Genevieve’s eyes were shining. “A charity hospital,” she said, “one with a reputation for major advancements. One that people will fight to sponsor, to be a part of. Oh, I’m going to have to take notes.”
“I’ll call for paper.” But as soon as Jane picked up the bell—it had scarcely even made a noise—the door opened.
“Miss Fairfield,” the footman said, “you have a visitor.”
“Who is it?” she asked.
But suddenly she knew. Behind the footman, she saw a form. Her heart stopped and then started once more, beating with a ponderous weight that seemed to tear her equanimity to pieces. Jane stood, clutching her hands together, as Oliver came out of the shadowed hall. His spectacles gleamed in the late afternoon sun. His hair seemed to be made of fire. But it wasn’t his face that riveted her attention, nor even the direct, demanding look in his eyes.
He walked in and suddenly—suddenly—she couldn’t breathe.
“Oliver.” She managed that word, and that word alone.
“Jane.”
“What…” She swallowed, smoothing out her skirts, and shook her head. “Oliver,” she finally choked out, “What in God’s name is the color of your waistcoat?”
He smiled. No, it was too little to say that he smiled. The expression on his face was like sunlight after a dark cave—utterly blinding.
“Would you know,” he said, “that on my way here, I was stopped by three men of my acquaintance, all of whom asked me the same question?”
She shook her head helplessly. “What did you tell them?”
“What do you think?” He gave her a smile. “I told them it was fuchsine.”
“And? What did they say?” Her voice was low, her heart beating rapidly.
“And I found it strangely liberating,” he said. “As if I’d just made a declaration.” He was looking into her eyes, focused entirely on her.
“Precisely how liberated were you?” She could scarcely recognize her own voice.
“Jane, you are not a blight. You are not a disease. You are not a pestilence or a poison. You’re a beautiful, brilliant, bold woman, the best I have ever met. I should never have implied that you were lacking. The fault was in me. I didn’t think I was strong enough to stand at your side.”
She was not going to cry. She wasn’t going to hold him or allow him back in her life without question simply because he realized he had missed her. He’d hurt her too badly for that.
He took another step forward, and then bent to one knee. “Jane,” he said, “would you do me the honor of being my wife?”
She didn’t know what to think. Everything was all muddled. She shook her head, reached for the one thing she understood.
“Your career,” she said. “What about your career?”
“I want a career.” He swallowed. “But not that one. Not the career where I hold my tongue as other men berate women for wearing too much lace. Not one where I keep quiet while my youngest sister appears before a magistrate for the crime of speaking too loudly. Not one where the price of my power is silence about the things I most hold dear.” He bowed his head. “I don’t want you to compromise yourself. To be any less than you are. I won’t ask you to change for me because I’ve realized that I need you precisely as you are.”
Jane brought her hand to her mouth.
“I don’t need that quiet wife. I need you. Someone bold. Someone who won’t let me stand back from myself, and who will tell me in no uncertain terms when I’ve erred.”
She didn’t know what to say.
“I’ve needed you to shock me out of the biggest mistake of my life. To make me recognize my fears and to reach into the fire and grab hold of the coals.”
His voice was rough.
“I need you, Jane. And I love you more dearly than I can say.”
Behind her, Genevieve made a noise. “I think I should absent myself,” she said.
Oliver blinked. “Oh, good God. Miss Johnson. I didn’t even see you there.”
Genevieve smiled. “It’s Miss Genevieve. And I had noticed.” She waved at Jane. “I’ll be back later. With paper and ideas.” So saying, she slipped out.
Oliver looked at Jane. He shifted uncomfortably on his knee and then sat on the floor. “There’s something else I have to tell you.”
She nodded.
“You were right about my courage. I know precisely where I mislaid it.” He let out a deep breath. “I was seventeen years of age. My brother was a year ahead of me; he had gone on to Cambridge, and I’d been left alone at Eton for one final year. It didn’t matter, I thought. I was wrong.”
He shut his eyes.
“There was an instructor. He taught Greek, and he took it upon himself to teach me a little more than that. Every time he heard that I’d spoken up, he would take me to task in class. He would call on me to translate in front of everyone—texts that none of us had seen before. And when I stumbled he’d tell everyone how dull I was. How stupid. How dreadfully wrong.”
He wrapped his arms around himself. “I could fight other boys, but an instructor, acting within his power? There was nothing to do. As the term went on, it grew worse. My punishments stopped being simple embarrassment. I was hardly the only boy to experience corporal punishment at Eton, and he never went beyond the line. But when it was happening every day, every time I spoke…”
Jane came to stand by him, and then slowly lowered herself to the floor next to him.
“Anything is bearable if you can fight it, but if you must sit back and take it… That breaks you in a way I can’t explain.” He took a deep breath. “I made excuse after excuse for myself as I grew more quiet. I was being pushed. Forced into it. It was temporary; I’d stop once I got out of there. But deep down, I’ve always known the truth: I wasn’t brave enough to keep talking. I learned to shut up so loudly that I never managed to unlearn it afterward.”
“God. Oliver.”
“It doesn’t sound like much. But it trains you, an experience like that. To feel sick when you open your mouth. To hold back.”
She put her arm on his shoulder and he turned to her.
“I don’t want you to feel sorry for me,” he said. “I want you to know how much I love and admire you. Because they tried to do it to you, too, and it didn’t take.”
She smiled. “They didn’t get to me until I was nineteen. I had a little longer to become set in my ways.”