Page 111 of Familiar Things New

Andrew let go of Edwin’s hand and removed his pack. “We brought coal, too. And food.”

“Thank you,” Agnes said, smiling fondly at Edwin’s beau. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy to get here.”

“It really, really wasn’t,” Andrew laughed.

Edwin’s mother’s voice interrupted their conversation.

“Edwin! Sakes alive, I can’t believe you’re home!” she said from the hallway entrance. She looked over at Agnes and William and heaved a sigh. “Oh, Agnes.”

Agnes sprang to her feet. “Mother!” Her face flushed red as she stepped away from the chair. “William and I were only . . . well, we . . . oh, I’m so embarrassed.”

“Do try to be a little more inconspicuous in the future, dear. At least until you two are married,” Edwin’s mother chided.

Married?!

Edwin sucked in a sharp breath.

“Are you two engaged?!” he blurted out, looking back and forth between William and Agnes.

“We are,” William said through a happy laugh. “I still have to inform my parents, but I know they’ll be supportive.”

William reached for Agnes’s hand and kissed it. Agnes smiled, and blush clung to her cheeks.

“William showed up here yesterday morning with a sack of coal, a half-dead orchid, and a bottle of too-expensive wine. I politely asked him to leave, but—”

“Yes, you were so polite when you shut the door in my face,” William said with a smirk.

Agnes threw him a look. “Anyway, William kept knocking, and of course Mother felt sorry for him being out there in the blizzard, so we had to let him in. And then, he proposed.”

“And Agnes said yes,” William said proudly. “Making me the luckiest man in Albany.”

He pulled Agnes back onto his lap, and Edwin’s mother thumped him lightly upside the head.

“William Albert Whitney,” she scolded. “And to think I once considered you one of the politest, most respectful young men I had ever met.” She tsked. “All right, well, now that Edwin is here, I can finally stop worrying about him so much. I think I’d like to relax with some tea or coffee. Would anyone else like some?”

“Yes, please,” Edwin and Andrew said in tandem.

“Coffee or tea?”

Edwin and Andrew looked at one another.

“I’m exhausted. And I think coffee might help more than tea,” Edwin said.

“Yes, I think so too,” Andrew said.

“Coffee, then,” Edwin’s mother confirmed before turning to go.

Gently, William coaxed Agnes off of him.

“I’ll help, Mrs. Beasley,” he called out.

“Are you trying to make up for the inappropriate lap-sitting I was forced to witness?” she asked.

William only smiled sheepishly. Edwin’s mother laughed and started into the hall.

“You’re forgiven,” she said as she strode away.

“Thank you, Mrs. Beasley,” William replied as he followed. “Or, I mean, Mother. Thank you, Mother.”