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Theodore Laurence, during his blissful and golden adolescence, was the closest thing to a royal sighting that those dusty lands would ever see. For mothers with marriageable daughters, Laurie represented the catch of the century. He had education, good breeding, heaps of money, and a face that made the heiresses of the stuffiest families sigh.
He was, indisputably, the "Prince of Concord."
And precisely because he was that monument to money and good genetics, his behavior was a personal affront to the logic of the marriage market. Why, in the name of all that is holy, was he always chasing after that March girl?
If at least he had taken a fancy to Margaret, the insult would have been easier to swallow. Meg knew how to use a fan without poking anyone's eye out, and her face made up for the tragic absence of a dowry. But the young lord preferred the other one. The one who seemed to hold a personal vendetta against the comb. The one who argued with the passion of a defense attorney and the manners of a sailor.
For Sallie Gardiner and her entourage, Josephine March was an enigma that turned the whole town upside down: what kind of witchcraft had the untidiest of the sisters used to have the Laurence heir following her around like a puppy delighted to wag his tail at her?
"They've already done it," Sallie declared one afternoon, settling her teacup with a raised pinky, pointing at an invisible enemy. "I'd bet my inheritance that those two no longer know what purity is. What else could Josephine March possibly offer? Certainly not embroidery skills."
The group of friends was scandalized, of course (hands over their mouths, eyes wide open), but deep down they breathed a sigh of relief. That hypothesis was comforting to them: if Laurie hovered around Josephine out of simple appetite, his judgment remained intact. It was a fleeting dalliance, not a genuine preference. Under that comfortable reading, Jo possessed no charm at all. She was, simply, accessible.
With this new lens as detectives of indecency, the girls began to observe every interaction. And, truth be told, the pair gave them ample material.
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One afternoon, Laurie chased Jo through the garden and tackled her onto a pile of dry leaves to trap her in a tickle attack. The ladies completely ignored the evident camaraderie. To them, that was a barely disguised mating dance.
Days later, while Jo was reading a play, she rested her head on Laurie's shoulder, and he, out of sheer instinct, wrapped an arm around her waist. The spectators across the street nearly fainted. Every playful shove was reinterpreted as a caress; every whisper, as a promise. The naturalness with which they touched was unacceptable to them, and, deep down, enviable.
But the definitive sign that sealed their reputation as waywards arrived on a sweltering Sunday by the lake, as if the sky itself had decided to put them on display.
The Gardiners' carriage was moving slowly when they saw them emerge from the bushes like two creatures expelled from Eden. They were soaked from head to toe. Laurie was shirtless, exhibiting that beautiful skin that should have never seen the sun, while Jo walked by his side wearing the boy's garment over her dripping dress. The fabric was huge on her and clung to her figure in a way that forced Sallie to fan herself hysterically. Jo walked forward with a triumphant smile, pushing her wet hair out of her face, looking just like a siren who had just claimed her prey. Laurie stared at her, completely dumbstruck.
They were so lost in each other that the carriage could well have been on fire and they wouldn't even have noticed.
Sallie slumped back against the seat, defeated but victorious in her theory.
"You can't compete with such an offer," she sighed, implying that she, a decent lady, would never stoop to such vulgar tactics.
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The Gardiners' main drawing room was boiling that night under the light of the crystal chandeliers. It was sweltering hot, trapped between the layers of silk, the floral perfume, and the constant buzz of local gossip. It was in that stifling atmosphere that the scandal broke out.
Sallie, unable to suppress her morbid curiosity, cornered the couple to confirm what all of Concord swore they knew. With a tremulous smile and an arsenal of flowery euphemisms about walks in the woods, she inquired if they had already crossed the line of decency to surrender to those carnal pleasures that everyone was talking about.
Jo tilted her head, reviewing her recent history of mischief. Crossing the line of decency? She assumed, with total logic, that Sallie was referring to her habit of jumping over other people's fences instead of using the gates; to a certain inclination she and Laurie had acquired for swiping the ripest apples from the Gardiners' orchard; or to the glorious Sunday when they snuck out of church to swim in the lake. Yes, it must be that. It already seemed strange to her that Sallie had taken so long to notice the shortage on her prettiest apple tree.
So Jo admitted to it all with appalling enthusiasm.
"Oh, of course! And very often," she replied with a huge smile.
Beside her, Laurie, who did have enough worldly experience to catch the double meaning, choked on his own saliva. He began to cough with watery eyes, partly trying to abort the confession before Jo figured out what they were really talking about, and partly because he actually did sweat at night dreaming about the barbarities Sallie was suggesting.
"Jo, I think you're mistaken about what Sallie is insinuating," he managed to articulate with a strangled voice.
"Don't play the saint, Teddy," she replied, nudging him with an elbow that the audience received as a coded confession. "I try to behave, I really do, but he insists. He always finds a way to drag me into his experiments. He's very persuasive when it occurs to him to try something new."
Sallie lost her color at a concerning speed. The Prince of Concord had just transformed, right before her eyes, into a predator of provincial maidens.
"Isn't it really fun doing it with me, Teddy?"
That phrase fell on Laurie like boiling lead. Steam threatened to shoot out of his ears as his heart accelerated its rhythm. Jo's question triggered a gallery of mental images that used to torment him in the middle of the night: Jo in the attic, her hair down, her warm neck smelling of ink and cheap soap. He imagined kissing her without the alibi of laughter, holding her without hiding behind mere camaraderie.
When she pointed him out as the instigator, the accusation brushed against an uncomfortable truth. In the privacy of his room, he closely resembled the villain Sallie described: less a gentleman and more a man, stealing something more than her breath away while offering her eternal love.
Seeing that their reputation was about to sink completely, Laurie took her by the arm and led her away to prevent her from talking any further.
"One more word and they'll marry us off this weekend," he muttered, blushing fiercely.
"Marry us? For stealing apples?"
He didn't reply. He led her toward the garden, away from the fluttering fans and the murmurs.
The cold night air hit their faces, relieving the heat of the drawing room. The gloom of the outdoors enveloped them in an opportune silence. Laurie let go of her slowly, feeling the wild rhythm of his chest begin to change its beat.
Jo straightened the wrinkled sleeve of her dress and huffed.
"Really, Teddy, those who have the most are the most selfish." She crossed her arms, rubbing her skin from the sudden cold, completely oblivious to the fire she had just started. "Sallie doesn't even like fruit that much."
Watching her under the dim light of the moon, with her brow furrowed and a rebellious lock of hair falling over her eyes, Laurie's facade of a dismayed young man crumbled. Suddenly, Sallie's threat lost—if it ever had—any hint of condemnation to take on the appeal of an excellent idea.
If Concord decided that Jo's honor required an urgent ring, he didn't plan on arguing it too much. He suspected he would sign the registry before they even finished reading it. He envisioned himself accepting everything with impeccable solemnity, a steady hand, and a serene gaze.
The real scandal, to the horror of every marriageable maiden in Concord, was his suspicious docility in the face of punishment. Because while the whole town was beginning to plan his sentence, he was smiling just imagining it.