Chapter 17 #3
"Hmm." Thornbury's expression was knowing. "Well, whatever your motivations, scholarship will benefit. Send Miss Whitcombe to see me once she's... resolved her current situation. I'll be most interested to discuss those Byzantine observations in detail."
Adrian left the museum with another piece of his puzzle in place.
Cadwell Publishing would provide income and public recognition.
The museum position would grant academic credibility.
His own position would offer stability and resources.
Together, they formed a future that no Manchester mill owner could match, a life built around scholarship rather than servitude.
***
By the time Adrian arrived at Eveline's lodgings, he found what appeared to be a small academic conference in progress.
Through the parlor door, which stood slightly ajar, he could hear animated voices discussing translation theory with the kind of passion most people reserved for politics or sport.
"...but surely maintaining the meter is less important than preserving the emotional impact," a male voice was saying. "What use is perfect dactylic hexameter if the English reader feels nothing?"
"What use is emotional impact if you've destroyed the very structure that creates it?
" That was Eveline, her voice carrying the particular tone she used when someone had said something brilliantly stupid.
"You might as well write your own poetry and call it 'inspired by Virgil' rather than pretending it's translation. "
Adrian pushed the door fully open to find a scene that made his heart simultaneously soar and clench.
Eveline sat in the center of what could only be described as organized chaos.
Papers spread across every surface, books open to various passages, teacups forgotten amid the scholarly debris.
Cadwell was there, along with another gentleman Adrian didn't recognize, and Harriet presided over it all with the satisfied air of a general whose battle plans were succeeding brilliantly.
"Your Grace," Harriet said, noticing him first. Her tone suggested she wasn't entirely surprised by his appearance. "How fortuitous. We were just discussing Miss Whitcombe's impressive array of opportunities."
Eveline's head snapped up, her eyes meeting his with an expression that contained fury, confusion, and something else he couldn't quite identify.
She looked magnificent in her anger though.
Color high, eyes sparking, surrounded by the evidence of her brilliance that these men were finally recognizing.
"Your Grace," she said with icy formality. "I should have expected you. Tell me, did you organise this entire gathering, or merely set it in motion and trust momentum to do the rest?"
"I may have made some introductions," Adrian admitted, moving into the room despite the charged atmosphere. "Your work deserved to be seen by people who could appreciate it."
"My work. Which you stole."
"Borrowed," he corrected, unrepentant. "And look what's come of it. Cadwell here wants to publish your Ovid. Thornbury at the British Museum is interested in your Byzantine observations. I believe Mr.—?" He looked questioningly at the unknown gentleman.
"Wickham," the man supplied. "Thomas Wickham, from the Royal Historical Society. Mr. Cadwell showed me Miss Whitcombe's work on Theocritus. Quite extraordinary."
"Mr. Wickham," Adrian continued smoothly, "apparently wants to discuss a lecture series on classical translation theory. All because your work was allowed to speak for itself, without the interference of gossip or prejudice."
"Without my permission, you mean." Eveline rose, stepping carefully around the scattered papers. "Gentlemen, might I have a moment alone with His Grace? I promise not to damage him too severely. I wouldn't want to deprive you of your patron."
The men departed with varying degrees of reluctance, Cadwell pressing his card into Eveline's hand with a reminder to consider his offer carefully. Harriet was the last to leave, pausing at the door with a meaningful look.
"Try not to throw anything irreplaceable," she advised. "The teapot is only Staffordshire, but the books are first editions."
Then they were alone, and the air between them crackled with tension that had nothing to do with scholarship and everything to do with the morning's stolen kiss and purloined translations.
"You had no right," Eveline said quietly, and somehow the control in her voice was worse than shouting would have been. "Those translations were mine, private, not meant for..."
"Not meant to be hidden away while you exile yourself to Manchester?" Adrian interrupted. "Not meant to be wasted teaching Latin basics to indifferent children? Tell me, Eveline, what exactly were they meant for if not recognition?"
"That wasn't your decision to make!"
"No, but someone had to make it, since you seemed determined to bury your light under the provincial bushel of industrial England.
" He moved closer, noting how she held her ground despite the anger vibrating through her.
"Do you know what Thornbury said about your Byzantine observations?
That scholars have spent decades trying to understand what you noticed in an afternoon. "
"Thornbury? Edmund Thornbury from the British Museum?"
"The same. He's prepared to offer you a consulting position. Two days a week to start, with potential for more. You'd have access to their entire manuscript collection, the ability to publish findings in their journal..."
"Stop." She held up a hand, and he could see her trembling with the effort of containing her emotions. "Just stop. Do you think this fixes everything? That you can steal my work, parade it before half of scholarly London, create positions out of thin air, and I'll fall gratefully at your feet?"
"I think," Adrian said carefully, "that you were about to accept a position that would waste everything extraordinary about you.
I think pride was about to rob the world of a brilliant classical mind.
And indeed, I think that sometimes we need others to show us what we're worth when we've forgotten it ourselves. "
"I hadn't forgotten my worth. I was being practical about my circumstances."
"Your circumstances." He laughed, though there was no humor in it.
"Your circumstances are that you're one of the finest classical scholars in England, reduced to considering governess positions because society is too foolish to see past its own prejudices.
Forgive me for trying to change those circumstances. "
"By going behind my back? By making decisions without consulting me? By once again swooping in to save the day without considering that perhaps I didn't want..."
"Didn't want what?" He stepped closer still, close enough to see the gold flecks in her eyes, close enough to catch her scent of lavender and ink.
"Didn't want recognition? Didn't want your work published?
Didn't want a future that used your abilities instead of wasting them?
Tell me, Eveline, what exactly didn't you want? "
She stared at him, chest rising and falling with agitated breaths, and he could see her struggling between fury and something else, something that looked dangerously like hope.
"I didn't want charity," she said finally, her voice breaking slightly. "I didn't want positions created out of pity or guilt or whatever misguided sense of responsibility you're feeling. I wanted to earn my place, not have it handed to me because the Duke of Everleigh commanded it."
"Is that what you think this is? Charity?" Adrian pulled out a sheaf of papers from his coat; Harwick's contracts, Thornbury's letter, Cadwell's publication agreement. "Read these. Really read them. Tell me where you see pity or charity or anything other than recognition of exceptional ability."
She took the papers reluctantly, sinking into a chair to read while he paced to the window, giving her space to process.
The late afternoon sun slanted through the glass, painting golden strips across the worn carpet.
He could hear her breathing change as she read, sharp intakes that suggested surprise or possibly dismay.
"This is..." She paused, shuffling through the contracts again. "The salary you're proposing is ridiculous. Two hundred pounds per annum?"
"It's what the position is worth. Less, actually, but I thought starting too high might seem..."
"Like charity?" She looked up at him, those remarkable eyes bright with unshed tears. "Adrian, this is a fortune. The museum position, the publishing contract; together they create a future I never dared imagine."
"It's not created," he said, turning from the window to face her fully. "It's recognized. Every one of those men saw your work and immediately understood its value. All I did was make the introduction."
"All you did." She rose, the contracts clutched in her hands like something precious. "You've restructured my entire future in the span of an afternoon."
"Your future was always there, waiting. I simply refused to let you throw it away for the dubious privilege of teaching irregular verbs in Manchester."
They stood facing each other across the small parlor, surrounded by the evidence of her scholarship and the testament to his intervention. The anger had faded from her face, replaced by something more complex—gratitude warring with independence, hope battling with fear.
"Why?" she asked finally. "Why go to such lengths? And don't say it's simple justice or scholarly obligation. Not after this morning, not after..."
"Not after I kissed you like a man drowning and you were air?" He moved toward her slowly, giving her time to retreat. "Not after you told me I make you forget yourself? Not after three weeks of trying to pretend I don't wake up thinking of you and fall asleep dreaming of you?"
"Adrian," she whispered, his name a warning and plea combined.