An Oxford Scandal

by Maxine Barry

  ‘You’ve been here overnight,’ Gideon said coldly, unused to being spoken to like this.

  He was used to being looked up to, both literally and figuratively. He was Professor Welles, the youngest ever man to be given a full fellowship at St Bede’s. Professor Welles, who was sought after, courted, feted and wooed by other universities to give lectures and attend their conferences. He was chased by journalists to go on their radio shows and write articles for their prestigious publications.

  And here was this loud-mouthed American female, demanding answers and looking at him as if it was all his fault.

  ‘Damn it, woman, you rode into me,’ he snapped.

  Laurel, who’d been having nightmare visions of being called back to Boston in disgrace, her first ever overseas visit as a Van Gilder ambassador ending in an ignominious shambles, suddenly looked at him blankly.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The accident. You ran into me. What did you think you were doing, just turning into me like that without even looking?’

  And suddenly, with those angry words, Laurel remembered the rest of it. She’d been looking left when she should have been looking right. Or was it the other way around?

  She rubbed her aching head wearily.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said simply. ‘You’re quite right,’ she admitted, ‘it was all my fault.’

  But Gideon, who would normally have been the first to recognise her honesty and graciously accept the apology, was in no mood to be the perfect gentleman today, especially after the night he’d had.

  ‘I know it was. But that didn’t stop me from being hauled off to the police station in front of witnesses and having to blow into a stupid plastic bag.’

  His voice was icy. Frigidly cold and clipped.

  ‘Well, excuse me for breathing,’ she drawled sardonically. ‘It was only a breathalyser test for crying out loud. Get over it!’

  What was it with this guy?

  Gideon slowly got to his feet.

  Laurel watched him get up . . . and up . . . and up. Sheesh! How tall was he?

  ‘It might be all in a day’s work for you, madam,’ Gideon said through gritted teeth. ‘But I, for one, don’t take run-ins with the police lightly. Now, since you’re obviously fully recovered,’ his lips twitched grimly, ‘I’ll bid you good day.’

  As he stood towering over her, her eyes widened as she interpreted the look in his. His eyes were the colour of a glacier now — a sort of silvery-grey azure.

  Everything about him radiated cold, masculine superiority.

  What an iceman, she thought.

  And her heart seemed to do a weird kind of jig under her ribcage. As he stalked away, she thanked her lucky stars that she was never going to have to see him again.

  He’d probably freeze her to death!

  CHAPTER THREE

  Laurel gave herself one last check in the full-length mirror. She was wearing an original by Valentino, a stunning creation that fell to her feet in luminous flowing hues of gold, orange, red and bronze.

  The dress had straps that tied at the nape of her neck and widened out into two swathes of silk that criss-crossed her breasts, leaving her shoulders, arms and part of her ribcage bare. It glimmered, shimmered and glowed like flames as she moved.

  It was, perhaps, rather racy for a fuddy-duddy Oxford college dinner, but Laurel wasn’t going to worry about it too much. Surely in this day and age even an Oxford college — that bastion of male privilege — would have been dragged a little way towards the twenty-first century?

  Her long black hair had presented a bit of a problem — left loose it would fall to the middle of her back, and would undoubtedly be a wonderful contrast against her bare skin and bright silk. Unfortunately, it would also make her look like a sixteen-year-old.

  On the other hand, she didn’t particularly want to put it up. Elegant, complicated chignons looked wonderful, but they were impossible to relax in. She’d always be worried about the hairdresser’s ‘invisible’ pins coming out and unrolling her coils of hair, just as she was about to start the soup course.

  In the end she compromised, and asked for it to be pulled severely back off her face, giving the hairdresser carte blanche with a French pleat.

  It had, perhaps, been tempting fate a bit to tell the rather effete young man that the hair salon had sent around to ‘go wild’ with the pleat. Because, of course, he had.

  Laurel had had a long string of amber and silver beads on her dressing table and the hairdresser, eyeing the flame-coloured Valentino hanging ready on the front of her wardrobe door, had persuaded her to let him use the beads in her hair.

  Now, glinting among the neat, intricate French pleat, were glittering sparkles of silver and amber, a wonderful contrast against the dark raven of her hair.

  With her five-foot-eleven-inch slender length pushed up to over six feet by her silver high-heeled shoes, she looked much more glamorous than she had really intended. She gazed at the mirror with a small scowl.

  She looked, well, a bit like a gussied-up beanpole, she thought ruefully. A touch of neutral lipstick was all she dared add to complete her look.

  She heard the sound of the taxi outside and quickly gathered up her silver evening bag and a plain black cape, then hurried outside for the short drive to the college.

  She was met at the front gate of St Bede’s, or the Venerable as most people referred to the college, by its current principal, Lord St John James.

  ‘My dear, so glad you could come,’ he greeted her effusively, opening the taxi door for her. ‘Please call me Sin-Jun — everyone does.’

  It took Laurel a startled moment to realise that this was how the British pronounced St John. Then she smiled her thanks and murmured a greeting, letting him help her out of the taxi and pretending not to notice that he was studiously trying not to look down the front of her dress.

  ‘It’s my honour to be here, Lord, er, Sin-Jun.’

  He was a tall, military-looking man, with eyes that saw everything, and he sported a very dashing moustache. He was the kind of man who would probably have made women of her grandmother’s generation swoon.

  As it was, Laurel found him touchingly sweet.

  As he politely demurred and began leading her through the grounds, she listened to his very practised urbane conversation with a growing affection. Old-fashioned gentlemen were hard to come by, and if you couldn’t find them in an Oxford college, where would you?

  ‘You’ll be glad to know that the Augentine chalice arrived this afternoon,’ Sin-Jun carried on. ‘I have arranged for it to be displayed in a locked glass-fronted cabinet in the hall in front of the Senior Common Room at the appropriate time. Until then, of course, it’s strictly hush-hush,’ he assured her.

  Officially, no one was supposed to know who had been awarded the Van Gilder chair until Laurel herself announced it. But, due to practicalities, it was necessary to inform the proper college authority in advance, in order for them to make appropriate preparations.

  ‘Thank you,’ Laurel said gratefully.

  Because it went dark early in the Michaelmas Term, she wasn’t able to see much of the gardens, but all the buildings were cheerfully lit up, the security lights highlighting the crenellated walls and the ancient architecture.

  As they approached the Senior Common Room, where the fellows of the college relaxed and socialised, Sin-Jun had already explained to her a little about the college and Oxford University as a whole.

  Some of it she knew already. For instance, there wasn’t, strictly speaking, a ‘university’ building at all. Oxford had over thirty colleges that collectively made up the university, along with other august institutions such as the Ruskin School, the Bodleian, several museums and even the University Press.

  As Laurel listened with genuine interest to Sin-Jun’s brief résumé of St Bede’s, she began to actively look forward to the evening.

  Although she was there simply to hand over the Van Gilder chair to the winner, she began, for the
first time, to really appreciate its true significance.

  The chair was for three years, and was awarded to a fellow or research fellow of an Oxford college who had done the most to advance the field of psychology. It also carried with it a substantial annual income, and was therefore most sought after.

  With the money that came with the chair, learned tomes could be written by the recipient, simply because it freed his or her time to devote themselves purely to academic research. Which explained, Laurel thought wryly, why Sin-Jun was being (for an Englishman) so gushingly fulsome in his welcome!

  The principal led the way across a grand entrance hall where a large glass-fronted cabinet already held a plethora of sporting cups and academic awards, and approached a set of double green baize doors, from behind which she could plainly hear a great buzz of conversation.

  Then, with a small smile, the principal opened the door and ushered her in.

  Laurel was immediately dazzled by the colour of the academic robes. Everyone had donned their very best gowns, of course, and she laughed at herself as she realised that her own flame-orange gown was hardly going to be noticed amid the scarlet, blue, gold and ermine of the more lavish and senior fellows’ academic garb.

  There was the usual sudden lull in conversation as all eyes turned her way. Males’ eyes opened wide at the vision beside their staid, rather stiff-upper-lip principal.

  Immediately, everyone began to speak again.

  Laurel smiled, took a deep breath, and let herself be led into the throng.

  * * *

  Gideon Welles was sitting well out of the melee, on a low-slung sofa at the far end of the Senior Common Room, and so hadn’t been able to see the grand entrance. Had he been standing, of course, he would easily have seen, and been seen, over the tops of everyone’s heads.

  ‘It looks like our guest of honour has finally arrived, old boy,’ the Reverend Jimson-Clarke, one of St Bede’s tutors in Theology, said quietly.

  Since St Bede’s had been founded in honour of the Venerable Bede, a noted student of the Benedictine monastery and author of many works on the saints, St Bede’s, naturally enough, had a very strong Theology school.

  The reverend had been happily engaging the Experimental Psychology fellow in a discussion on the psychology of the Spanish Inquisition, his main field of study. He was just a little miffed to be interrupted.

  ‘It appears so,’ Gideon agreed coolly and glanced at his watch. ‘I imagine it’s still fashionable to arrive late.’

  The reverend, a rather sleepy-eyed, cuddly-looking man, smiled knowingly. ‘Yes. But then again, if you’re bringing with you the gift of so much filthy money, I imagine most of us would wait for your arrival till the Isis froze over. I wonder if the others will think you’re grandstanding if you introduce yourself?’ the reverend murmured, with his usual brand of mild mischief.

  The reverend’s teddy-bear looks hid an acute brain that held a very real grasp of the world’s more iniquitous sins. Too fine a grasp, as most of the undergraduate students had found out.

  Now Gideon smiled, far too wily an opponent to take the bait. ‘Probably. It’s already a little awkward. My being in the shortlist, and with it being St Bede’s turn to host the prize-giving, I mean,’ he clarified as his friend raised a questioning eyebrow.

  The reverend, whose given name was Rex, nodded thoughtfully. All the colleges were on a rota system when it came to hosting visiting dignitaries. This year, it was the turn of St Bede’s to host the prize-giving for the Van Gilder chair. And, for the first time since its foundation, one of the shortlisted candidates happened to be a member of the host college.

  ‘But there’s no hint of impropriety about it, old boy,’ the reverend assured him jovially. The Van Gilder chair is as respectable and as scrupulously honest as it gets.’

  Gideon acknowledged this frankly. Within the university, there was always a lot of politics and jockeying for position — backstabbing was an art form in this city. But the Van Gilder chair was awarded by an independent panel which was kept scrupulously free of Oxford and back-room manoeuvres.

  There were five people shortlisted for the chair — Gideon himself, Sir Laurence Fox (who was the oldest of the candidates), an exceptionally able young woman on a research fellowship from Nairobi called Dr Julie Ngabe, his old friend and sparring partner Dr Martha Doyle, and Dr Felicity Ollenbach, a bright rising star who was making a bit of a name for herself as a media personality, since she seemed determined to accept every radio and television appearance that was offered her.

  Although, of course, none of these candidates had discussed their chances with the others (that not being the done thing), it seemed to be generally thought that Sir Laurence was the hottest contender.

  Of them all, by sheer weight of his years, he had contributed most to the field of experimental psychology. Also, since he was mostly lecturing now and on the verge of retirement, he would be in the best position to make use of his time. Financially secure for the next three years, he had it in him to write a work that could keep scholars happy for years to come. Ever since Gideon had known him, Sir Laurence had been intending to start on a definitive version of a rather intriguing theory on dream interpretation, but had been hampered by his other commitments.

  ‘Of course, the Van Gilder people might want much younger blood than old Sir Laurence,’ the reverend mused idly.

  ‘Dr Ngabe, you mean?’ Gideon said, missing the fond but slightly exasperated look the reverend gave him. ‘You could be right. She would certainly be a credit to the chair.’

  ‘I meant you, dear boy,’ Rex Jimson-Clarke said mildly, and was not surprised to receive a genuinely astonished look in return.

  It was no secret that St Bede’s considered Gideon Welles one of the jewels in its academic crown. He’d been their brightest undergraduate for decades and had received a First, staying on to obtain one of the most talked about DPhils in Oxford — and that was saying something! — with a thoroughly revolutionary thesis on . . . The reverend frowned. What was it now? Like most scholars, he wasn’t much use outside his own field of expertise. Well, whatever it was, it was still much talked about, even today, and the amount of pupils applying to read Experimental Psychology at St Bede’s was double of any other college, simply on the strength of Gideon Welles’ fellowship.

  But it was typical of the man not to fully realise his own huge reputation. It was one of the reasons the reverend liked him so much. Like most true geniuses, he didn’t need to be told how wonderfully brilliant he was — which could be a bit wearing on the nerves, unless you were of a saintly disposition, like the reverend!

  ‘I say, they’re rather queuing up to make a fuss of our American friend, aren’t they? She must be a bit of a cracker,’ the reverend mused, craning his neck in a vain bid to catch a glimpse of their VIP.

  Gideon hid a smile at Rex’s words, murmured an excuse, and rose from the low-slung sofa with his usual lithe ease.

  The moment he stood up, Laurel saw him. How could she not? One moment she was making polite conversation with a rather fierce fellow in Astrophysics or something, the next a silver head suddenly rose above the throng like a moon rising.

  She knew him instantly. Her heart, for some strange reason, tripped over itself and she had to stop to take a quick breath.

  Luckily, he hadn’t seen her. In fact, it hadn’t even occurred to him to look her way to see what all the fuss was about. The shortlist for the chair had been posted in June, but since then, apart from a forgivable and very human buzz of satisfaction at being mentioned, he hadn’t given his chances of winning it more than the odd passing thought.

  Instead, he made his way to the bar, politely elbowed out an inoffensive little fellow of St Mark’s, who’d been talking to the barman about Donne’s metaphysical inaccuracies, and firmly ordered a cognac.

  Socialising was one of his least favourite pastimes.

  A slightly drunk Psychology don sidled up to him. ‘Tell me, how’s that graduat
e student of yours doing, the one who’s insisting Freud actually got it all right?’ he slurred amiably.

  Unfazed, Gideon shrugged. ‘Oh, he’s still determined to put in a howler of a thesis. But I expect we’ll get him to see reason in a few years or so.’

  ‘Well, I suppose I’d better go see a man about a dog,’ his companion sighed, and Gideon watched him totter off unsteadily and hoped he’d pass out somewhere inconspicuous.

  It was as he was thinking this that there was a sudden shift of people and Laurel Van Gilder was revealed, set amid a frame of chattering dons.

  A lot of fellows from other colleges had been invited to dine in Hall, and most of them Gideon knew by sight and reputation, so Laurel instantly stood out as a stranger. But in that same split second of seeing her, she looked as familiar to him as his own face.

  It was a disorientating moment.

  Laurel looked over at him with unnerving timing. She had, in fact, been keeping tabs on him for the last ten minutes, while telling herself that she was doing no such thing.

  And so their eyes met.

  His blue eyes turned to ice. Her own snapped and sharpened.

  The maniac on the bike, Gideon thought. What on earth was she doing here?

  He walked forward, reluctantly dragging his feet across the common room’s Aubusson. He didn’t really want to do it. He had, in fact, no wish to meet her again and be lashed by that cutting tongue of hers. But, somehow, he was being compelled across the room, drawn by invisible hands that simply insisted on him being closer to her. Closer. Always closer.

  ‘Ah, and here’s our final shortlisted candidate,’ Sin-Jun said, in his hearty Colonel-about-town manner. ‘This is Professor Welles. Gideon, please meet Laurel Van Gilder. She’s here to present the chair to its winner.’

  It was hard to say, in that instant, which of them was more surprised.

  They were both certainly dismayed.

  Laurel, the only one in the room who knew that Professor Welles was in fact the winner, found herself almost wishing that she could arbitrarily award the chair to someone else. That nice Dr Ollenbach, perhaps, a fellow American who’d been so pleasant to her earlier. Anyone but him. But of course, she would never be that petty.