Page 61 of Tempting the Reclusive Duke
"And is it?" Harwick asked quietly. "A legitimate professional arrangement?"
Adrian met his solicitor's knowing gaze steadily. "It's an attempt to keep one of England's finest classical minds from being wasted in Manchester. Whatever else it might be is irrelevant to the legal documentation."
"Very well." Harwick dipped his pen in ink, beginning to draft with the speed of long practice. "I'll need several hours to prepare the initial documents. There's also the question of references and institutional support. A position of this nature would carry more weight with endorsements from recognized authorities."
"Leave that to me." Adrian rose, already mentally cataloguing his connections in the scholarly world. "Have the papers ready by this evening. I'll handle the endorsements."
He left Harwick's chambers with renewed purpose, his next destination already clear. Paternoster Row housed many of London's publishing establishments, including Cadwell & Associates, who had published his father's historical writings and maintained a respectable list of classical translations.
The rain had stopped, leaving London washed and gleaming in weak afternoon sunlight that struggled through the ever-present coal smoke. Adrian walked rather than taking his carriage, needing the physical movement to order his thoughts. The stolen translations in his pocket seemed to pulse with possibility. That was Eveline's brilliant mind captured in ink and paper, waiting to be recognized.
***
Eveline stood in the modest parlor of her lodgings, still wearing her interview dress but feeling as though she'd aged a decade since morning. Mrs. Harrington had been everything one might expect of a successful merchant's wife; kind enough, practical, focused on ensuring her daughters could make good matches by acquiring just enough education to appear accomplished without becoming threateningly intellectual.
"We don't need them reading Cicero in the original," Mrs. Harrington had explained with a tinkling laugh that suggested the very idea was absurd. "Just enough Latin to impress at dinner parties. Perhaps a bit of French—proper French, mind you, not any of that revolutionary nonsense. And of course, the usual accomplishments. Watercolors, perhaps a bit of harp, deportment..."
Eveline had sat through two hours of such discussion, smiling and nodding and dying by degrees as the full reality of her future crystallized before her. She would teach conjugations to girls who didn't want to learn them, French phrases to be parroted without understanding, just enough education to make them marriageable but not enough to make them think.
"The position is yours if you want it," Mrs. Harrington had concluded, naming a salary that was generous for a governess but felt like thirty pieces of silver to Eveline. "We'd need you to start within the week. The house in Manchester is quite comfortable, and you'd have every Sunday afternoon to yourself."
Every Sunday afternoon. To do what? Read? Translate texts no one wouldpublish? Slowly forget everything she'd learned about Byzantine manuscripts and classical poetry while teaching basic grammar to indifferent pupils?
"Thank you," Eveline had managed. "Might I have a day to consider? It's a significant decision."
"Of course, dear. Though don't wait too long. Good positions don't remain available forever."
Now, back in her lodgings with Harriet hovering anxiously nearby, Eveline felt the full weight of her choices pressing down upon her. Accept the position and consign herself to genteel servitude, or refuse and face an even more uncertain future?
"The interview went well, then?" Harriet ventured, setting down a tea tray with rather more force than necessary.
"Splendidly. Mrs. Harrington thinks I'm exactly what her daughters need; educated enough to teach but not so educated as to give them ideas." Eveline sank into a chair, suddenly exhausted. "She actually used the phrase 'properly feminine learning.' I wanted to ask if that meant conjugating verbs while maintaining an appropriately submissive posture, but I suspected irony might disqualify me."
"Oh, Evie." Harriet pressed a cup of tea into her hands. "It wouldn't be forever. Just until the scandal dies down, until you can find something better."
"Would it die down, though?" Eveline stared into her teacup as if it might hold answers. "Or would I simply become 'that governess with the scandal in her past,' forever condemned to positions where my employers feel they're doing me a favour by overlooking my history? Today it's the Harringtons. In five years, it might be someone worse, someone who feels my gratitude should extend beyond teaching their children."
"You're expecting the worst."
"Am I? You didn't see the way Mrs. Harrington looked at me—like she was purchasing damaged goods at a discount. Oh, she was perfectly polite about it, but we both knew why someone of my qualifications was applying for a governess position." Eveline set down her tea with shaking hands. "I think the worst part was that she was right. I am damaged goods. I'm a cautionary tale with a classical education."
"You're nothing of the sort." Harriet's voice held the fierce loyalty that had sustained their friendship through years of social navigation. "You're a brilliant woman who was caught in a storm...literally and figuratively. That doesn't diminish your worth."
"Doesn't it?" Eveline rose, moving to the window to stare out at the street below. "Tell me, what worth does society place on a ruined woman's knowledge of ancient Greek? What value do my translations have when my name makes publishers flinch? Adrian was right about one thing. I've spent so long believing my mind would be enough to sustain me that I never considered what would happen when society decided my mind didn't matter."
A knock at the door interrupted what promised to be a descent into genuine self-pity. Mary appeared, looking flustered and carrying a calling card on her smallsilver tray.
"Begging your pardon, miss, but there's a Mr. Cadwell here to see you. He says it's about some translations?"
Eveline frowned, taking the card. James Cadwell of Cadwell & Associates, Publishers of Fine Classical Editions. "I don't know any Mr. Cadwell. Are you certain he asked for me?"
"Oh yes, miss. Most insistent he was. He said he'd been given some samples of your work and wanted to discuss publication possibilities." Mary's eyes were wide with curiosity. "Shall I show him up?"
Eveline exchanged glances with Harriet, who shrugged eloquently. "I suppose so. Though I can't imagine how he would have gotten samples of my work."
She barely had time to smooth her hair before Mary returned with a gentleman in his fifties, prosperously dressed but with the ink-stained fingers that marked him as someone who actually worked with books rather than simply selling them. His face was kind, with shrewd eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles that took in the modest lodgings without judgment.
"Miss Whitcombe," he said, bowing correctly. "James Cadwell. I apologise for the intrusion, but when I saw the translation samples this morning, I felt I had to speak with you immediately."
