Her door closed to discourage visitors, Rachel had sat through the afternoon at a window of her room. Open on her lap was Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables, which had been among the books belonging to Felix that Nell had offered to beguile the invalid’s idle hours. Although she was well into the book, Rachel found herself not attending it closely today, her mind suddenly quivering at the remembrance of Sarah’s suggestion.

Expecting no visitor, not even one of her own family, she was startled to hear James’s voice outside her door calling her name and demanding to be let in. She had not seen James since Adam’s departure for Savannah, and that seemed an age ago. Without thinking, she said, “Come in.”

James flung the door open and entered, going straight to the seated girl, who in her surprise dropped her book to the floor and left it there, her hands tugging the shawl closer about her shoulders as if to shield herself from attack.

“Look here, Rachel,” James said. “I’m sorry they went about it so badly, and I’ve come to apologize to you!”

“You did not know of the proposal before it was made?” she said wonderingly.

“Indeed no. Doreen overheard something I said to myself, that is all, and it grew from that without my knowledge. I was very angry when I found out what they had done.”

“I can see that you would be!” Rachel declared.

“They take me too much for granted. They still treat me like the boy they gave an acre of land to till. I’m not; I’m a man, you see. I will not any longer be treated like a boy—I will not any longer be passed over and ignored because I was the second son!” She stared at him, moved by his warmth and vehemence to look at him newly. “It was crude and unfeeling of them to come at you as they did—and so I have come to see you myself and to say that, in spite of their crudeness, you must marry me.”

She shrank into her chair. “I cannot!”

“Why?”

She swallowed and struggled for words. “I—I do not love you—as I must love to become a wife.”

“Pish! Tush!” he cried. “You are thinking only of yourself.”

“No, I am not—”

“You are most certainly! By your stubbornness you choose to have a child born a bastard who has every right to be legitimate!”

Her eyes glowed with scorn. “You think that reason enough for me to marry?”

“Indeed I do, but it goes further. What of the child’s claim on Oaks? You must protect that. What of the inheritance of Beulah Land?”

“I understand,” she said quietly. “You are thinking of property.”

“I thought you cared about Beulah Land as I do for Oaks—”

“Not in the same way, it seems.”