Chapter 20 #2
"Nothing." He set down his glass, attempting a smile. "I'm delighted for you. Truly. This is exactly the kind of recognition you deserve."
"But?"
"But nothing. Your work is being valued, your theories validated. It's everything we hoped for." He moved to his desk, shuffling papers with unnecessary focus. "Did Thornbury mention the terms? Hours required, that sort of thing?"
"He did suggest the board was concerned about my other commitments." She watched him carefully, beginning to understand. "Adrian, are you worried about what this means for my position here?"
"Should I be?"
The question hung between them, and suddenly she saw his fear clearly. Not jealousy of her success, but terror that it would take her away from him. That given the choice between love and ambition, she would choose, what as he expected an independent woman would.
"Oh, Adrian." She crossed to him, taking his hands in hers. "You impossible, wonderful fool. Do you really think I would simply abandon you the moment something better came along?"
"Something better?" His laugh was bitter. "A prestigious museum project versus cataloguing a private library? Full academic recognition versus a position that everyone knows was created specifically for you? Yes, I rather think that qualifies as better."
"You're right," she said, and saw him flinch. "It is better. Which is why I'm going to accept it. And continue working here. And publish my Ovid translation. And probably drive myself to exhaustion trying to do everything at once because I'm too stubborn to give up any of it."
He blinked. "What?"
"Did you really think this was an either/or situation? That I would choose between my positions like some sort of academic Solomon?" She squeezed his hands. "Adrian, I fought for options. Plural. The whole point was not having to choose between ambition and... and everything else."
"Everything else," he repeated, a smile beginning to curve his lips. "Is that what I am now?"
"You're everything," she corrected, then blushed at the admission. "Which is terribly inconvenient when I'm trying to maintain professional objectivity, but there it is."
He pulled her closer, his hands sliding up her arms to her shoulders. "Say that again."
"It's terribly inconvenient?"
"The other part."
She met his eyes, seeing her own feelings reflected there; the wonder, the terror, the absolute certainty that whatever complications arose were worth facing.
"You're everything. My employer, my intellectual equal, my dearest friend, and the man I love to distraction.
It's utterly impractical and probably doomed to scandal, but I can't seem to bring myself to care. "
He kissed her then, deep and thorough and possessive in a way that made her knees weak. When they finally parted, his eyes held a determination she recognized.
"Marry me."
The words dropped between them like stones in still water, sending ripples through the careful balance they'd achieved.
"Adrian..."
"Not now," he rushed to clarify. "Not until you're ready, until your work is established and your reputation secure. But someday, Eveline. Marry me someday."
"That's not a question," she pointed out, her heart racing.
"No," he agreed. "It's a promise. A statement of intent.
I will wait as long as necessary, support your work however I can, but someday I want to call you my wife.
I want the right to love you openly, to stand beside you at lectures and say 'that brilliant woman is mine.
' I want our names linked not by scandal but by choice. "
"Adrian..." She pulled back slightly, needing distance to think. "Marriage would complicate everything. Your family, society, my work..."
"Everything is already complicated." He cupped her face in his hands, thumbs stroking over her cheekbones. "At least marriage would make it complicated in a legal, church-sanctioned way."
Despite everything, she laughed. "That's your argument? Religious approval for our impropriety?"
"Would you prefer I compose sonnets? I could, you know. They'd be terrible, lots of forced rhymes about Byzantine manuscripts and classical conjugations, but I'd attempt it if that's what it takes."
"Don't you dare." She leaned into his touch. "I've read your poetry. It's marginally worse than your handwriting."
"Cruel woman. And here I thought you loved me for my mind."
"I do." She turned her head to press a kiss to his palm. "Among other attributes."
"Other attributes?" His voice dropped to that register that never failed to affect her. "Do tell, Miss Whitcombe. In detail. With classical references if possible."
She might have responded, might have provided a thoroughly annotated catalogue of his various attractions, but a discreet cough from the doorway interrupted them. They turned to find Morrison hovering uncertainly, a bundle of papers clutched to his chest.
"I'm terribly sorry," the young man stammered. "I did knock, but no one answered, and I have something rather urgent..."
"It's fine, Morrison." Adrian stepped back, though his hand lingered on Eveline's waist. "What's so urgent?"
"It's from Mr. Cadwell, for Miss Whitcombe." Morrison thrust the papers forward like a shield. "He says it's the publishing contract for the Ovid translations, and he needs them reviewed and signed as soon as possible. Something about printing schedules?"
Eveline took the papers with hands that weren't quite steady. The contract. For her translations. To be published under her name. The reality of it hit her like a physical blow, and she sank into the nearest chair.
"Miss Whitcombe?" Morrison's voice seemed to come from very far away. "Are you well?"
"She's overwhelmed," Adrian said quietly, crouching beside her chair. "It's been quite a day for professional advancement."
She looked at the contract, the legal language that would make her officially a published translator. Her name in print. Her work recognized. Everything she'd dreamed of, laid out in neat legal phrases.
"Read it aloud," Adrian suggested. "Sometimes hearing the words makes them real."
With a shaking voice, she began: "Agreement made this day between Cadwell & Associates, Publishers, and Miss Eveline Whitcombe, Translator, for the publication of a new English rendering of Ovid's collected works..."
Morrison listened with rapt attention, occasionally exclaiming at particularly favorable terms. Adrian watched her face, his expression soft with something that looked like pride mixed with love.
"Fifty pounds on signing," she continued, "with additional royalties of ten percent on all copies sold after the first thousand..."
"That's extraordinary," Morrison breathed. "Ten percent royalties for a first publication? Mr. Cadwell must have tremendous faith in your work."
"Or His Grace is a persuasive negotiator," Eveline said, looking at Adrian with suspicion.
"I may have mentioned to Cadwell that other publishers would likely be interested," Adrian admitted without shame. "Competition does wonderful things for contract terms."
"You interfered?"
"I advocated. There's a difference." He rose, moving to pour brandy from the decanter on the side table. "This calls for a celebration, don't you think? Morrison, you'll join us?"
The young man looked torn between propriety and excitement, excitement winning as it usually did with him. "I shouldn't, but... yes! Yes, this is too momentous to let pass unmarked."
Adrian poured three glasses, handing them around with ceremony. "To Miss Eveline Whitcombe," he said, raising his glass. "Translator, scholar, and living proof that brilliance cannot be suppressed by circumstance."
"To Miss Whitcombe!" Morrison echoed enthusiastically.
Eveline felt tears prick her eyes as she raised her own glass. "To possibility," she said. "And to friends who make the impossible possible."
They drank, the brandy burning warmth through her chest. Morrison immediately launched into questions about her translation approach, which led to an animated discussion of Ovid's use of mythological metaphor that lasted until well past dinner time.
"Goodness," Morrison said, finally noticing the darkness outside. "I've kept you both far too late. My apologies! I forget about everything when discussing classical literature."
"Never apologise for enthusiasm," Eveline told him. "It's one of the finest qualities a scholar can possess."
The young man glowed at the praise, gathering his things with obvious reluctance. "Will you be working on the Ovid tomorrow, Miss Whitcombe? I'd love to observe your translation process if that wouldn't be intrusive."
"You're welcome to observe," she said, smiling at his eagerness. "Though I warn you, translation is often tedious work as there is lots of crossing out and starting over."
"The best work usually is," Morrison said earnestly. "Until tomorrow, then. Your Grace, Miss Whitcombe."
After he left, Eveline and Adrian sat in comfortable silence, the contract still spread on the table between them like a promise made tangible.
"Are you happy?" Adrian asked finally.
"Happy doesn't begin to describe it." She traced the edge of the contract with one finger. "I feel... expanded. As if I've been living in a small room and suddenly discovered doors I didn't know existed."
"And one of those doors leads to me?"
She looked up at his tone, light but with something vulnerable beneath. "You're not a door, Adrian. You're the person holding my hand as I walk through them."
He was beside her in an instant, pulling her up into his arms. "I love you," he said against her hair.
"I love your brilliant mind and your terrible handwriting and the way you bite your lip when concentrating.
I love that you're going to be published and recognized and probably become insufferably famous. "