As You Wish by Jennifer Malin

presumptuous, even rude, but her artless manner drew quite the opposite response.  She used the familiar address so naturally that he felt almost as though they belonged on intimate terms.  He even had a compelling urge to address her the same way.
    “Leah?”  The word fairly caressed his tongue.
    She looked up at him, her eyes still wide and lips slightly parted, as though inviting a kiss.  Indeed, everything about their circumstances cried out for kissing, from their intimate embrace to their use of given names.  Even the vulnerability he read in her uptilted eyebrows implied an inclination to bend to his will.  She moistened her lips, heightening the tension to an unbearable intensity.
    But for all the magic of her spell, he could not quite forget himself, his station in life . . . the coil of scandal that originated in the very moment of his birth.  The times when he most longed to ignore his unhappy parentage only served to make him feel his disgrace more sharply.
    He stared into her eyes, and she returned him a steady gaze.  In this overwrought state, she might well submit to his advances, but when she recollected herself she would realize how low she had stooped and would come to rue her indiscretion.  He had no doubt of her proper breeding.  She could make a good marriage and live happily--so long as a nobleman’s bastard with no prospects did not compromise her first.
    “I won’t.”  He let her go and turned his back to her, shamed by his thoughts.  At such a moment, he ought to be lecturing this young woman on the value of life, not calculating his chances of seducing her.  He ought to be delivering a sermon to her that would rival Hamlet’s soliloquy.
    Hamlet.  What an unhappy reference, with Leah having twice chosen “not to be” over “to be.”  Had Fate made an equally poor choice in placing him in the position of helping this young woman?  He hoped not, for her sake.
    “You won’t what?” she asked from behind him.
    He spun around and faced her.  She no longer bore herself like a Celtic priestess.  Her body had wilted, making her look small and childlike.  She waited for him to speak, and he realized, however badly suited to it, he must.
    “I won’t simply shrug off these ill-judged attempts of yours.”  He forced himself to step closer to her.  “Whatever your difficulties may be, whatever miseries you may want to escape, I beg you to confide in me rather than resort to an act of desperation.  I may not have the position and wealth that grant worldly influence, but I have connections who do.  There must be a way we can help you.  There are always alternatives to this.”
    She watched the motion he made toward the pool, then lifted her gaze back to his eyes.  “What do you mean?”
    The blank expression on her face bore every mark of confusion, but he had witnessed that form of equivocation before.  He threw his hands up in exasperation.  “Drowning yourself.  There is always another way--and I don’t speak as a stranger to desperation.”
    Her eyes widened.  “Did you think I meant to kill myself?”
    “Are you claiming you did not?” he snapped, annoyed that she chose evasion over trusting in him.  “How else do you explain nearly drowning in water too shallow to engulf an infant?”
    For a long moment, she only stared, each passing second further depleting his hopes for her candor.  Before she answered, she broke away from his gaze.
    “I didn’t want to kill myself.  All I can say is that I slipped and fell into the water, and then . . . well, I can’t really explain what happened next.  I did try to stand and get out of the pool, but I just couldn’t manage.”
    Her slow manner of choosing words made him suspect her of telling half-truths.  He watched her until she lifted her gaze from the ground to meet his.
    “Very well, let us suppose you are telling me all you can about yesterday’s accident,” he said.  “Why would you return to the