"You're overthinking it."
He said expressionlessly, trying to snuff out the budding topic with the briefest possible denial.
Unfortunately, Flora seemed to have found something more interesting than interrogating Jared and clearly had no intention of letting him off so easily.
"Is that so?"
She extended a slender finger and pointed at Jared, who was still kneeling on the ground and grinning foolishly at the air.
"He said that Miss Anise is quite a catch. Her family is wealthy, and apparently she's famous for her looks, too."
"His fiancée ran into danger after fleeing her wedding, and some upright, kind-hearted young mage who just happens to be her betrothed claims he doesn't have any plans?"
"That's not how a normal man would react."
Looking at the teasing expression on her face as she spoke, he could practically read the words Go on, admit it in the corners of her eyes.
He could almost picture her going back and gossiping with his teacher, the two of them huddled together over a bowl of sunflower seeds, whispering about my apprentice and his rich, beautiful runaway fiancée.
Keep explaining?
No. The more he explained, the more excited she'd get.
When two women got together, the flames of gossip weren't easy to put out. They only burned higher.
As someone who'd weathered every kind of trick in the information age of his previous life, he knew the importance of turning expectations on their head.
This called for fighting magic with magic—overwriting the current version of the gossip with an even more outrageous one.
So he let out a soft sigh and said slowly, "Alas, I suppose you saw right through me."
He turned and looked straight into Flora's amused eyes, his tone growing theatrical. "After all, she's beautiful and rich. If I happen to