Little Love Affair (Southern Romance Series, #1) Read Online Free Page B

be able to pay the laborers in coin; she knew her mother would balk at it. Indeed, she was not happy, herself. We only have to hang on until Solomon is home. “We have some honey left. Butter. Cheese.”
    “Clara.”
    “Yes?” Oh, don’t say it.
    “You know Cyrus would help if you asked.”
    Clara tried to bite back a sigh, and her mother’s face took on a warning look.
    “His father’s shop has more help than it knows what to do with,” Millicent said.
    “I thought about that.” Clara felt her tension rise. Of course she had considered it; she had known her mother would bring the subject up.
    “And?” Millicent asked, implacable.
    “I decided not to ask him,” she said at length.
    “Why not?”
    Clara considered offering reasons and knew her mother would see through all of them. They were reasons she had told herself and rejected each time. There was no reason at all for her to refuse the help of a man who came to call each week, his eyes soft when they rested on her. He would have offered his help if he had even the faintest idea that the farm was struggling.
    No reason, save that every time Clara thought on her brother’s friend, the kind, handsome man with his prosperous shop and fine clothes, she could feel nothing but sadness at the thought of marrying him. She tried to feel the relief she knew she should feel at finding an honorable man who loved her and would be kind to her and help save her father’s legacy, but she could not.
    After months of visits, only lightly chaperoned, her mother should know that Clara was having doubts.
    “You know why not,” Clara said quietly.
    “I’m quite sure I don’t,” Millicent said sharply. “He’s a fine young man. He’s handsome, he’s wealthy, he doesn’t turn his nose up at hard work, and you know you’d have nothing to fear from him. He adores you.”
    “I thought we were talking about hiring extra farm workers,” she said in a flash of insolence. She had not wanted to speak of this. It confused her enough without her mother telling her all the things she told herself. She regretted her words when she saw the look on her mother’s face.
    “Those are workers you would not need to hire, were you a Dupont,” her mother observed. “Don’t lie to me, Clara. You’re hiring them because you do not wish to be Cyrus’s wife.”
    “Yes!” Clara cried, finally. “You’re right. I don’t want to be. I wish I did, I do wish it. But you knew my heart before you mentioned Cyrus, didn’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “So why ask at all?”
    “Because you’re not a child anymore!” her mother snapped back. “You’re nineteen, Clara. You’ve a farm to manage. You’ve your younger sister to think of.”
    “Then let her marry Cyrus!”
    “Clara, Mother...” Cecelia’s voice was pleading. She clenched her hands around her teacup, her brow furrowed with worry.
    Clara sighed and rubbed at her forehead. She was so tired—tired of managing the farm on her own, tired of trying to find a way through this without calling on help that carried obligations. She was even, traitorously, tired of pushing it all away so that she could smile at Cecelia.
    However she could not let her sister know how bad things were. She was only sixteen. That was too young.
    “I’m sorry, Cee.”
    “Please don’t fight,” Cecelia whispered.
    “We aren’t.” Clara found a smile somewhere and reached out to clasp her sister’s hand. “Why don’t you go see how the kittens are doing?”
    Cecelia’s face brightened, but she looked between Clara and Millicent warily.
    “You won’t fight?”
    “We won’t fight,” Clara promised. “Go on, dear heart. I’ll be out to see to the horse in a moment.”
    They held their peace until Cecelia was gone, casting a wary look over her shoulder, but as soon as the door closed behind her, Millicent rapped on the table sharply.
    “A woman of your age should be setting a house in order and bearing her first child, not tending horses