Little Love Affair (Southern Romance 1)

“She’s an exemplary woman,” Cyrus said slowly. He had not expected this. Perhaps he was thinking Jasper would challenge him.

“I don’t think you do,” Jasper said simply. “See that you treat her with respect.”

It was too far—much too far.

Cyrus’s face closed off. “You see that you learn your place,” he said, his voice low and ugly. “Whatever delusions you might have, Clara is a lady. She won’t marry some field worker.”

He strode away to where Clara waited by the barn, her eyes flicking between the two of them. She studied Jasper for a moment, blue eyes grave, and he had the ridiculous urge to ask her to walk with him instead of this well-heeled suitor of hers.

But he did know his place. He said nothing at all, and he watched her duck her head and turn away, slipping her hands once more into the crook of another man’s arm.

Chapter 6

“I must say,” Cyrus said, as they walked. “That new worker of yours...”

“Mmm?” Clara was looking over the fields, trying to imagine herself anywhere else. Every time he visited, Cyrus came closer to asking Clara outright if he might court her, and she worried what she might say—all the more so now that she knew it was his love she feared.

The new realization did not sit quietly with her. She should make sense of it and dismiss it, she knew, but her mind with all its quick words and logic could not seem to overrule her heart. She told herself that there was an understanding between them, and that there was no way to back away from the courtship now. All was as it should be, she said sternly to herself as she lay in bed. Cyrus Dupont was a good man and she was lucky to have his regard.

All she felt was panic. In choosing not to call on him, she had bared her heart to herself, and she could not forget what she had learned.

“Are you quite sure he’s trustworthy?”

“What?” Clara came back to reality with a jolt. Fool, her mind said. She should have realized earlier what Cyrus meant. If he realized what Jasper was...

“He said some very insolent things to me,” Cyrus said, leaning down as if to share a confidence.

“What did he say?” Clara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. No one was nearby

, and there was certainly no reason for Cyrus to pull her a little closer as he talked.

“Oh, I don’t want to trouble you with it.” Cyrus patted her hand.

Then why did you mention it? Clara wanted to ask. “What did he say?” She demanded instead. She stopped dead in her tracks, stubbornly and tried not to smile when Cyrus was jerked to a stop as well. Annoyance with Cyrus was far easier to bear than panic at her own unruly emotions. “Cyrus.”

“Don’t worry yourself,” Cyrus said infuriatingly. “I’ll get rid of him for you.”

“We need him,” Clara said precisely, “for the harvest.”

And for his smile, and for the way—

She took a deep breath. Apparently her heart, not content to reject a perfectly good man, was determined to set itself on precisely the wrong one. Perhaps she was going mad.

“Clara, you know I would help with the farm.” Cyrus looked at her so earnestly that Clara could not even bring herself to look away. His hand tightened over hers. “I’ve long expected to do so.”

“You’ve done a great deal for us,” Clara said, trying to be fair. She knew it was true. “But times are difficult, and your family helps everyone in town. It wouldn’t be right to ask you for charity unless we really, truly needed it.”

She did not tell him that every season, things got worse. Poor harvests, heavy rains, hard winters. It took so little to turn a farm from profit to poverty, and the slide had begun long ago, before Solomon left.

“It isn’t charity,” Cyrus told her. He stopped her in the orchard, a faint breeze rustling the peach trees, the scent of ripening fruit all around them.

Clara thought distantly what a pretty picture they must make here: she with her hair in a neat plait, Cyrus in his suit, both of them surrounded by the perfect prettiness of the orchard. Anyone watching from the kitchen window might think that the two of them made a beautiful pair. What would they think of Jasper, so dark next to her fair hair? A blush rose in her cheeks at the thought.

She was definitely going mad.

“Clara...” Cyrus had misconstrued her pink cheeks, and his voice deepened.

“Cyrus, this really isn’t—”