Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“And—would you object if I stood up again? I fear Mr. Egerton’s carpet is not terribly pillowy under my knee—either knee—and might result in permanent crippling.”
She nodded, but it was a mistake for her equanimity, because then he was on his feet and the closest he had been to her since he kissed her lips through the circle of Gordon’s fingers. With the library case behind her, retreat was impossible.
“I love you, Frances,” he murmured, coming still closer, so that his breath brushed her cheek.
“If you believe nothing else about me, believe that. I’ve made every mistake with you that it’s possible to make and done very little to deserve you, but I love you all the same.
” With a rueful smile, he gave the familiar tap to his temple.
“You see, my mind isn’t the only place where, once something goes in, there it stays.
” Reaching for her hand, he lifted it and placed it against his breast, where through the wool of his coat she felt the steady, strong thump of his heart.
“Oh,” she breathed.
And then he was kissing her, that beautiful mouth of his hard on her own and his arms coming around to press her against him. Under her palm she felt his heart quicken, and she knew hers was doing the same.
“My beautiful Frances,” he murmured against her lips. “My beloved girl.”
“But wait!” she gasped, even as she returned his kisses and her own arms slid up to circle his neck. “Mr. Hearne—wait!”
His lips drifted down to her jaw and the tender flesh beneath. “Adam, my darling. You must call me Adam now.”
“Adam, then. Adam, my dearest.”
Hearing his name on her lips only made him kiss her harder, however, and more urgently, an undertaking to which Frances gladly gave her own efforts, and it was only when they were both entirely breathless that they broke apart to arm’s length, and some measure of sanity returned.
“Adam,” she panted, “this is all very well, but you must stop a minute and tell me how we will live, if we marry. I mean, if you must give up your fellowship and your parents cannot be depended upon. I haven’t any money, you know.”
Grinning, he scooped her up and carried her around the desk. She thought he would deposit her in one of the chairs, but instead he lowered himself gingerly down. “See? I’ve persuaded you to sit in my lap.”
“You’ve done nothing of the kind,” she scolded, but she was smiling too. “You must let me down. Suppose Philip comes in, or the maid?”
“The good vicar will put aside his complaints when we tell him we are going to be married. And don’t you think this is better than finding us in a corner behind the desk, grappling indecently? Now, where were we?”
She twined a shy finger in his hair. “You were going to explain how we can live on no money.”
“Ah. Right.” Turning his head, he kissed her fingers. “I didn’t say there was no money.”
“But you said your mother cut off your allowance,” Frances insisted, “and everyone knows that fellows—‘Students,’ rather, in the case of Christ Church—must give up their fellowships when they marry.”
“Yes, all true. But did I not also mention that, when my father nipped my idea of taking orders in the bud, he said he would supply me with an allowance, that I might live in a manner suitable to the heir of Hyrnetoft? And, being my father, he asked what my mother had been wont to give me and proceeded to double it. Therefore I will now receive ￡2000 per annum.”
“Goodness. My word,” replied Frances, blinking at this sum. “That is generous, dear Adam, but… do you think either of your parents can truly be relied upon?”
“Not a bit. That is, not alone, no. But they can be relied on to work against each other, I suppose. Meaning, if the day comes when my father decides he has seen enough of me to last him another fifteen years without contact, I’m certain my mother would leap back into the breach and adore me again, if only to thwart him. ”
With a sympathetic sound in her throat, she leaned forward to kiss his forehead, which only succeeded in delaying matters another several minutes until the chiming of the clock startled them.
Settling Frances more respectably on his knees, Adam took up his thread again.
“I have long been…conscious of my parlous state, wholly dependent on my mother’s whims, and ever since I came to Oxford, I have made it a practice always to put away the larger share of my allowance and now much of my fellowship, against the day when all might vanish.
Meaning, I have already ￡5000 invested in government funds, yielding ￡200-250 per annum.
I intend to do the same with whatever my father chooses to give me. ”
She was speechless. When her older sisters and Sarah Langworthy married, she knew the baron made each a wedding gift of ￡200, and this, combined with their husbands’ modest incomes, was enough to keep them decently.
There were no grand houses, no horses or carriages, to be sure, and Frances suspected Lord Dere made regular gifts to Keele’s to keep the school going, but Frances never thought they lacked for anything.
Why, even if she and Mr. Hearne lived solely on his savings, they might be the richest of all!
He touched a fingertip to the furrow in her brow. “Well? Am I too poor for you after all, in more ways than one?”
Then it was her turn to take his finger and press it to her lips. “No. And, all the money aside, I wish your parents may learn to like us and each other for our own sakes and their own sakes. But Adam, would we live at Hyrnetoft with the senior Mr. Hearne?”
He shuddered. “Not if I can help it.”
“But what will you do then, when you are no longer a tutor?”
A slow grin spread across his handsome features, and Frances thought, like the spellbound children dancing after the piper, that she would follow him anywhere.
“I have a thought, my love, but I will freely abandon it, if you disapprove.”
“Tell me, Adam.”
“Then what would you say to Abingdon?”