“I know.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“And if you want to stay, we can discuss a proper arrangement.”
Margaret’s hands paused.
“What sort of arrangement?”
“Work. Wages. A room. Whatever you need to feel you’re not beholden to me.”
“And marriage?”
He looked into the fire.
“I won’t ask you to marry me again unless I know why I’m asking.”
She set the shirt in her lap.
“And do you know?”
“No.”
The honesty unsettled her more than a declaration might have.
“I thought you wanted a wife,” she said.
“I wanted someone to make the house feel less empty. I wanted Clara to have a woman to turn to. I wanted to stop feeling like every day was a punishment for surviving.”
Margaret’s expression softened.
“And now?”
“Now I want to know you. Not the woman from the letters. Not the woman Anne trusted. You.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
“That is a dangerous thing to say to a woman who has spent her life being useful.”
“I know.”
“Do you? If I stay, I will work. I will help Clara. I will cook, mend, and do what needs doing. But I cannot spend the rest of my life earning the right to sit at your table.”
Eli’s eyes lifted to hers.
“You won’t.”
“Can you promise that?”
“I can promise I’ll try.”
“Trying is not the same as doing.”
“No,” he said. “But it’s where I have to begin.”
She lowered her gaze to the shirt.
“I don’t want to be a replacement for Anne.”
“You aren’t.”
“I don’t want Clara to think loving me means loving her mother less.”
“She won’t.”
“You cannot know that.”
“No,” he admitted. “But I can tell her the truth. I can tell her that her mother wanted her to be loved, and that love does not have to be divided into pieces.”
Margaret’s eyes glistened.
“And what about you?”
Eli’s throat tightened.
“What about me?”
“Can you love someone without feeling you are betraying her?”