The Bridegroom. Linda Lael Miller

spent to arrange her words in any other way.

      “I guess I am proposing,” Gideon said, after swallowing visibly. “Rowdy said it was the least I could do, after today.”

      If Lydia hadn’t wanted so badly to cry, she would have laughed. No wonder Rowdy had squired Lark out of the kitchen so quickly, leaving the two of them alone. He’d probably ordered Gideon to make things right. “That’s why you’re offering for me, Gideon? Because your brother thinks you ought to?”

      Gideon made an obvious attempt to smile, and failed utterly. His expression was one of resignation, not ardor. “He’s right, Lydia,” he said. “It’s the least I can do.”

      “The least you can do,” Lydia echoed. She found herself possessed of an almost incomprehensible urge to touch his face, tell him everything would be all right. At the same time, if she’d had the strength to slap Gideon Yarbro silly, she probably would have done it.

      “I’m getting this all wrong,” Gideon said, and this time he did smile, though sadly. “It won’t be a real marriage, Lydia. I won’t expect you to share my bed, that is. You’ll have a home, and so will the aunts, and Fitch won’t be able to cause you any trouble because you’ll be my wife. That’s not such a bad bargain, is it?”

      It was, in Lydia’s view, a terrible bargain, especially the part about not sharing a bed. Gideon had awakened a formidable hunger in her when he’d kissed her, and now he expected to marry her and still leave that hunger unexplored, unsatisfied?

      On the other hand, he made a good case.

      The aunts would be safe, with food to eat and a roof over their heads, and they obviously trusted Gideon or they wouldn’t have left the house with him, let alone bought new hats and dresses and traveled all the way to Stone Creek onboard a train at his behest.

      As for herself, once she’d exchanged vows with Gideon, she would be part of the Yarbro clan. Lonely all her life, she would have sisters, Lark and Sarah, and a brother, as well, in Rowdy. She would have nieces and nephews and, in time, perhaps even friends, people who liked her for herself and not because she was a Fairmont.

      “But what about you, Gideon?” Lydia asked softly, after mulling over all these things. “What could you possibly gain from such an arrangement?” A dreadful thought struck her then. “Suppose you meet another woman someday, and fall in love with her and—”

      And I won’t be able to bear it if you do.

      A muscle in Gideon’s strong, square jaw bunched, then relaxed again. “I’ll never fall in love with another woman, Lydia,” he said. “I can promise you that.”

      “How can you, Gideon?” Lydia asked. “How can you promise such a thing?”

      Gideon rose to his full height then, but he still held her hand. “A long time ago,” he answered, looking directly, unflinchingly, into her eyes, “I made up my mind never to love anybody. And so far, I’ve stood by that. That’s not likely to change.”

      Looking back at him, Lydia knew Gideon meant what he said.

      And even as she made a firm decision of her own—she would accept his proposal, if only to protect herself, the aunts and Helga from the wrath of Jacob Fitch—she felt her heart crumble into dry little fragments, like a very old love letter found in the bottom of a dusty box and handled too roughly.