But then I saw a familiar face ordering coffee at the counter. "Oh, look," I said, "there's the woman who read her story at the pub the other night." Willis didn't turn to look. I recognized others from Omar's writing workshop, and then Omar came in. I waved as he came to my table.

"This is my friend Omar who leads the writing workshop."

Willis reluctantly turned to shake Omar's hand. I could barely focus on Omar's entertaining explanation of the writing group's field trip to the coffee shop because Willis had turned his back on Omar and was crumpling his napkin in his fist. He stood, taking his coffee cup with him, and looked at his watch.

"I've got to run," he said. "Pleasure meeting you," he said to Omar as he abruptly departed.

I watched until he was gone.

"What's up with him?" Omar asked.

*   *   *

This would become our routine. Willis would listen carefully as I updated him on tea-theatre progress: water now flowed from the kitchen sink without flooding other parts of the house, but the stove was still dangerous. We had china, teapots, scones, and tablecloths, but no gas. Then he would express wonder as I shared the things I learned at Nigel's door every day. The term critical vocabulary opened a whole world, the mere word traduce expressed a big idea in only seven letters. I became addicted to the daily dose of attention from Willis; craved his deep and penetrating gaze. But he would not have lunch with me. Too much work.

I spoke of elegiac yearnings and whispered the terrible truth that Jane Austen's fans couldn't face—that in spite of their perpetual search for details, they would never really know Jane Austen. Willis appeared genuinely moved. But not enough to relocate to the pub for happy hour.

Collecting bits of wonder during my working hours, I saved them to tell Willis: how Jane Austen's sister, Cassandra, had censored hundreds of letters with her scissors, like shredding documents, consigning their secrets to eternity. I explained there were only two likenesses of Jane Austen, both sketches by Cassandra, from which all other images had sprung; artists adding feminine ruffles, curls, or cosmetics, depending on the time and context of the artist.

But when asked personal questions, he always steered the talk elsewhere. He declined invitations to lunch, dinner, readings, and lectures, unwilling to budge from his desk. He always seemed engaged in our conversations, but never enough to kiss me again. I couldn't figure him out and didn't know what to do.

*   *   *

One day when Nigel and Vera were gone to London and Claire was free to work on nonfestival matters, Claire asked me to introduce the speaker for "Sexual Repression in Mansfield Park." I forced Willis out of my head and marshaled every particle of concentration to craft a coherent introduction from the speaker's resume. If I didn't do a good job, she'd hear about it and never give me another chance. Nonetheless, as I sat listening to the lecture an idea took root. My idea grew while the speaker analyzed the scene where Edmund helps Mary Crawford dismount Fanny's horse, while Fanny watches. By the time Mary Crawford had made her apologies, I had a plan.

*   *   *

Willis sat at the window, staring listlessly into the darkness in a way that made me fear he might be bored. The impulse fueling my plan deflated and I considered that a sensible person might say good night and retreat to her room or attend the performance in the ballroom. Not me.

"Hello, Lily." Willis patted the plank next to him.

"We could really use some cushions up here." I joined him, removing my sweater and leaning in, pretending to look out the window where the glamorous moon lit the night stage presenting tree branches in silhouette, a quiet couple sitting in the herb garden. I wished I could open the window and smell the night air, forgetting it would be cool, not hot and dry like Texas.

"Do you know Mrs. Russell?" I asked.

"No." Willis smiled and turned to me.

I sat up very straight. "She's in charge of the volunteers," I said, "the women who pass out programs and sell tickets. And she's cochair of the tea-theatre."

"She wears a costume," he said.

"Period attire," I corrected him. "Anyway, she announced this afternoon that she wants to play Amelia in the skit. And Stephen Jervis will play Anhalt."

Willis shifted his legs. "Is that bad?"

"Well, yes. I'm sure that I am not going to play Agatha, her mother. I'm Amelia. And Omar is Anhalt." I felt his regard penetrate my face, going in through the eyes, seeking a comfortable place near my heart. "I think she's up to something with Stephen Jervis. Maybe the tea-theatre was a bad idea; we should have continued pushing for a ball. I don't understand why Nigel is so opposed to a ball," I said, talking, while I cast about for the optimal moment to activate my plan. I sensed My Jane Austen in a dark corner, working on "A List of Silly Girls." She'd gotten as far as Lydia Bennet.

"It's not the ball, really," Willis said. "Rather a preference for the way his festival addresses the study of Jane Austen." He looked into my eyes as I ran my fingers over the hem of Bets's black blouse that buttoned up the front. "Professional academics have rules for the study of literature which the fans tend to ignore."

"Such as?" I asked.

"Well." Willis looked down, and I wondered if he knew where I was going with the blouse. "The fan club treats characters as if they were real people and speculate on their lives outside the text."

I sat up straight. "Go on."

"Study requires analytical skills and specialized knowledge that professional academics spend their careers acquiring."

"Well, that automatically excludes a lot of people." My heart beat faster.

"Lady Weston and Nigel chose to work together to elevate the study of Jane Austen, to provide self-taught readers access to the academic research in a manor house setting."

"You must know the Lockwood family," I said, recalling Willis with Randolph at the orientation meeting.

"Yes," Willis said, clearing his throat.

Inasmuch as he knew what he had just told me, how could he not know the fun facts I'd been sharing at our daily wonder-fests? Maybe he was pretending not to know just so he could listen to me talk. I took a deep breath, gathering courage from the scent of Bets's spicy perfume I'd sprayed on my neck and wrists, and placed my fingers on the top button of my black blouse. The top button slipped out and my fingers traveled down to the next.

"What are they like?" I asked, my voice breaking, the second button freed and my fingers on the third, the top of Bets's black bra visible. Willis exhaled, his eyes on my cleavage as I opened the fourth button and slowly pulled the blouse apart. Moonlight cast a white sheen on my curving flesh as I considered releasing the bra's front clasp. Willis didn't speak but I could hear his breath. He took my hands, pushing them down to my lap, and held them there. Maybe he wanted to look at me in the moonlight. But then he touched the blouse and, starting at the bottom, he buttoned one after the other until all were closed.

Then he held my hands again. "We don't know each other, Lily," he whispered in the darkness. I turned away, fearing this was what Martin meant by needy, feeling I'd been censured, feeling embarrassed and confused, too ashamed to look at him. I would have stood but he had my right hand and held it tight. I looked away, all the bad feelings melting the snow inside me to a grimy slush and I wanted to lie down and drown in it.

"Tell me why you're so sad," he said.

No one had ever asked me that question; I didn't know what to say and if he hadn't been holding me and talking to me the way he was, I would have run away.

"Hmm?" he murmured, his mouth close to my head, his other hand on my chin, lifting my face to look at him.

Even I didn't understand my deep sadness, with me as long as I could remember. My earliest memories were of being sad, different from everybody else; perhaps the reason I never fit in. Grave and serious like Jane Eyre, or Catherine and Heathcliff, or Anna Karenina. I understood exactly how they felt, and nobody in real life shared that kind of pain with me. No one, not even my mother, had ever known about my sadness. I'd been so worried about psychologists, and now writers, penetrating my defenses, when all along deacons had the power. I didn't know where to start—from my deep and powerful identification with The Secret Garden in fourth grade, to the loss of my mother, the books, the necklace, or everything in between. "My mother died," I said, tears filling my eyes, "last September."

"I'm sorry," he said.

I felt a rush of gratitude, my face crumpled like a small child while he searched his pockets and handed me a tissue.

"You need help with that grief," he said.

"I've had some help. I chose the Episcopal church, mostly because of the Book of Common Prayer; you know—the exquisite beauty and power of the words." Manifold sins and wickedness came to mind. "But after she died, my father donated her body to science and we had a lunch in our backyard. He wouldn't talk to the priest; he never went to church with us."

"Why is that?"

"He says God isn't interested in religion." Telling Willis brought it back to me, that sudden vacuum of emptiness—even with all the usual suspects gathered at our house. I told Willis about "the bossy aunts breaking into my mother's china cupboard, the black sheep opening the fridge for another beer."