening to Sarah’s insides, something between a tremor and a flutter, and it was not only from hearing that Sebastian had been so proud of her. If only it were! But no, she feared Mr. Langworthy’s charming grin also played a part, and that suspicion made the trembling grow.

To her dismay, an involuntary sound escaped her throat, which she instantly exaggerated into a cough, taking refuge in her handkerchief and thanking Providence for her recent cold.

He did not wait for her to quieten before saying, “Villain that I am, I will take ruthless advantage of your incapacity to argue my point again. Mrs. Sebastian, having granted you your share of the blame in our earlier estrangement, I pray you will do as much for me. As I was saying, I behaved badly on that occasion. When you made me understand you did not share Barstow’s…

vision for the future, I’m afraid I thought myself ill-used.

I did not ask myself if it was unjust to resent you, whom I knew not at all, and who did not know me, or if I came to Iffley already predisposed for resentment, having been cast off by one who had given me her word and whom I had known half my life. ”

“Oh, Mr. Langworthy,” said Sarah helplessly, “I am sorry for it. For your broken engagement.”

But this made his eyes gleam in amusement. “There! What are you doing? You’ve apologized again, when we agreed it was my turn.”

“Well, what am I to do, I would like to know, if you insist on telling me such a pathetic story?” she heard herself say teasingly.

But as soon as she spoke, awareness checked her again.

What was happening? When she decided she must defend herself from Mr. Langworthy by befriending him, she had not supposed she might actually begin to like him.

(Never mind that everyone except she herself already liked him.) And she most certainly never dreamed she would say anything to him in what some might deem a flirtatious tone.

Had Frances been there to hear, for one, Sarah had no doubt Frances would call it flirtatious.

Heavens.

“Are you finished with your apology, that I might accept it?” she blurted.

“Quite finished,” he replied with mock meekness.

“Good. There. That’s done, then. You have forgiven me, and I have forgiven you, and we may now drop the subject of who wronged whom.”

“And become fast friends,” he suggested. “Which, if not the blissful union your husband hoped for us, would surely strike him as the next best thing.”

Fast friends? This caused another terrible ripple through her midsection, and it must have been self-disgust at this which prompted her to say, “Mm. Then, as one of my first acts of friendship, Mr. Langworthy, I wonder if it might ease your heart a little to—speak of Miss Pence. She must have been—must be, rather, a—remarkable creature.”

“Remarkable, yes,” echoed Langworthy, a shadow crossing his features. “Mary Pence. Spritely. Mischievous. Dainty.”

So much for Sarah’s regrettable flutter.

It smothered under the weight of these adjectives, for it would be difficult to think of three words less applicable to herself.

But why should that matter? Why should it matter if, in comparison, Mr. Langworthy must find her spiritless, dull, and, if not oversized, certainly not “dainty.”

It did not matter.

It should not.

“She was as quick and changeable as…as the flames here,” he continued. “One never knew what she would do next.”

“Even after knowing her half your life?” asked Sarah. “You still found her so? But I suppose that is because you did not predict she would break her engagement to you. Her letters gave no hint of it, perhaps.”

This drew a grimace. “She was not the most reliable correspondent. No, Mrs. Sebastian, when I say we knew each other half our lives, that would be as years are reckoned. But if you added, end to end, the hours we have spent in the same place in all those years, it would be less. Much less. You, of all people, will understand, having been married to Barstow and knowing how often and for how long he was away.”

“Yes. I do understand that.”

He rose restlessly to poke at the Mary-Pence-like fire. “Nor have her surprises ended with our engagement.”

“No?” prompted Sarah, when he did not continue.

Jabbing at the log, he broke it into glowing embers. “No. For my uncle tells me she has not yet married the one-legged captain.”

She could only look inquiringly at him as her throat seemed to close up. Thank heavens he was not looking at her!

“She was asking about me, it seems.”

“Oh!” Her mouth formed the word, though no sound emerged. Sarah Barstow and Mary Pence might be chalk and cheese, but Sarah was woman enough to understand all: Mary Pence had changed her mind. Mary Pence had come to her senses and wanted her dashing betrothed back.

Well, then.

Perhaps it was his stirring of the fire, but all at once the world was with them again.

The fire crackled; Reed murmured to Irving in the kitchen and set something heavy down; sheep baaed outside in the lane, following the hollow-clanking bellwether.

And reality punctured the quiet little bubble which had contained them.

“I had better be going,” he said reluctantly, rising to his feet. “This has been a long call (and a worthwhile one), but I would not be much of a new friend to you if the first thing I did was to start tongues wagging.”

Sarah gave herself a mental shake. He was going? But—

But before she allowed him to, she would say what was right to be said, once and once only, cost what it might.

And it would cost, now that she had seen a little way into her own unreasoning heart.

Yet if she were truly his friend, she could not leave it unsaid. Sebastian would not have, in her place.

“A moment, Mr. Langworthy,” she breathed. “One word in parting—”

“You may have as many as you like, Mrs. Sebastian.”

“You—asked me once for advice, though you did it in jest, I know. That is, you asked me how you might increase your chances of having your offers of marriage accepted…”

“Just one,” he chuckled softly. “One acceptance would suffice.”

“Yes. Well. Then, now that we are friends, I am prepared to give you that advice.” She was on her feet as well now and took a deep breath, one hand pressed to her midsection.

“I advise you to…put aside your pride. If Miss Pence has—repented—of jilting you, forgive her as you have forgiven me and go back for her. Why would you tarry here?”

“Why? I—have my obligations,” he muttered. His gaze raked her and then flicked away.

“None that you would not be excused from, if you explained,” she pressed. “You will regret it if you do not go. People can be lost, Mr. Langworthy. I speak from experience, as you know. Love can be lost. Do not let yours be.”

Again his eyes met hers, and again he looked away.

She thought he might speak, but he did not.

With a last nod, he saw himself out.