And the whole world sighed dreamily at the sound of it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
They say home is where the heart is, but in truth
it’s where the food is. But, by God, you can
have a lot of heart for a good potato!
Blazing Trails, W.H. Jackson
“The whole worldsighed dreamily” was in fact what Gabriel would have more sensibly described as “a rising wind.” It swept over Oxford, promising rain. This was a disaster for young gentlemen who had finally got their hair looking perfect before meeting girls on a dinner date, but felt pleasantly refreshing to Elodie as she and Gabriel made their way back into the city, the undergraduate jogging alongside the velocipede with his arms full of priceless, albeit rather ragged, historic documents.
Proceeding to the police station on High Street, they called an end to Protocol D (much to the bemusement of the sergeant in charge, who’d never got the message in the first place), then requisitioned the station telegraph to send messages to towns and cities up-line. A dinner of sandwiches was brought in, the kettle boiled, and by the time news started arriving from Wales, they were half-asleep, leaning against each other on the scratchy old sofa in the sergeant’s office.
“Only mild earthquakes,” Elodie said with satisfaction as they considered the stack of telegrams.
“And that one rain of frogs in Much Marcle,” Gabriel added.
“Yes, but that could have been just a regular, everyday rain of frogs. Most importantly, a complete squelching of the trove in Dôlylleuad.” Elodie grinned as she tapped a finger against the telegram from the village. “The secondary team made excellent time in getting there. And with Dr. Ngoma in charge, I feel confident in their assurance that the line has stabilized. They’ve even convinced Professor Jackson to go home.”
“Home,” Gabriel said, frowning with what a casual observer would have called irritation but that Elodie knew was longing. Shadows lay beneath his eyes, and she’d even noticed him add sugar to his last cup of tea. The man was nearly done in. Setting aside the telegrams, she took his hand.
“Come with me, husband.”
“Always, wife,” he replied, awkward but clearly prepared to take a good stab at being romantic, for her sake. Elodie’s heart melted. Besides, what he lacked in conversational flirtation he made up for in his silence: the look he gave her was so hot, Elodie went from melting to steaming.
They rose together from the sofa, still hand in hand, and moved toward the office door, not once taking their eyes off each other (as a consequence of which Elodie bumped into the sofa’s edge and Gabriel knocked against a side table, sending a teacup clattering from its saucer). Elodie reached for the door handle…
“I know they’re here!”
They stopped, eyes growing wide. “Oh my God,” Elodie whispered. “It’s Professor Slummery!”
How the head of the geography department had tracked them to the police station was anyone’s guess, but Elodie personally suspected that supernatural telepathy was a skill possessed by university department heads everywhere.
“Almost running over a professor!”the man was shouting.“Sending drunken geographers to harass the observatory staff! And I’ve had Hereford Cathedral’s archivist on the telephone all afternoon! Tell me where they are, Constable!”
“Quick!” Elodie whispered, tugging Gabriel across the room. “We’ll go out the window!”
“Why?” Gabriel asked, perplexed. “Can’t we just talk to him? He’ll be glad to see us; we did after all save the city.”
Elodie paused in unlatching the window to cast him a panicked look. “Well, you see—”
“And while I’m here,”Slummery could be heard saying,“I want you fellows to find out who stole my brand-new leather chair and suspended it from the cupola of the Radcliffe Camera!”
—
But in theend, Elodie surprised Gabriel by bringing him peace. Clambering out a police station’s window…running through the lamplit rain…hunting among an assortment of potted plants on the stoop of her town house until they found the hidden front door key, never mind that at any moment a student or fellow teacher might walk past and see them…careening through cluttered, unlit rooms while they kissed and kissed and pulled the clothes off each other…it all faded from mind once he was ensconced in the warmtangle of her bedsheets, naked against her lovely soft nakedness.
He’d been exhausted until this moment. He’d yearned for nothing more than sleep. And yet, as Elodie snuggled close, murmuringloveandso strongand what sounded suspiciously likeGrouchyboo, he felt himself become marvelously reinvigorated. And his body held clear ideas about how to proceed, namely:
(1) Worshipher,
(2) Adoreher, and
(3) Giveher any pleasure she desires.
Free of any deadlines, such as becoming literally dead in a magical explosion, Gabriel was able to luxuriate, and to show Elodie that he too had an imagination. For half an hour he explored every pathway to the destination most beloved of his heart: Elodie’s happiness. Then it was her turn, and he lay quiet, surrendering absolutely, while she made a wide-ranging expedition with lips and fingers around all the sensitive places on his body.Beautiful,she murmured as she went, anddelicious, andoh my God no wonder you’re arrogant, until he found himself laughing with joy.
