What a peculiar way of looking at the matter. Malachi said nothing else of it, unbothered as he was by her personal opinions so long as she called him by the damned title that he'd spent too many years of his life to earn.

(Besides, hadn't she just recently mentioned that it was a priest who had visited to prove her mother's story?)

No matter.

Malachi returned Nettie's smile, but refrained from touching her shoulder as he might've done if he was not concerned about Miss Clarke.

"Don't worry," he began, glancing at the stone building again before he looked back to her. "I'm not the one who will be living here. But yes, I am satisfied with it -- and you'll be close enough that you can come to the church if you're ever unhappy here."