When she reached him, he took her hand at once, as though it were the most natural thing in the world that she should be there and he should be waiting for her. His gaze moved briefly toward the farm, then along the path she had taken across the fields.
“Is it safe?” he asked quietly. “To meet here?”
“The Hayes family have looked after me since I was small enough to follow Mr. Hayes through the furrows.” She smiled faintly. “I trust them entirely.”
“That is enough for me.” He bent over her hand and pressed it lightly to his lips.
“What are we to do?” she asked.
“I am not certain,” he said. “But I have written to my family. All of it. I know we had agreed to wait for your father’s consent before—”
“No,” she said. “I understand. I am glad you did. And yet I fear what comes next.”
“So do I.”
“When you told us what my father said, Aunt Madeline was right. Both my grandfathers died long before I was born. My grandfather Bennet died before my parents were even married.I remembered that there was some quarrel then between my father and his brother. My mother mentioned it once, years ago, and said Philip was no gentleman, and that he ought to have been more generous when they married, as it was his fault.I never understood what she meant by that. I do not think I was meant to.”
“And your grandfather Gardiner?”
“He died just after Jane was born. It was his small legacy that gave my uncle the capital to begin his business.” She paused. “So if both of them were dead long before I was born, whose grandfather was my father speaking of?”
“Do you have a family bible?”
“We do. But it is kept locked in my father’s desk. It has been for as long as I can remember. He always said it was because I nearly destroyed it as a child, before I was old enough to remember.”
She stopped, hearing the excuse aloud as though for the first time.
“I believed it because I was young, and because one does not think to question the stories one is raised inside. He keeps the key on his person.”
“You and your sister were born at Cambridge,” he said. “When your father was still at the university.”
“Yes. My parents inherited the estate shortly before my first birthday, which is why we came to Longbourn when I was very small.”
“So your birth records would not be here.”
"No." She was quiet for a moment. "I expect a letter from my aunt tomorrow. I hope Eddie is mending.”
“He will be.” His voice softened. “You are in the middle of all this, and still you think first of the child.”
“I think of everything,” she said. “That is rather the difficulty.”
“It is also one of the things I love most.” He lifted her hand again, more slowly this time, and she felt the warmth rise in her face before his lips ever touched her skin.
“At Brinmouth,” she said, because seriousness had become dangerous, “we could have simply sailed north and been done with it.”
He gave her a look. “Why must you be so impertinent?”
“Why must you be so honourable?”
“You know very well it would not have sat right with you either.”
“No,” she admitted. “It would not have. And yet—”
“And yet,” he agreed. “But not yet. We must still hope for a proper wedding.”
She was quiet for a moment. “I never considered what sort of wedding I might want. Even now, none of it matters very much. Only you.”
“I love you.”
