Emma scurried over to the sofa and sat down, perching herself on the edge. “Alex?” she said, leaning forward. “I have to ask you something, and I’m afraid you’ll say no.”

Alex sat down in a chair adjacent to the sofa. He leaned forward, too, so that his face was not so very far from hers. “You’ll never know unless you ask.”

“I’m even more afraid you’ll say yes,” she muttered.

Alex was intrigued, but he didn’t say anything.

Emma took a deep breath, swallowed, and squared her shoulders. She’d known this wasn’t going to be easy, but she had never dreamed how terrified she would feel as she was trying to get the words out. “Alex,” she said suddenly, her voice coming out overly loud. Swallowing again, she willed herself to talk a little more softly. “Alex,” she repeated. “I need—that is, I want—No, no.” She looked up at him, her eyes wide and luminous. “This is very difficult for me.”

“I can see that,” Alex said consolingly. He thought she was going to shred the handkerchief she held in her hands.

“Alex, I would like to request your hand in marriage.” The words tumbled out very quickly, and Emma suddenly exhaled, not even aware that she’d been holding her breath.

Alex blinked, but other than his eyelids, he did not move a muscle.

Emma looked at him anxiously. “Alex?”

“Did you just ask me to marry you?”

She started to twist the folds of her dark green skirt in her hand, not quite brave enough to look him in the eye. “Yes.”

“I thought that’s what you said.” Alex suddenly sat back, rather stunned. He’d just managed to convince himself that it was time to ask Emma to marry him, and she’d beaten him to the punch. A small voice in the back of his head was telling him that this was a good thing, that if she had actually asked him to marry her, it probably meant that she’d say yes to him when he finally got around to asking her the same question. But an even larger voice in the front of his head was saying that this was all wrong, that she had somehow denied him something he wanted very badly. Damn it, he’d been looking forward to proposing. He’d been rehearsing nonstop for two days. He couldn’t get to sleep at night because he couldn’t stop himself from playing out various scenarios in his mind. He had even given serious thought to getting down on one knee. Instead he was slouched in a chair that wasn’t quite big enough for him while Emma was perched so precariously on the edge of his sofa that he was afraid she’d fall off.

“Emma, are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he finally said.

She deflated. That wasn’t a very positive response.

“What I mean is,” Alex continued, “usually it’s the man who asks the woman to marry him.”

“I just couldn’t wait until you got around to asking me,” Emma said, somewhat sheepishly. “If you got around to asking me.”

“You wouldn’t have had to wait very long,” Alex muttered under his breath.

Emma obviously didn’t hear him because she looked no less anxious than she had earlier. “The problem is that I need to marry you rather quickly, I’m afraid.”

Alex thought that was an extremely cryptic comment indeed, since they hadn’t performed the act that usually required a woman to marry a man rather quickly.

“This is very uncommon,” he said, shaking his head.

“I realize that,” she improvised, “but you’ve often told me I’m an uncommon female.”

“I haven’t actually heard of a woman proposing to a man,” Alex said, measuring his words carefully. “I don’t think it’s exactly illegal, but it just isn’t done.”

Emma rolled her eyes. She was beginning to understand what was going on here. She had bruised Alex’s considerable male pride. Normally she would be enjoying this, but her entire life’s happiness was at stake. He was sitting over there, feeling sorry for himself because she’d stolen from him some kind of inherent male right, and he hadn’t even given one thought to how much courage it must have taken her to come to his home unescorted and ask him to marry her. This wasn’t exactly something she’d been brought up to do. “Methods of proposing marriage” definitely had not been squeezed in between Latin and piano lessons when she was growing up. Nevertheless, she decided that one of them was going to have to be the mature one in this scenario, and it might as well be her.

“Really, Alex,” she said with a sweet smile. “You should feel flattered. It’s a rare man who has a woman so besotted with him that she defies convention and asks him to marry her.”

Alex blinked. “I was going to ask you on Friday,” he said in a slightly petulant tone. “I had even rehearsed what I was going to say.”

“You were?” Emma exclaimed joyfully. “You did? Oh, Alex, I’m so happy!” Unable to contain herself, she bounded up off of the sofa and knelt in front of Alex, taking both of his hands in hers.

He looked down at her, his expression still a little bit childish. “I was rather excited about proposing. I’ve never done it before, you know. And now I don’t get to.”

Emma beamed, giving his hands a squeeze. “You still can. I promise I’ll say yes.”

Alex sighed and then suddenly looked very seriously into her eyes. “I’m not acting very gracious, am I?”

“No,” she admitted, “but I really don’t care. I’m just so happy that you want to marry me.”