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“There’s quite a bit of that sort of thing here, I think you’ll find,” he said mildly. “My own younger brother Jamie has a, ah, roommate a few towns over. Lovely young man. He’s a blacksmith by trade, name of James. James and Jamie, you see? They’ll never hear the end of it.”

What? “Why did you ask to court me?” Maggie felt slightly dazed. “You clearly don’t have any real interest.”

Sam colored again. “Well, no offense meant. You are quite pretty,” he added quickly. “That was an act of desperation.”

“Desperation?”

He fiddled with his sleeve cuff. “I really did have good intentions. Well, to a point.”

“What do you mean? What good intentions?”

“Miss Cruthers,” he said, stiffly. “I was honest when I said I had concerns for your reputation here. Gossip spreads like wildfire, and Theodore Barrow visiting a medium to speak to his late wife was fresh fodder for the villagers. If we made a match together, I would both have the ability to offer you the protection of my name—flimsy as it is—and be able to use our union as evidence of my inability to hold my position, given your connection to the occult.” He looked, absurdly, pleased with himself.

Maggie felt her jaw drop open. “You wanted to use me to make yourself look bad?”

“Is that all you heard? I very clearly said that it would help you, as well. Possibly more so than myself. Don’t make it seem one-sided.” He looked mulish.

“Samuel Myerson.” Maggie’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “I don’t know what to say.”

He responded by glowering. “It wouldn’t have worked. The damn village likes you more than me, anyway; marrying you would have probably elevated me in their eyes.”

“I’m nicer than you!”

“I didn’t say it was unwarranted,” he replied.

“And you tried to label me a jezebel! Certain unmarried women observed coming and going from homes that were not their own.” Her tongue felt acidic.

“I do feel a bit bad about that,” he conceded. “Sorry,” he added, awkwardly.

“What if you had met someone? Someone else you wanted to marry?” Perhaps if she laid every piece of this asinine plan out, he would admit that he was a very stupid man with very stupid ideas.

Instead, he snorted. “I’ll never meet someone I want to marry.”

“You can’t possibly know that.” Maggie had never expected to love a man, but then Fate threw Theodore Barrow into her stuffy fortune telling tent, and now here they were.

“I know it,” he said shortly. “That would not have been an issue.”

“How do you know that? Are you disinclined towards people?”

“Clearly.” His voice was flat.

“I think this is a fairly large flaw in your pl⁠—“

“I have loved one person in my entire life, Miss Cruthers, and it hasn’t wavered for one moment, so it isn’t something I’ve overly concerned myself with.”

They stared at each other, his mouth thin, her eyebrows up. “Oh,” she said.

“Oh,” he echoed.

Maggie had never let her own inexperience in specific matters prevent her from giving unsolicited advice, and she wasn’t about to start now. “Well, perhaps this person would be more amenable to you if you hadn’t been so awful to her in the past.”

Sam’s face went neutral. “We’ve been awful to each other. There’s much you don’t know, Miss Cruthers.” He let out a low breath. “There’s much she doesn’t even know.” He paused. “I’m not good with women.”

“I hate to break it to you, Reverend, but you’re not good with anyone.”

A corner of his mouth lifted.

A knock sounded, and Tom’s deep voice called her name.