Private North

by Tess Oliver

  Chapter 9

  I’d showered and changed, grabbed a sandwich and headed into the office to work. The task was a bit tedious but far less stressful than hanging out with the North family. It was hard to tell whether it had just been Dalton’s unexpected arrival to stir things up or if the tension in the house was normal. I would never have guessed it from Professor North’s calm manner in the classroom.

  Ethan had not returned to the office yet, and I was thankful for the solitude. I glanced at my phone and saw that there was a message from my mom. I was truly beginning to feel that I’d made the wrong decision in coming here instead of heading to France. As if my mom could read my thoughts all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, which would not be a farfetched notion, her number flashed on the screen.

  “Hey Mom.”

  “You didn’t answer your phone. Is everything all right? You sound down.”

  “I’ve only said two words, Mom. How could I sound down? Everything is great.”

  “That’s good to know because we’ve all decided to head to Germany for a river cruise, so we won’t be around if you needed to come to France. Of course, you could always meet us in Germany. We could buy you a cruise ticket and you could join—”

  “All is well, Mom. Enjoy your cruise and stop worrying about me. I’m in a cozy house, and there’s plenty of work to keep me busy and plenty of food to keep me fed. What could happen?” The second the question left my mouth a cold shudder ran down my back as if something deep inside me was trying to warn me that plenty could happen.

  “If you say so, August. Just remember to keep warm and call if you need us.”

  “Bye Mom. I love you.” I hung up and had to squash a sudden urge to call her back and tell her I’d catch the first plane to Europe. But I would never live it down, and she’d be able to use the infamous Mom line of I told you so for a year. The heated conversation between Ethan and Dalton had definitely dampened my spirits, but it would pass once I dove back into the work.

  Before the snow racing break, Ethan had placed a box next to the computer. I opened it. There were at least a dozen bags inside, each containing samples of pottery pieces made from Marl clay. Ethan had explained that the pieces made from Marl clay were usually larger and more intact because Marl clay was fired at higher temperatures, which made it very hard once it dried.

  Ethan walked in just as I began to enter the data for the first sample.

  “You’re already hard at it, I see.” He walked over to the boxes and opened the next one. “These are some wheel-turned pieces dating from the Middle Kingdom. There are only a few, so we can enter these next.” His tone was very business-like and added to my discomfort. “My dad needs me to run an errand with him this afternoon, so I’m afraid you’ll have to work alone for awhile.”

  “No problem,” I answered with far too much enthusiasm. I didn’t look up from the keyboard, but I could see his reflection in the monitor as he looked over my shoulder.

  “August, I just wanted to give you a little warning. I— I mean, it’s obvious you’re a smart girl who would never lose her head easily, but what I’m trying to say—”

  I turned around and faced him. I knew what the lecture was going to be about, but I decided to let him finish what he’d started. “Go on, Ethan.”

  My sharp tone stunned him for a second but he pushed on. “Look, my brother has a talent for seducing girls. I’m sure you’ve already noticed. But he never takes anything seriously. I just don’t want you to get taken in by him. He—he’s”

  “A player?” I blinked up at him biting back my anger. “You’re right, Ethan. Not that it’s any of your business but I never lose my head over any guy— unless they’re worth it. And, frankly, I haven’t met one of those yet. Now, I’d like to get back to work.” I spun back around to the computer and placed my hands on the keyboard. He stood behind me for a few more seconds and then walked out of the office.

  I sighed and sat back against the chair. It seemed my mom had sent some bad karma my way after all. None of this was going the way I’d imagined, and now I had no place else to go except back to campus. That idea seemed even more cold and lonely than I already felt. I’d engaged in some harmless flirting with Dalton and it had earned me a fatherly lecture from his brother. My anger over being chastised far outweighed the slight embarrassment I felt about succumbing momentarily to Dalton’s charms. And it had been momentary. I knew myself well enough to know it had meant nothing . . .nothing at all. There was just no way I could fall for someone like Dalton North.

  ***

  A late afternoon chill dropped the temperature in the office, and I pulled my sweater tightly around me. Ethan had not returned to work and I hadn’t seen Dalton. I was relieved to have the entire afternoon to myself.

  A light turned on and it occurred to me that I’d been so absorbed in my task I hadn’t noticed I was working in near darkness.

  “You’ll get eye strain,” Professor North said from the doorway. “Why don’t you call it a day? Ethan went out with friends, and Dalton has been holed up in his room all day. I could use some company in the kitchen. The house feels extra lonely tonight. I’m cooking clam chowder. It’s an old family recipe.”

  “Sounds delicious and I am tired. Let me just finish this last piece and I’ll be right there.”

  The hallway was dark, and the house creaked with emptiness as I headed toward the kitchen. The fragrance of evergreen struck me as I stepped into the room. A large green pine branch was suspended from the dining room lamp. I stepped closer and breathed in the scent of it.

  Professor North looked up from his soup pot. “Found it out on the driveway and decided to bring it inside. My wife used to hang swags of evergreen all around the house for the holidays.”

  He ladled a bowl full of steamy, white chowder and handed it to me. I carried it to the table and sat down. Professor North joined me.

  He reached for the pepper shaker and black sprinkles spread out over the velvety cream in his bowl. “You’re doing a great job with the data entry. I’m lucky you decided to help. Ethan would never have gotten it done himself. Too interested in entertaining himself, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, it is his vacation time, and I enjoy the work. Thank you again for inviting me.” I took a sip of soup. “And for feeding me so well. You are an amazing cook.”

  “Thanks. I find cooking a nice diversion from—” he paused, “well, from everyday problems, I suppose.” He stared down and seemed to be contemplating his soup. Then he looked up at me. “Ethan told me that there had been some tension between Dalton and him today. I apologize if they made you feel uncomfortable. They can both be hotheaded and stubborn.”

  “It’s not nice to talk about Ethan when he’s not here to defend himself,” Dalton came around the corner, and a breath stuck in my throat before I had a chance to remind myself not to react to him. His injured leg struggled to keep up with his good leg as he walked to the table. He leaned his walking stick against the back of a chair, reached for the box of crackers and pulled out a few. It was the first time he’d entered a room where his gaze had not immediately landed directly on me, and I was irritated at myself for feeling disappointed by his lack of attention.

  “You know I’m not just talking about Ethan,” Professor North said curtly. “Where are you going?”

  Dalton held up his fist and cascaded the tiny oyster crackers into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed, and this time it was me who stared openly at him. There seemed to be nothing I could do to convince myself otherwise. His Adam’s apple moved up and down as he swallowed, and I had a fleeting vision of my mouth running along his masculine throat in a trail of kisses.

  He still hadn’t looked my direction, and the lack of his scrutiny had a much more significant effect on me than when he’d looked openly, almost hungrily, at me. And he knew it. Dalton North was keenly
aware of the fact that he knocked me off balance every time he walked into the room.

  He got up and headed to the kitchen.

  “I don’t want you traipsing around in the snow on that injured leg. Take my car.” It was the first fatherly gesture I’d witnessed from the professor toward Dalton.

  “I plan on getting drunk so I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Headlights flashed through the front window and a honk followed. “Kate and Stacey are picking me up.” He grabbed his walking stick from the chair and, with awkward movements, not consistent with his otherwise smooth and confident exterior, he left the house.

  The snowmobile adventure had left me with a permanent cold ache in my bones, and the hot chowder helped relieve it. “I needed this. My California constitution has not adapted to the weather up here.”

  “I understand your plight. I once had to spend two weeks at a seminar in Los Angeles— in August— and it felt like I’d landed on the surface of the sun. I don’t know how people survive that persistent heat.”

  “Air conditioning, swimming pools and the beach. I guess it’s good we humans are amazingly resilient and resourceful.”

  “That we are. I hope the work in the office is not too dull.”

  I smiled at him. “Are you kidding? Sitting amongst all the treasures of the Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom is like a dream for me.”

  He laughed. “They are hardly treasures, but I’m glad you find them so intriguing.” Then he stared at me for a moment. “August, if you are finished with your soup, there’s something I’d like to show you. Something I think you will find fascinating.”

  “Absolutely.”

  I followed him down the hall to the office. He headed to the wall lined with book shelves. He reached in behind a small, manufactured statuette of Osiris, and the rumble of a small motor vibrated the wall of shelves. A panel popped open from the wall.

  Open mouthed, I stepped closer to the shelves. “I thought these secret passages only existed in castles.”

  “It’s not a passage but merely a small space to store valuable items. Occasionally, the university has me store museum pieces and other irreplaceable items. I got the idea from one of the secret chambers of the Great Pyramid. Only this is on a much smaller scale. It is lined with brick though making it somewhat impenetrable like the walls of the pyramid.” He leaned inside the opening and came out with a small black box. “Ethan told me that Dalton brought up the gold arm band during their heated conversation, and I thought I should explain it.”

  “Please, Professor—”

  “Thomas,” he corrected.

  “Thomas, please don’t feel that you need to divulge any secrets or important information to me. To be honest, I was more concerned about their anger toward each other than the topics of their conversation.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry if they behaved like children in front of you. Dalton and Ethan are very close, but as I’m sure you’ve noticed, they could not be more different.”

  I smiled. “Yes, I have noticed that.”

  “Let’s go to the desk. I had planned to show this to you anyhow because I know how intriguing you find Egyptian artifacts.” He lowered the box to the desk with the care that someone might place down a bottle of nitro glycerin.

  He sat down and I pulled up a chair across from him. “Four years ago,” he began, “the university had sent a group of grad students and me on an expedition in Alexandria. We had a great time, and while we didn’t find anything too noteworthy, we learned a lot and it was an experience all of us would never forget. One day several of us wandered into an open market to buy some fruit and bread for lunch. An odd little man poked his head around the corner of a building and motioned me over. Against my better judgment, I followed the man to a dark alley. Once out of sight of others, the man reached into his coat, and I was certain I was about to be robbed.” Professor North smiled. “Frankly, it would have served me right. But he wasn’t a thief. Instead, he produced a gold arm band. He placed it on my palm.” He lightly fingered the top of the black box as if it contained his most prized possession. While there was a definite air of excitement about him as he told his story, the man across from me reminded me much more of the thoughtful, intelligent professor I’d grown to love. And his enthusiasm as he spoke about the expedition was contagious. “There was little light in the alley but the weight and feel of the jewelry made me fairly certain that it was gold, or at least gold-plated. The man was extremely agitated the whole time we spoke, and he glanced around constantly to be sure we were alone. He wanted a hundred American dollars for the piece, and I considered the offer for only a moment before paying the man. I figured that even gold-plated, it was worth three times that amount. I stuck the arm band in my pocket and thought little about it again.” My curiosity and anticipation increased with each passing moment, and the professor sensed it. “I guess you can tell that there was far more to my hundred dollar market find.”

  “Considering you pulled it from a highly camouflaged safe in your office wall, I can only assume it.”

  “Of course, that does make it rather obvious. Well, back to the story. Naturally, when we got back to the hotel the grad students had a good laugh over their professor getting duped out of a hundred dollars for a fake gold arm band. To avoid further ridicule, I left it in my coat pocket and pushed it from my thoughts. Then one evening the students had gone out, but I’d stayed behind with a headache. I remembered I’d left a bottle of aspirin in my coat pocket and as I went to retrieve it, the arm band fell to the floor. It was the first time I’d truly seen it in the light, and an unexplained chill went through me as I stared down at it. I picked it up and carried it over to the lamp over the table to study it.” He opened the lid of the box. I held my breath as he lifted out a thin gold arm band that would have been worn high up on the arm. It glistened as he held it up to the office light. “That was when I noticed a small row of hieroglyphics carved on the inside of the band.” He handed me the treasure and my fingers trembled slightly as I took hold of it. He pulled a magnifying glass from his desk drawer. “See if you recognize the symbols.”

  I squinted through the magnifying glass. The etchings were worn and faint, as if the gold band had been worn a great deal and the skin of the owner had rubbed them off. “I see a lion and a lasso, two vultures and—” I stopped and stared wide-eyed at Professor North. His grin widened and he nodded almost imperceptibly.

  I turned the band around on my fingers. It nearly pulsed with life, the life of a long lost pharaoh. “But it can’t be. Cleopatra is still such a mystery.”

  “Of course, that is what I told myself over and over again. The next day I raced back to the market place to look for the man, but he had vanished. I had a thousand questions for him, but no one in the market place knew of him. I took the arm band back to the states and sent it to a laboratory for tests. The results were quite conclusive and equally stunning. It had been crafted around 40 B.C. placing it in existence during Cleopatra’s reign.”

  “I can hardly believe I’m holding it. Will you loan it to a museum?” I pulled my gaze reluctantly from the band of gold on my palm.

  Professor North’s expression darkened. “Unfortunately, it is not that easy. The university insisted that since the piece was discovered during a university funded expedition that it belongs to the school. They did, however, offer to pay back the hundred dollars,” he said cynically. “I hired lawyers and the entire case went to court. As you can imagine, it has been quite difficult keeping the entire affair secret.” He leaned back and disappointment rolled off of him in waves. “I lost. The university was backed by some of the best lawyers in the country. I must turn it over to them the first of the new year.”

  “But you purchased it on your own. Does the university then have claim to every souvenir, post card and morsel of food you paid for on the trip?”

 
His cheek creased. “I suppose they do. However, they are only interested in this arm band.”

  I was reluctant to part with it, but I placed it back inside the box. “I’m truly sorry, Thomas. It must be very hard on you. But at least they can give you the credit of finding it.”

  My attempt at pointing out the positive did little to lighten his mood. “I really didn’t discover it. I’m afraid my end of the story is all rather unromantic and hardly worthy of praise from my peers.”

  I reached over and took hold of his hand. “You sat in that hotel room with a group of grad students knowledgeable in the world of antiquities and yet none of them saw its worth. You’re the one who realized there was something special about it. Anyone else might have sold it in an online auction for a few hundred dollars and never given it another thought. It’s quite obvious the street vendor had no idea what he had. If not for your expertise, this priceless piece of history would likely have been lost forever.”

  He smiled weakly and squeezed my hand. “Thank you, August.” He fell silent and an emotion I could not decipher fell across his face, almost as if some sudden thought had upset him even more than the notion of giving up his treasure. Then, he seemingly shook it off. “Well, I’m quite tired. I think I’ll turn in.” He closed the box and returned it to the secret opening in the book case.

  It had been a long day, and this last event had given me more than enough to think about. “That sounds like the perfect plan.”

  Chapter 10

  Music on the computer, an oversized mug of hot cocoa and complete quiet in the house had made for a productive morning. Ethan had joined me for all of an hour before making excuses for his departure. I spent the morning pretending that I wasn’t giving any thought to where Dalton was which was silly since in pretending not to think about him I had to think about him.

  I held a small bag with a shard of pottery that now seemed ridiculously insignificant compared to the gold arm band I’d held the night before. I placed the piece on the desk and entered the numbers and abbreviations into the appropriate fields. The job was getting rather boring, but it still had to better than sitting with the Beauchamps on a river cruise.