My grandmother left me shortly thereafter, promising to return in an hour to discuss the details. How can there already be details?

“What. The. Fuck?” I asked out loud once the door was closed between us, completely not caring that she could almost certainly hear me through the extremely flimsy walls and doors of this ancient farm structure.

I kicked at the floor in frustration and ended up slamming my toes right into the leg of a very firm couch. I yelped out in pain and hopped around on my other leg. That hurt. Tears stung at my eyes and I gritted my teeth, hopping to the nearby chair and lowering myself into its soft velvet embrace.

My parents really had created some kind of nightmare for me after they died. Surprise! You can’t live in your own house! Oh, and you can’t have your inheritance or the job you were promised unless you go live with your grandma. Yeah, that was bad. But this was worse.

Much worse.

I cannot be engaged. I’m not the engaged type. Have these people met me?

I was so enthralled with my enlarged second toe and the complete bomb my grandmother had dropped that I didn’t even notice the door open. “You need some help?” Ezrah stood in the doorway, shirt sleeves slid up past his elbows and hammer hanging from a loop in his jeans. “I heard a bang and then you shouted.”

“I’m fine,” I tried to say. But that was obviously untrue from one small glance at me. “I’m not fine. I think I broke my toe? I slammed it into the couch… by accident.”

His eyes narrowed and he looked straight into my eyes, so I averted my gaze toward the offending toe.

“You going to tell me why you ‘accidentally’ crashed your foot into the furniture with the energy of a high speed train or are we just going to pretend you’re fine?”

I let out a small laugh that quickly turned to a wince as Ezrah’s hands gently felt the bones of my foot.

“Be careful, will you?” I asked, pushing him back slightly. “And, well, would you believe I am apparently engaged?”

“I’ll grab you some ice,” he said, turning his back to me and closing the door behind him.

Cool. I couldn’t locate a clock in the room right away so I’m not sure how long he was gone, but it felt like much longer than it would take a person to fetch some ice from the kitchen. The throbbing in my foot was growing stronger by the minute, and I was almost resolved to hop myself down to the kitchen when the door handle turned and Ezrah walked in.

“I wanted to get something for your pain, so I had to find your grandmother. I’m mostly filled in on the details.”

I gladly accepted the medicine and the ice, downing the first without water and allowing Ezrah to sit in front of me on the floor and hold the ice onto my foot.

“Yeah, well, I was just starting to feel like I could survive this year and let’s just say that was not exactly what I was expecting. I knew England was maybe a little different than Canada, and definitely different than Greece, but I wasn’t expecting 1800s arranged marriage. To a duke. Or a prince? Which one is it even?”

“Both.” Ezrah shrugged. “It’s both.”

“You know him?”

Ezrah’s cheeks reddened and he looked down at my foot, shifting the ice slightly. What does he have to be embarrassed about?

“You know of him?”

“Everyone knows of him, Adelaide.” He let out a low breathy chuckle. “In fact, we were on his local estate the day we went to the market. He’s rarely ever in town, though. A lot to do with his parents, I guess.”

“Well, apparently he’s my fiancé, now. So that’s fun.”

Ezrah bit his lip and looked out the window, hands still deftly holding the ice on my injured toe.

“Ezrah, are you ever going to tell me what’s going on with you right now? Because you are acting like my mother when she watched me make spaghetti for the first time and didn’t want to tell me I was doing it completely wrong, but also didn’t want me to burn down the house.”

“No, I’d rather not.” Ezrah shook his head and removed the ice from my foot. “How is the toe feeling? It looks a little less swollen now.”

“The toe is the least of my worries right now,” I snapped back. His eyes darted up to mine and he seemed almost afraid of me, sinking back slightly so as to increase the distance between us.

“There’s nothing I can say that will make you feel better about your engagement. You’ve made that quite clear. So I don’t know what I can do to help!”

“You can agree with me that this is completely outrageous and I am being treated unfairly! That’s what you can do!”

“But you haven’t even met him yet!” Ezrah countered. “What if you meet him and actually like him and it’s the perfect guy for you? Then won’t you feel silly for getting mad at your grandmother?”

“The perfect guy for me?” I didn’t bother hiding the derision seeping out of me like honey. “You honestly believe that crap? Like there’s someone just perfect for me and when I find him the whole world will fall into place?”

“No, not like that,” he admitted, putting the ice on my foot once more and refusing to meet my eyes. “But I do think we can find people who would be good companions for us. Good spouses. Good matches. So no, I don’t think you will meet him and it will be this fairytale moment where you immediately know he’s the one, but I don’t think you should rule out the possibility that this could work. Seems a little short sighted.”

“What if I don’t want to get married?” I countered, folding my arms across my chest.

He looked up and stared into my eyes so intently I wanted nothing more than to look away. But I’m more defiant than that, so I held his gaze.

“I think you do,” he said finally. “But if I’m wrong, then maybe just tell him that. If he’s a decent guy he’ll respect your wishes. If he doesn’t, I’ll help you off him.”

That was the last thing I was expecting to come out of Ezrah’s mouth, and I couldn’t help the laughter that escaped me. There was a point where the tears were streaming down my face in a way that made it almost impossible for me to tell if I was laughing or crying. Maybe both.

Ezrah joined me in laughter as I tried to get words out but just kept falling back into fits of giggles mixed with sobs. “I can’t believe you said that!” I said finally, wiping the tears off my cheek.

“We better hope no one heard me or I’ll be the prime suspect.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.” I tried to take deep breaths, but they were still coming in fits and spurts. “I promise I’m all right,” I said, noticing Ezrah’s concerned hand on my shoulder.

“Okay. Do you want me to get anything else for you? Your grandmother? A doctor?”

“No, I don’t need anything. My grandmother will be back shortly to discuss ‘details’ whatever those might be.”

“Just try to keep an open mind, okay? You wouldn’t want him deciding things about you before he’s even met you, now would you?”

And with that he was gone. His final words echoing over and over in my mind as the door gently clicked shut. Damn it, Ezrah. Why do you have to be right?