Alex purchased a copy ofThe Poems and Prose of Ernest Dowsonfor Fern’s birthday the previous week. It had been a difficult day, the first birthday Fern did not celebrate with her twin at her side. Rose spent the day with her mother in London, and Fern’s letters to her sister had gone unanswered.Healing takes time, Alex reminded her again and again. He was healing as well. Each day spent in Fern’s presence reminded him of how special she was, how whole she made him feel.
“This is where you need to close your eyes,” he said, using the pole to guide the punt towards the riverbank.
Fern gave a noncommittal grunt. “My eyes are closed,” she said from beneath the book.
“Good,” he replied with a smile, excitement bubbling in his chest. A moment later the punt pulled onto shore and Alex jumped off, tying a rope from the front of the boat to a tree. “Keep your eyes closed,” he said as he took out an overloaded picnic basket and helped Fern to her feet, leading her off the boat and to his side.
“Can I open my eyes yet?” Alex smiled as he looked at her, her face adorably squished up. Her nose and cheeks had a smattering of freckles that developed from their days in the sunlight, like golden flakes sprinkled on her skin. He wanted to memorize each one of them, to map every inch of her body.
He discovered so much about her during the last three weeks, like her habit of gasping and giggling aloud while they read novels in the gardens, or her deeply competitive streak when they played chess. Alex taught her to fish in the lake on her family’s property and even convinced her to ride alone on a docile mare, although they did not stray far from the paddock.
“Not yet,” he said, putting his arms around her waist and pulling her flush against him. He met her lips with his, gently caressing, his tongue glidingagainst the seam. He felt her gasp as she opened to him, meeting his tongue hungrily with hers before he pulled away.
Fern blinked at him, her eyes dazed. Alex gave her a sly grin and took her hand. “Follow me.”
In only a few steps they reached their destination, a small isthmus of land pushing out into the currents of the Thames. “Do you recognize where we are?” he asked as he set down the basket and spread out a flannel blanket.
Fern groaned. “This is where I got stuck, isn’t it?”
“It is indeed.” Alex placed a quick peck on her forehead.
“Did you have to remind me?” Fern laughed, giving him a playful shove on the chest.
Alex caught her hand and kissed her palm. “Looking back, I think I fell in love with you that day. I saw your kindness, your humor, all of you. I should be grateful for the mud.”
She placed her palms against his chest. “I think I was already in love with you, but maybe it was just because you saved me from a watery death.” Alex smirked as he opened the basket. The pair settled in for their meal, sharing fresh bread and cheese and tart raspberries. They talked and laughed as they watched dragonflies flit across the water, dipping their toes in the gentle current.
Fern settled her head on Alex’s lap, his fingers tracing languidly over her cheeks and through her loose hair. “I wanted to ask you something,” Alex asked, feeling his pulse speed up.
Fern sat up with a start. “Oh,” she said, her voice tense. She caught her hands on her lap and looked at him. “What is it?”
“You know how Professor Sylvester taught in America before he came back to Oxford?”
Fern’s face fell and Alex immediately felt remorseful. Clearly she had expected a different question. “I did know that,” she said, her voice husky.
He pushed the momentary guilt aside and hoped she would forgive him once she heard what he had to say. “Right. Well, an acquaintance of his is currently the president of Radcliffe College in Boston, Mrs. Agassiz. She is expanding the programming there to include graduate studies, starting next year. It’s the first program of its kind for women in the country.”
“My goodness,” Fern said, her eyes brightening. “How wonderful for them.”
“Sylvester wrote to her, about you and your work,” Alex said, drawing an envelope from his pocket. It was wrinkled and crumpled, but the red crest with two horizontal black slashes was unmistakable. “She wrote back. Sylvester must have sent your work because you can skip undergraduate courses altogether. She wants you to be part of the first group of women to study graduate mathematics at Radcliffe.”
Fern opened the envelope with shaking fingers. Alex watched as her eyes darted over the page, color rising in her cheeks. “I could attend university?” she gasped. “In Boston?”
He nodded, taking her hand. “You can, if you want it.”
Setting the letter down on her lap, Fern shook her head. “I couldn’t though, my mother would never allow me to go, not so far away and for so long. My father would be a wreck. They don’t think I could do this alone.”
“What if you didn’t have to go alone?”
Fern’s eyes raised from her lap to meet Alex’s gaze. “What are you saying?”
“What if I came with you?” His pulse was thrumming wildly as he waited for her response. When he asked Sylvester to find a place for her to study, he never thought it would be in America. The thought of Fern thousands of miles away caused his chest to ache like it had never before, even during the month they were apart. He couldn’t stomach the idea of her leaving, to the point where, for a desperate passing moment, he considered not telling her about the offer to attend Radcliffe.But then he had a better idea.
“You can’t come with me,” Fern said. “Where would you work?”
“Boston has dozens of schools, good ones. With word from Sylvester, I can find a teaching position.”
“What about London, government service?”
