“No,” Amelia answered, the word broken into pieces by laughter. Caleb’s eyes glinted, and his smile grew so wide it seemed like he’d just come across a secret trove of ancient magical gold. “Be careful!” she warned him.
“It’s getting harder to be,” he answered strangely, his smile fading…
“I mean, watch out!” With her free hand, Amelia pointed ahead, and Caleb looked forward just in time to see they were about to crash into a hedge. Hastily he corrected their path, laughing now too. Thus they ran, in much the same way they had in the old days of their childhood, sparkling with appreciation for each other’s company, along the final stretch into the courtyard of Ravenscroft Manor.
Several footmen holding large black umbrellas were assisting Sheffield with unloading the dogcart. Vanity stood at the manor’s large open doorway, talking to a man obscured by the shadows inside. Amelia, slowing her pace, misjudged a step and stumbled against Caleb. He put his arms around her, and together they dissolved into gasping, laughing breaths. Almost at once, a servant was upon them with an umbrella. They were efficiently hustled toward the door. Vanity smiled and waved in greeting.
“Professors! You’ll never guess who I just found here!”
Amelia, still huddled against Caleb (only to keep them both under the umbrella’s protection, you understand), and still light with heady silliness, answered with a smile—“Who?”
“He says he’s a friend of yours!” Vanity turned behind her with an encouraging gesture. A large, brown-bearded man stepped forward, arms crossed, eyebrows raised above an expression of smirking satisfaction that must have been second only to that of the Scots when their king inherited the rule of England.
Instantly, Amelia stopped smiling; indeed, she stopped breathing altogether. Beside her, Caleb straightened, movingaway from her, relinquishing the shelter of the umbrella. Icy wind howled through the space between them.
“Well, well,” said the man. “If it isn’t the two worst enemies in Oxford’s entire faculty.”
Amelia raised herself to the full height of her Tarrant dignity, pushed aside the wet tangle of hair from her face, and looked up at him with every appearance of serenity.
“Hello,” she said, “Professor Throckmorton.”
Chapter Seven
History is the consequence of psychology.
I, on the Past, Cornelius Ottersock
Stepping into theentrance hall of Ravenscroft Manor was like traveling through time. High oak walls, black ceiling beams, and worn flagstones presented a somber grandeur that had persevered for hundreds of years. At least, so Caleb supposed, despite seeing only glimpses of it behind a jumble of artwork, embroidered hangings, and shelves cluttered with objets d’art. A veritable battalion of marble statues lined the hall, alongside Georgian chairs, medieval stools, Carolingian tables, and what might have been a particularly fine example of a Jacobean sideboard were it not so piled up with random knickknacks that it looked positively Victorian. Dust drifted on wispy light from old-fashioned oil lamps, and shadows lurked resentfully behind the ceiling beams, threatening to produce ghosts at any moment.
Altogether it overwhelmed the eyes, confounded the brain, and aggravated the nasal passages. Caleb half expected a curator to appear demanding they pay a fee to tour the exhibits.
“So charming!” Vanity enthused. “Professor Tarrant, isn’t it charming? Truly quaint and charming!”
“Indeed,” Amelia answered in the gracious tone that Caleb knew all too well meantactually it’s dreadful, but I would never offend you by saying so. She was looking around the hall with polite tranquility, but Caleb could see in her eyes the same wearying awareness he himself felt: it was going to takeweeksto sort through the objects here. And almost certainly by the end of it his sinuses would be destroyed, considering all the dust and the cold drafts. Perhaps he should just resign now as a history professor and flee down to London, where he could take up work as a…a…
Actually, never mind. He couldn’t think of any other occupation that allowed a man to lie around half the day reading exciting tales of the past and call it “work.” He’d just have to get through this assignment the best he could, despite the weather and lambs and Professor Throckmorton.
Who was standing nearby, a sneer cutting through his bushy beard as he watched Amelia smooth back her wet hair.
Caleb felt a flash of anger. Despite never having been a violent man (except that one time he wrestled a junior professor for possession of the last cream doughnut in the faculty lounge), the only reason Throckmorton did not experience an unfortunate accident of the fist-meets-jaw variety was because Caleb stood too far away to excuse it as a mishap.
Besides, at six foot three and with a robust girth, the professor of Medieval Studies towered over him. Caleb’s own height of five foot eleven might have been more reasonable, but it also suggested that a cautious response to Throckmorton’s sneering would be wiser.
“What are you doing here, Basil?” he asked.
“Mansion!” the man bellowed, making Vanity peep withstartlement. “Brilliant! Fifteenth century! A must-see! Arrived an hour ago. Pure coincidence!”
This explanation was accompanied by a decidedly more articulate glance that took in both Caleb and Amelia and that made it clear Throckmorton’s definition ofcoincidencewassomething that happens after you hear two people you suspect of misdeeds are going to be working together in Cumbria, and you rush to get there before them so you can make their lives even more miserable than you already have.
Caleb again felt himself tempted toward violence. Amelia, however, was looking straight through the man with such equanimity, one might mistake her for yet another statue in the room were it not for how her nose had turned red from cold. Indeed, she gave no indication of even having heard him. Drawing from her example, Caleb took a slow, settling breath.
“I’m surprised we didn’t see you on the train,” he said. In truth, though, considering Throckmorton’s tweed suit, pipe, and slight odor of a recently devoured steak and kidney pie, he was practically indistinguishable from half the faculty at Oxford University. It was how he managed to be such an effective gossip.
“Manchester route?” Throckmorton asked. When Caleb nodded, the sneer slithered back into place. “Went by Wolverhampton.”
Before they could fall, with inexorable English habit, into debating train routes and timetables, a sudden chilling noise echoed through the entrance hall like thunder, only quieter and emerging from a human voice box.
“Ahem.”
