“You’re not telling me something,” Rose said, catching Fern’s elbow as the two descended from the terrace into their mother’s gardens. Gravel paths wound through neatly trimmed hedges overcome by vines of morning glories, beds of lilacs, tulips, and marigolds crowding the edges. The paths gave way to an entire wall of roses, carefully pruned to climb trellis-like over a collapsed wall. The fields beyond grew unimpeded around a marble rotunda at the far end edging the woods, and wildflowers spotted the rolling green landscape like drops of paint on an earthen canvas.
Rose had not spoken a word until the girls were far beyond the rose garden, into the wild meadows beyond the sight of the house. She stopped in her tracks and spun to face Fern, her cheeks red. “You haven’t slept and you won’t even talk to me. You haven’t been reading, either, I haven’t seen you with a book in hand in days. Now what. Is.Wrong?”
Fern bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. What could she possibly say at this point?
She gave a heaving sigh. “There is a professor at Oxford working with the prosody of metrical poetry.” Rose raised one eyebrow, the well-known signal warning to stay on track and not wander off on an intellectual tangent. “I’m working on some translations of poetry, and I hope to present my work to him, and maybe…”
“Maybe you will be able to study with him.” Fern’s jaw dropped. Rose gave her a sad half-smile, and Fern immediately eased. She always admired her sister’s limitless ability for empathy, even if she could not comprehend it herself. “I knew you dreamed of studying at Oxford,” Rose said, taking her sister’s hand and squeezing it. “You’ve always wanted to.”
“How did you know?” Fern whispered.
“Whenever we go into town, you insist on walking across the campus, and I’ve seen you watching the students,” Rose replied. “You envy them so, and it breaks my heart.”
Tears pricked at Fern’s eyes as she felt utterly exposed. She had thought only Alex knew her secret.
“I know it’s unlikely,” Fern said. “But I still want to try, I have to—”
“Of course you have to try!” Rose interjected, her voice rising as her eyes sparkled. “It’s your dream, and I can’t imagine anyone more deserving of a place at Oxford than you.”
Fern grasped her sister by the shoulders and pulled her in for a hug, her shoulders heaving. “What if I—what if the professor won’t even listen to me? What if—”
“Then we plan your next steps together,” Rose said, rubbing her hands over Fern’s trembling back. “I’ll always help you, in any way I can. I only wish you had told me sooner.”
Fern pulled back and allowed Rose to brush a tear from her cheek. “You would have helped me?”
“Well,” Rose laughed. “I would not have been of much help with the mathematics, but certainly Alex could have been of assistance.”
Fern’s heart dropped as she watched Rose’s eyes light up. “Oh, how did I not think of this sooner? Alex will help you!” Rose gasped. “He certainly knows this professor, and I’m certain if I asked him he would—”
“That’s not necessary,” Fern interrupted, her voice pinched. “He’s busy with his own dissertation, he won’t have time for me.”
“Nonsense, he meets with his tutors tomorrow so it will finally be over with,” Rose said with a swish of her hand, and Fern felt a flash of unwarranted irritation.She doesn’t understand how important his work is, she doesn’t understand him at all.
“Alex will be your brother soon enough,” Rose said. “And you will be a student at Oxford, I’m sure of it.” She drew her twin in for another embrace, and Fern was immensely grateful Rose could not see the fresh tears on her cheeks. “Oh Fern, soon we will both have exactly what we want.”
Chapter 23
“Youhavetospeakas though you believe in what you’re saying!” Fern bellowed from the back of the lecture hall.
The hour had crept past midnight, and while students preparing for their final assessments crammed in every inch of available space in the library, the small lecture rooms of the examination halls on High Street were deserted, providing the perfect place for a dress rehearsal for Alex’s dissertation defense. Fern had taken on the role of examiner with glee, interrupting his speech with abrupt questions and suggestions for improvement.
“I do believe in what I’m saying,” he retorted, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“You don’t sound like it.” Fern lounged back in her seat, crossing her ankles. “You’re rushing through your final conclusions as though you want to avoid questions when you should welcome the interrogation.”
Alex flinched. “I’m not exactlyeagerfor it.”
“But it’s why you’re here,” she said, getting to her feet and descending the stairs of the lecture hall as though she owned it. She stood across the podium from Alex, rising on her toes to lean onto her forearms. “What good would an education be if learning never challenged you? Why do you think I want to attend Oxford instead of simply absorbing information from a book?”
He couldn’t fight the smile pulling at the corner of his lips. Fern had a knack for reminding him how fortunate he was to be in the position to contribute to his field.
Two days had passed since their kiss, two days in which Alex examined every option, every angle that might allow him to pursue his feelings for Fern. He knew he had to stop courting Rose, but it wouldn’t make Fern want to betray her sister to be with him. Yes, her body had responded to his touch, and she admitted her attraction to him. But tonight she had kept her distance, although he caught her watching him more than once before she averted her gaze, a pretty flush spreading over her freckled cheeks. He couldn’t be simply imagining something existed between them, could he?
“All right.” Alex shook out the tension in his shoulders. “Again then?”
“Only if you’ll do it the way I tell you to.”
He heaved a dramatic sigh. His brain had started to fog over, and he was becoming giddy from exhaustion and nerves. “Fine, then maybe you should do it.”
