“Your parents will be furious with me.”
“They’ll be much angrier if you neglect your child.”
He seemed to consider her words, a minute and then two. “And now we must marry soon.”
“Of course.” There was no other way. They were respectable adults, albeit he more than a decade older. Still, they loved each other and wanted a future together. Other women, those who hadn’t a commitment for marriage, bore babies out of wedlock. She’d heard the whispers when a female student didn’t return to campus or when one of the girls abruptly dropped out of Izzy’s high school. But she and Simon had already agreed on their future.
“Your father will still have my head,” Simon said.
“He doesn’t need to know.”
“But a wedding—”
“We’ll proceed with a ceremony on our own. Then we can visit them.”
Not a moment before as she might have elevated her family’s status slightly when she first met Simon, wanting to impress him when she’d implied that her father owned the Elms paper mill instead of working there as a foreman.
Her little stretch of truth would unravel itself in the end. They were long past the need to impress, but even though he knew her better now than anyone else, it would be best to wait for those introductions.
He drummed the wheel again. “You want to elope?”
“I think it best.”
“For crying out loud, Izzy.” He flung open his door. “We’ll have to sort this out in the morning.”
While he attended to the front tire, she ran the two blocks to her dorm in the rain, wind twisting her skirt as she tugged open the door, no hope of sneaking inside.
When the housemother threatened to expel her, Izzy explained that Professor Farrow’s son had proposed, so she was leaving Winfield anyway.
The housemother accused her of lying, but Izzy didn’t care. Already, her status had elevated in the woman’s eyes.
It wouldn’t be long before Simon would buy an official ring and place it on her finger.
Then everyone would know she was Mrs. Farrow.
15:Olivia
“Marry me,” Simon said, and Olivia’s heart seemed to stop as he knelt beside her in the starlight, a small box clasped in his hand.
“You’re going to ruin your trousers.”
He grinned. “I’m fairly certain they’ll wash out.”
“I’m fairly certain you’re wrong.”
“About the trousers or the ring?” he asked.
“The stains on your pants.”
His laughter echoed across the blustery night, and she smiled with him, her heart aflutter. They’d already celebrated Christmas Eve with dinner and a candlelight service. After their misunderstanding last month, all had warmed again between Simon and her, but whenever he dared visit, Hattie remained frostier to him than the winter winds, her cold shoulder turning into a raging blizzard at church tonight. Instead of rebuking Olivia, her aunt was now trying to scare Simon away.
After service, Olivia guided him outside, down to her refuge. But a ring. In this special place. It was the perfect Christmas gift.
He inched the box closer, its contents sparkling in the moonlight. “What do you think?”
Her mind whirled again at the thought of spending the rest of her life with this man who awaited her answer on a brown patch of grass.
“Words seem to escape me.”
