Page 20 of Damsel in Disguise

Infatuation was reading one paper because Dad mentioned his name over dinner.

Curiosity was watching one lecture because I wanted to know whether the insufferably brilliant professor sounded as arrogant as his work suggested.

Obsession was spending three nights trying to prove his theory wrong before arriving at the deeply offensive conclusion that he had, in fact, been right all along.

Everything after that happened so gradually that I never noticed where admiration ended and poor decision-making began.

Which would be grossly unfair because I never actually intended to become a stalker.

Even so, if anyone ever bothered to document my crimes, the official report would probably read something along the lines of:

Female. Twenty. Highly concerning. Incapable of minding her own business.

The first day I came to Oxford, I still tried to convince myself I was only there because the architecture was beautiful.

The second day, I admit that I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the engineering department.

The third day… Well, on the third day, I knew exactly which building housed his office.

I almost got caught that afternoon because, apparently, hiding behind a marble pillar while pretending to study a campus map looks suspicious when the map is upside down.

A porter asked whether I needed help.

I lied.

He looked unconvinced.

I escaped with what little dignity I had left.

The next week, I came back carrying borrowed books.

People assume that a girl carrying enough paper to collapse a bookshelf had somewhere important to be.

And they’re right. I do have somewhere important to be.

Unfortunately, that somewhere is always wherever Alistair Hertley goes.

7. CONTROL

alistair

Oxford swells in the autumn.

However, the lecture theatre is noticeably underfilled this time.

Michaelmas term usually brings an excess of bodies—fresh faces packed shoulder to shoulder, latecomers lingering along the aisles, an almost feral eagerness to occupy space they haven’t yet earned.

Today, the room sits at roughly three-quarters capacity.

Not freshmen, of course. I don’t teach first-years. Juniors ask too many questions without understanding why the answers matter. Curiosity without structure is noise, and I have little tolerance for it.

My modules are reserved for final-year students—those who’ve already survived the attrition curve. Those who understand that not all information is offered freely, not all problems are meant to be solved aloud. And about the postgrads… they act and talk as if they know everything. I despise those who play-pretend.

I step inside, the door closing behind me with a soft, decisive click. The room stills almost immediately.

Conversations die mid-breath. Spines straighten. Screens tilt upward, attention snapping into place with near-instinctive precision. I don’t rush. I let the silence settle.

I cross to the lectern and place my iPad down neatly at its center. The podium bears the faint grooves of decades of lecturers before me—men who believed authority came from raised voices or exaggerated gestures. They were wrong. Authority comes from certainty.