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He had just not expected it to happen so soon. He had been totally unprepared for what she had told him today. He had not had time to fortify his heart. He had expected that he would have at least another year or two before it happened.

She had turned her head, he realized, and was gazing directly at him. She was not smiling.

"Matthew," she said softly. "You are not happy for me?"

He strode closer and stood in front of her, cutting the sunlight from her face. Putting her in shadow.

"I am happy if you are," he said. "Are you?"

Her eyes were searching his, but he could still not interpret her expression. Usually he could read her well.

"I am," she said. "I believe this will be a good marriage for me—and that is surely an understatement. But it means everything will change. Even though I will not be far away, this will no longer be home, will it? I will be Clarissa Ware of Ravenswood Hall, Countess of Stratton. Yes, I am happy, Matthew. I am even excited. I believe I will be happy with him. He is amiable and charming. I was quite bowled over by him when he came with the countess to take tea with us. But what is going to happen to our friendship—yours and mine? If you were female, it would continue regardless, but there is the minor inconvenience of your being male."

She paused to smile at him. 

"Yes," he said.

"It would not be the thing, would it," she said, "for us to be forever traveling back and forth to spend time with each other."

"No," he said. "Not the thing at all." He tried to smile back, but he could not seem to command his facial muscles to do his will.

"What will you do with your life, Matthew?" she asked. "Do something that will make you happy."

He shrugged. "I will find something," he said. "Not the church or the army or navy or a courtroom, but something. I will never be able to satisfy my father, unfortunately. He and I will never be able to sit down and discuss my options as two equals even though I am eighteen now. You must not worry about me, however. All will be well."

"Will it?" She almost undid him then. She lifted one hand and cupped her palm about his cheek. "You are a searcher," she said. "And one day you will find what it is you seek, and you will be happy. You must not settle for anything less, though I do not doubt your father is well-meaning in his efforts to secure your future. Seek, Matthew. Do something positive. Do not just rebel."

There were tears in her eyes then, and he was not sure there were not some in his own too. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision.

"Promise me," she said.

"I promise," he told her, though he had no idea how one sought what one could not even name. Or where one went to look for it. And this was surely the first time in their long acquaintance that she had given him actual advice. Urgently, forcefully given it.

They gazed at each other, their faces only a foot or so apart, and he felt a dreadful urge to kiss her. Just once. A goodbye kiss. A good luck kiss. But it would be a terrible mistake—for her, for him, for them. For if he kissed her, she would know, and she would definitely be sad. And he would know—though he already did—that it was hopeless, that any image to which he clung of their being tragic lovers about to be driven apart by circumstances would be dashed forever. He would end up looking foolish and knowing he would feel it every time he saw her in the future—which was bound to happen from time to time.

"Now you promise me," he said, "that you will be happy. That you will live happily ever after."

Her smile turned instantly brighter. "I promise," she said.

She stooped down to pick up her hat and the ribbon she had placed inside it. She tied back her hair and secured the strings of her hat beneath it at the back, brushed her hands over her full skirts, and raised a smiling face to his.

"Time for us both to go home," she said, and turned in the direction of the house. She waited for him to fall into step beside her.

*  *  *

Clarissa walked homeward, Matthew at her side, and thought how bewildering it was to be seventeen, to be bursting with happy anticipation of a dazzling future on the one hand yet heavy with heartache on the other. To love two men, one she had known all her life, one she scarcely knew at all.

She had always loved Matthew Taylor. They were close in age, while his brother was ten years older than he, and George, her brother, was five years younger than she. She and Matthew had enjoyed doing the same things. They could walk for miles while scarcely noticing the distance. They could wade in the stream and sit for hours in the branches of a tree, seeing shapes in the clouds above their heads. And always they talked endlessly about everything and nothing.