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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—”
    “I must speak,” Cyrus said passionately. He untucked her fingers from his arm and took both of her hands in his. “Clara, you must know that I have always admired you.”
    Clara stared at him mutely, unable to come up with a clever answer, and—she worried—completely unable to stop this.
    “Running the farm is too great a burden for you,” Cyrus said earnestly. “I’d help you with it. You would be free then, Clara. You could have everything you want. You would be at home with the children, not out in the fields with roughened hands.” His fingers stroked over hers before tightening. “I could give you the life you deserve.”
    “That’s very kind,” Clara managed. He must not say it—she could not let him say it. She must think of some way to distract him. “But, Cyrus—”
    “It isn’t kind . Kindness is for strangers. Clara, I love you.”
    She should have pretended to faint. Clara stared dumbly at him. “You’ve been one of the family for years,” she said, not wanting to hurt him. How did one respond to something like that?
    “And I would like to care for you all,” he told her. “Family cares for its own. But Clara...to you, I want to be more.”
    “I...” She stared up at him. In the past few days, while trying to think up ways to convince herself to marry him, she had instead thought often about how to tell him she could not love him. She imagined saying it gently, and speaking of the girls in town who did wish to marry him—for there were many. She imagined telling him how much happier he would be with another woman, for she was sure that he would be. A woman not so quick to retorts. A woman with delicate manner. In her imagination, Cyrus always nodded seriously and told her that she was right and he had been blinded by his feelings of duty to her brother. They parted amicably, Cyrus embracing Millicent and promising to watch over the family until Solomon returned, but now, at this most critical moment, Clara could not remember a single word of her speech—and she was quite sure that staring was not going to help anything.
    “Clara, do you think you might ever look upon me as more than a brother?” Cyrus asked her.
    “I...” Oh, dear. She couldn’t think of anything to say.
    “I have loved you for years.” His face was gentle. “Surely you must know it. No one would make a better husband for you than me. I would be kind to you. I would protect you. It is so dangerous for you here.”
    “Dangerous?” It was hardly the point of his speech, but Clara felt her brow furrow. This, here, was what had always infuriated her about Cyrus. When they were little, he would insist on helping