By the end of her speech, her pretty green eyes were leaking steadily.
Joseph plopped onto the stool beside her, and they both sat silent for a long time. The wind howled outside, making the canvas billow overhead. The weather was kicking up. Grasping for a solution that seemed just out of his mental reach, Joseph heaved a frustrated sigh.
“Well, there’s nothing for it,” he said lightly. “You’ll just have to spend the rest of your days in hiding.” If he couldn’t solve her problems, perhaps he could at least revive her good humor. “Remember the priest hole?”
It was hidden beneath the false bottom of a wardrobe cabinet—they’d played in it as children. She gave him a wan smile. “Alas, I’m not sure I could last even one day in there, let alone the rest of my days.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t have that many,” he quipped. “You’d die of starvation quick enough.” In Queen Elizabeth’s time, more than one priest had starved to death in a priest hole. The secret rooms were originally built to hide fugitive Catholics, who’d sometimes languished in them for days or weeks when the priest-hunters came around.
Creath’s little smile turned lopsided. “I’d wager I’d succumb to madness first. It’s pitch-black in there, and I loathe the dark.”
“I’ll take that wager—and see you well supplied with candles.”
He thought she almost chuckled. “You’re too—” Her smile faltered.
He waited. “Creath?”
“I’m sorry.” Her red-rimmed eyes seemed to focus on something far away. “Thanks for trying,” she whispered.
They fell into another silence. The canvas continued flapping, and a few snowflakes found their way inside. Joseph rose and took his time adding another log to each of the four fires, considering all the aspects of her dreadful dilemma. Examining the problem from every angle. Wracking his brain for any possible way out.
At last, it was Creath’s turn to heave a sigh. “Maybe he’s not as corrupt as we fear. Maybe he’ll give up once I’m eighteen.”
“And if he doesn’t?” he said, returning to her. “If your name ends up in his marriage register?”
“I don’t know what I’d do.” Her lip was trembling again, her face paler than a ghost’s. “I cannot be bound to a man who tried to rape me. I…I think I’d rather not live at all.”
“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 of his age and social status so far out in the countryside, but that had never mattered, because Creath was so easy to get along with. Though three years lay between them, they’d been the best of friends very nearly since the day they’d met.
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. Hell, 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 still seventeen. I won’t be able to marry
