Ottersock hesitated at last, his eyes sharp as he regarded them. Amelia suspected, however, that it was not their arguments he was considering but their physical proximity to each other. She moved a discreet step away from Caleb, then realized with an internal wince that doing so had only served to highlight just how close to him she’d actually been. Ottersock’s regard grew so sharp he could have outright stabbed her with it.
“The only place you two are going is into a private room with me,” he declared. “I want to know why I received a bill for one hundred pounds from the Black Boar pub in Staveley. One. Hundred. ‘For damages incurred.’ And why Lady RupertaHarroway sent a testy letter demanding the university replace her dining room set. And I don’t want to even ask about that coat rack. I sent you to Cumbria tostopthe damages, for God’s sake! Now this excellent gentleman butler is going to close the door and direct us to the warmest room in the house, with no further arguments.”
“The parlor,” Amelia suggested in weary surrender. “That’s where Professor Throckmorton and Mr. Dummersby from the British Museum are. I’m sure they’ll be glad to see you.”
Instantly, Ottersock went pale. Snatching the pipe from his lips, he jabbed it at Grimshaw, who almost had the door shut. “What are youdoing, man?! Open that at once! We’re leaving! Sterling!” Now he directed the pipe at Caleb, who appeared entirely confused at this extreme change of attitude. “Help Tarrant get her luggage into my carriage. And hurry! We have to go before they find out that I’m here.”
Within minutes the three antiquarians were crowded into Ottersock’s rented carriage and being driven toward Lancaster by a villager who’d been offered a small fortune (six pounds and a signed copy of the professor’s memoirs) to do so. “Forget waiting for a train at Staveley; we’ll travel on through the night,” Ottersock said, relighting his pipe while Amelia and Caleb, side by side on the bench seat opposite him, tried to get comfortable beneath armloads of their luggage. They regarded the faculty head with bemusement, for although this haste was (a) excellent, it was also (b) uncharacteristic of the man and (c-d) inexplicable, if not outright weird.
Seeing their expressions, Ottersock finally explained in a redolent puff of tobacco smoke: “I can’t risk Dummersby knowing I’m anywhere in Cumbria. Last time I happened upon him at the Minervaeum, he trapped me in a corner for an hour,prattling on about his latest display of Egyptian jewelry.It wasn’t even enchanted jewelry!And as for Basil Throckmorton—if he tells me one more time that the history department needs to start putting on plays to educate students by way of entertainment, I will be tempted to violence. Learning should not befun, or else every Tom, Dick, and Harry will want to do it, and experts will become ten a penny. God knows a professor’s salary is low enough as it is!” Furious, he pursed his lips so tight, his pipe jutted upward. “Besides,” he added, with the pipe bobbing, “you said Miss Tunnicliffe was in trouble.”
“Causingtrouble,” Caleb corrected him, but Ottersock wasn’t interested in becoming informed.
“Can’t imagine it of the girl, frankly. Sweet, good-humored, ladylike creature she was. No, you must have gotten the wrong idea. Trust me, I have an excellent nose for sniffing out lies.”
Puffing his pipe aggressively, he scrutinized first Amelia, then Caleb, then the two of them together. “You both look done in. Let me guess: still dire enemies, fighting each other at every turn?Tsk. I was at a meeting of faculty heads the other day and you two were quite the topic of discussion. The consensus was that, if you can’t come to an accord, Professor Tarrant will have to be transferred to a curator role at the British Museum. Dummersby’s been offering a plum role for you, dear.”
It was as if he’d punched her in the stomach. Amelia blinked with a calm that forestalled the sobs she could quite easily (and probably hysterically) have wept in that moment. After all she’d done over these past few months to protect her job, it remained at risk. She comprehended at last, with a dreary kind of surrender, that no matter what she did, Ottersock would persist in keeping her teetering on the edge of demotion or outright unemployment, just to show her that he was the onewith power, no matter how successful and professional a woman she might be.
Caleb shifted a little beside her, his edges becoming sharper, his jaw tightening in a way that warned Amelia two seconds before he spoke. “You said the same thing when we were deemed too friendly,” he reminded Ottersock.
Judging from the rapidity with which Ottersock’s face reddened, Caleb’s gender alone saved him from being evicted from the carriage on the basis of impertinence. “There must be moderation in all things, Sterling. If history teaches us nothing else, it is this.”
Amelia would have laughed were circumstances different. History had taught her that you only got what you wanted if you were immoderate, intense, and preferably had an army at your back. But perhaps the lesson was different for women. She wondered what Isabella, the She-Wolf of France, would do in this situation.
And then, since murdering Ottersock with his pipe was not really an option, she gave a silent sigh and turned her focus to the carriage window. The world outside was a weeping darkness, not even one single light to be seen for hope’s sake. It felt like she was still inside Ravenscroft Manor, only in concentrated form.
“I notice,” Caleb said to Ottersock, “that no one is forcing Throckmorton out of his job because he has an enmity with Professor Tarrant…and with me…and withyou, for that matter.”
Ottersock sniffed. “Throckmorton is a tenured professor. The only way we’ll get rid of him is if someone accidentally hands him an explosive medieval antique.”
“But you can get rid of me,” Caleb pointed out. “I’m the one who should take the curator job.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sterling,” Ottersock snapped. Then his facial expression shifted. “I don’t suppose Sir Nigel had any explosive medieval antiques…?” When Amelia and Caleb shook their heads, he sighed with regret. Leaning back, he closed his eyes and puffed malodorous smoke into a silence that haunted the carriage as they drove on through the night.
—
Stopping in Oxenholmeto change the horses, they ate dinner at a plump, whitewashed coaching inn that had survived the railway network’s dominance by offering a hearty stew, a cozy atmosphere, and several bedrooms possessing only one bed. Ottersock considered resting here until morning, since it was a safe distance from Dummersby, but the place was so crammed with travelers that people were having to share rooms. (Luckily, they all just happened to be married.) Alas, a glass of whiskey to ease the discomforts of the journey was deemed impossible, since the university’s reputation would be jeopardized by them taking alcohol, even in moderation, and despite the fact that they were two hundred miles from Oxford with nothing but Ottersock’s pipe to suggest they were professors. Tea was the only decent thing under the circumstances. Caleb loaded his cup with sugar just to feel alive.
As soon as their carriage was ready, they continued southward. Ottersock fell asleep, his snores gusting like a breeze through his whiskers and the odor of mutton stew wafting from him every now and again. Amelia and Caleb could neither converse nor relax against each other, however, for fear ofhim waking at any moment and catching them at it. Consequently, Caleb’s back began to ache with a vile intensity for which he could find no relief; ditto his heart.
Stopping again in Burton-in-Kendal sometime near midnight, they used the bathroom facilities at the Kings Arms coaching inn; then Caleb and Amelia stood together on the footpath outside, waiting for the carriage to arrive with its new horses. Ottersock lingered indoors, reversing the meal he’d had during their last stop.
The village was brightly moonlit, its skies a marvel of cloudlessness that Caleb could not quite believe. The stone buildings lining each side of the street held a restful silence that dragged on his exhausted body until he yearned to simply lie down right where he was and sleep. Remaining upright felt heroic, and the fact that Amelia was more interested in their surroundings than in him was grievous. He stretched his back, rubbed his face wearily, and sighed with such fervor that she finally looked at him.
At once, he forgot all his aches. She was a moon goddess, all pearly white and haunting dark, with eyes that were ancient shadow-seas. She was beauty exemplified. She was also frowning, and Caleb winced both anxiously and apologetically—offering her two options, since he had no idea what he’d done wrong. Usually he could tell from the angle of her mouth, or the way she held her smallest finger. But increasingly these days she was a mystery to him. He could sense her feeling things she didn’t tell him about, and it worried him—enthralled him—made him want to unwrap her and find the secret inside.
At least one thing he knew for sure: “Ottersock is an ass.” Saying this, he took her nearest hand and chafed it gently between both of his to warm her fingers and console her spirit ifhe could. “But even given that, he won’t fire you, no matter how often he threatens and blusters.”
“I know,” Amelia answered calmly.
Ah.Caleb had become an expert in her calm over the years, and this particular gradient of it communicated quite clearly that she was pissed off. Or, as Amelia herself would no doubt put it,a little vexed, but not to the extent that anyone need concern themselves.When she was in this mood, Caleb absolutely did concern himself with it. Kissing her hand, he tucked it into her skirt pocket, alongside the little book that was in there, then took the other hand to begin warming that one too.
“Everything will be all right,” he told her, smiling. “We’ve obviously been getting a little too much into the spirit of fake hating. We’ll tone it down to mild annoyance instead, and Ottersock is sure to leave us alone.”
Amelia abruptly snatched her hand from his and looked away, staring so intently at a chimney that Caleb was amazed it did not topple. Moonlight limned her profile, and the cold air became a ghost within her breath. Gazing at her, Caleb had to quite honestly admit that he was amazedhedidn’t topple. She wasn’t just a moon goddess; she was a whole pantheon in single form. Indeed, she reminded him of the marble bust of Aphrodite he’d seen in the V&A Museum that whispered fragments of Hesiod’s poetry when touched. Not that Amelia was poetic, of course—except in her bones and her breath and the sweep of her extraordinary eyelashes.
I love you.The old, bittersweet thought arose from the mental safe bag Caleb kept it in, deep beneath his heart. Now he was the one who looked away. The two of them stared in opposite directions.
