“Don’t say that!” Joseph wanted to take her in his arms, but he wasn’t sure she was ready to be touched. What if he frightened her again and made everything worse?
He didn’t know what to do for her, this Creath who was so unlike his Creath. The girl he’d grown up with was steady and resourceful, relentlessly good-natured, always thinking of others. There weren’t a lot of people near his age and social status so far out in the countryside, but that had never mattered, because Creath was the only friend he needed. Though four years his junior, she was precocious and so easy to get along with that he’d been instantly charmed when they’d met. And they’d remained the closest of friends ever since. She was like a little sister to him.
He sat beside her again. There had to be an answer. He was smart. He was logical. He knew how to think things through.
And his best friend needed him.
How could he save her from that brute without hiding her in a priest hole forever?
“I’ll marry you,” he said quite suddenly.
“What?”
“I’ll marry you. We’ll go to Bristol and find a Justice of the Peace. The weather is worsening now, but we’ll go as soon as it’s better.” Bristol was only twelve miles away—unless the weather was absolutely awful, they could get there. “We’ll go well ahead of your planned wedding day for sure. Sir Leonard won’t be able to force you to marry him if you’re already wed to me.”
She looked horrified. Not desolate like she had at the prospect of wedding Sir Leonard, but truly horrified. “I cannot marry you, Joseph!”
“Why not? It’s the perfect solution.” And once Joseph Ashcroft found a solution, he stuck with it…even if he found the idea a tad bit horrifying himself.
She shook her head. “It isn’t the perfect solution!”
“I think it is. We won’t want to wait too long—we won’t want to give Sir Leonard too much time to find you, but—”
“Joseph! You’re not listening! I cannot marry you. It wouldn’t be fair to you. I—I love you, but not like that.”
“Why on earth should that matter?” He pinned her with the most persuasive gaze he could muster. “You don’t love Sir Leonard like that either. In fact, you don’t love him at all. Yet until today you were prepared to marry him.”
“That was different. He wasn’t giving me a choice, and he wasn’t foolishly sacrificing his own happiness to secure mine.”
“Marrying you won’t mean sacrificing my happiness,” Joseph said, wondering if he was sacrificing his happiness.
But of course he wasn’t. He’d thought this through, hadn’t he? He always thought things through before making decisions.
It was true that he hadn’t expected to marry at twenty. In truth, he hadn’t expected to marry before thirty. But what did that matter?
Father didn’t want to be anywhere within Cromwell’s easy reach while he was in power, which was why they were here at Tremayne. Now that the war had ended and the wrong side had won, Joseph figured he’d be stuck here the rest of his life. And the only suitable girl close to his age here was Creath, so why not marry her? He might not love her like that, but he liked her a lot. And it wasn’t as though he would find anyone else. There was no one else to find.
“Maybe we’ll fall in love like that after being married a while,” he said, although he didn’t think it likely. They’d known each other ten years already and hadn’t fallen in love. But it was possible.
Wasn’t it?
Did it matter?
He had to save Creath.
“I’m not going to fall in love with you, Joseph. Which doesn’t signify, because your idea won’t work.” Apparently she had decided to change tacks. “I’m not yet sixteen. I won’t be able to marry without Sir Leonard’s permission while he’s still my guardian.”
“Most of the justices are corrupt, remember? There are at least a dozen of them in this county. And more than a few respect my father. Those who were appointed before the regicide remember when the Earl of Trentingham was a very powerful man.” Though he felt a little sick to his stomach, he forced a confident smile. “I’m sure Father can direct me to a justice who will happily write our names in his register even though you’re a few days shy of sixteen. I’ll give him money, and he’ll conveniently forget to ask your age. And it will be done. And you will be safe.”
“And you will be miserable.”
“I will not. You’re my friend. My best friend. I’ve always suspected that marriage to a friend might be the best sort of marriage anyhow.”
That wasn’t true—he’d never suspected anything of the kind. But it sounded good, didn’t it? He’d said it so earnestly that it sounded good to him.
“I don’t know…” She was weakening.
“Come here.” He rose and brought her up with him, moving slowly so as not to startle her. Holding her hands, he felt nothing special, nothing exciting, nothing new. Not even the little spark he felt with other girls, with the villagers’ daughters who’d chased him in his youth, and the ones he’d later chased himself. Being near them had been thrilling. Being near Creath was…pleasant.
He was planning to marry her, but she was still just Creath Moore, his childhood friend.
Gently, he tilted her face up and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips, and still he felt nothing special.
But kissing her hadn’t felt bad, either. It felt nice. Comfortable. And he couldn’t abandon her to her cousin Sir Leonard, a man who made her shiver with cold in a conservatory heated by four fireplaces.
She was sweet and kindhearted, and she didn’t deserve such a fate. “Will you marry me, Creath?”
“I suppose so.”
“Pray try to contain your excitement,” he said with a forced laugh.
