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if your need is urgent, I can go for him myself.”
    “Oh. No. I—no, I wouldn’t trouble you like that.” Just then, he seemed to remember he was still wearing his hat. He snatched it off his head, but proceeded to spin it about by the brim, round and round in agitation.
    She tried not to notice how the edges of his hair shone golden in the light of her lantern, how the shadows heightened the sculpted plains of his cheekbones. Lord, she wanted to touch him. Wanted to stroke her fingers through his curls once more.
    Could he not say a single word, make a single gesture, to let her know he was aware as she was of what had happened between them that morning? Why must he be so stiff and uncomfortable with her?
    Standing face to face with him in this formal mode was nearly unbearable. But sending him away seemed cruel, if he was half as troubled as he looked. “Would you like to come in and wait a bit? Thomas may be back sooner than I think. I could at least give you tea before you go home again.”
    His eyes widened at the offer, as if shocked.
    Why on earth? Granted, it wasn’t entirely proper to invite him into the house when her brother was away, but a vicar’s sister could bend the rules when a parishioner was in need. And considering what had already happened between them already that day, taking a cup of tea together could hardly be considered shocking.
    He shifted foot to foot. “Well, I suppose I should talk to you anyway—first, I mean.”
    “First?” That word turned her stomach instantly to water. What awful news did he bear that would concern her directly? “Is it one of the children from the school?” A panicked inventory flashed through her thoughts: little Jack Kelsey’s lungs were never strong. Billy Harrow was forever jumping out of trees. Annie and Lucy Turner’s father had been to market in Leeds just last week, where they’d had reports of scarlet fever.
    But John only looked confused. “Children? No. Please, Mary, may I just come in?”
    Apparently he wasn’t going to tell her anything until they were indoors. Her heart fluttering, she led the way into the kitchens, which seemed a more appropriate place to be alone with him than the sitting room, with its perilously soft and inviting divan and armchairs.
    Once she had another lamp lit on the table, she got a good look at the man. He was rather green around the gills.
    A new panic swamped her. “Oh, Lord, it’s you who’s ill! Why didn’t you tell me?” She couldn’t stop herself from laying a palm to his forehead. He didn’t feel warm, though his skin was a trifle clammy.
    He sucked in a breath at her touch. “Mary. Miss Wilkins. Don’t.”
    He jerked two chairs from under the table and pushed one towards her unceremoniously.
    They both sat, and impulsively, she took hold of his hand. “Please, John. Just tell me what’s going on.”
    His fingers gripped hers like a vise. He licked his lips. A muscle in his cheek jumped. He started to speak, stopped, started again, his usual easy eloquence apparently having abandoned him again.
    She was beginning to be very worried, indeed.
    And then he slumped forward off his chair.
    “John!” She went to grab his arms to keep him from falling and hitting his head. But once his right knee touched the floor, his downward motion stopped and he was quite steady again.
    He remained kneeling before her. This time it was John who took her hands, clasping them quite firmly in his own.
    A new alarm rose in her chest.
    This couldn’t be what it looked like.
    It absolutely shouldn’t be.
    But apparently it was.
    “Mary,” John said, in a tight, choked voice. “You must do me the honor of becoming my wife.”
    Someone might as well have dumped a bucket of icy water over her—chill mortification sank her every limb, threatening to pull her to the floor.
    Dear Lord, he wasn’t deathly ill—he was proposing .
    “John!” Her tongue tangled. “This—this…oh, gracious, Lord Parkhurst, this isn’t