An Oxford Scandal

by Maxine Barry

  But she had spoken the name of Gideon Welles instead. Gideon, a bachelor, living in college, with no need of added income, no attachments — a man with nothing to lose.

  It had been so unfair.

  Still was so unfair.

  And then to have to go to the party afterwards. To smile and talk and pretend losing hadn’t meant anything. The resentment had seethed inside her like slow-acting poison.

  When she’d walked into the Senior Common Room hall behind Gideon, that military-looking principal of theirs and Laurel Van Gilder, and heard the dean say that the alarm on the cabinet wasn’t working, she hadn’t even given it a thought.

  Not then.

  It had only been later — after several brandies — that she’d remembered about the alarm being faulty.

  Even then, the thought of thievery hadn’t occurred to her. She’d been too steeped in self-pity. And fear. She’d drunk some more and contemplated her debts. The thought of not being able to meet the next mortgage repayment. Or the next. The ever-looming horror of losing Clive.

  And the more she’d thought the more she’d fingered her diamond pendant. It had long been her nervous habit to fiddle with whatever piece of jewellery she was wearing — twisting a ring around her finger, unclasping and clasping a watchband. But she’d carelessly hurt her fingers by holding on too tight to the diamond, which had led to a semi-drunken thought about how hard a diamond was — the hardest substance of all. How it could even cut glass.

  And right then and there it had occurred to her. It was almost laughable.

  Some Sociology don was going on about something or other. Two men were laughing smugly in a corner. The college butler was circulating sedately with drinks. It was Oxford at its most established.

  And she’d stood amid it all, and realised that she had the wherewithal to steal the chalice. It had felt absurd. But right. So curiously right.

  The alarm wasn’t working.

  She could cut a round hole in the glass with her diamond.

  Reach in, take the chalice. Take it home. Sell it. All her problems would be solved — for a while.

  And so she’d done it.

  Just like that.

  She’d been drunk, of course. Eaten alive with disappointment, rage and bravado, she’d half expected to be caught. Imagined her defiance in the face of it. But in the event, the door to the Senior Common Room simply hadn’t opened!

  It had been easier than she’d thought to cut the hole and push the piece of glass into the cabinet — it hadn’t even broken but had clattered on to one of the shelves whole. It had taken only seconds to reach in, lift the small silver cup and slip it into her handbag.

  Then she’d noticed the butler’s big black coat hanging on a hook and, in a moment of inspiration, draped it across the cabinet, hiding her work.

  Then she’d driven home — very carefully and slowly. She shouldn’t have been driving, of course. Funny, but when she thought back to that night, the drink-driving shamed her more than the theft.

  After all, what did it matter to a family as fabulously wealthy as the Van Gilders if she relieved them of one of their little treasures?

  And St Bede’s didn’t need it.

  But she did.

  Dammit, she did. It was almost the difference between life and death to her. So why shouldn’t she have it? It made more sense.

  But afterwards. Ah, afterwards, things had looked different. Very different indeed.

  Oh, not that night. She’d driven back to the party, chatted and circulated, and then finally left with a group of others, all in a state of numbness. But the next morning, however, had brought with it a hangover and stark reality.

  She’d been mad! Mad to think she could get away with it, for a start. She’d spent all of that day on tenterhooks, expecting any minute to have a call from the police. To be carted off in handcuffs, to face shame and, worst of all, a visit from Clive telling her that he was leaving her.

  For she had no illusions about her husband. He would not stay with her if she ever became a liability.

  He needed a stable home, the little luxuries he so enjoyed, the status of having an Oxford don for a wife. All those things mattered to him as he sought his own fame and fortune on the stage.

  Perhaps, in the back of his mind, he doubted himself and his luck, and wondered if he’d ever make it. Which made having a rich wife even more of an imperative.

  She’d hidden the chalice in the washing machine wrapped in a sweater, secure in the knowledge that it would remain hidden — from Clive, at least. He didn’t even know how the washing machine worked.

  But no police had come.

  Only Gideon Welles (of all people!) and Laurel Van Gilder herself.

  Clive had been angered by their visit, by all their questions. He’d been (ridiculous to think of it now) genuinely indignant on her behalf at their insinuations. He hadn’t even asked her if she’d stolen the chalice. He simply couldn’t imagine her having the nerve or the gumption to take it, she realised now.

  Just goes to show how little he knew her.

  So when, just a few minutes ago, she’d finally confessed the truth to him and produced the chalice as proof, he’d looked so incredibly surprised.

  Now husband and wife sat and stared at the Augentine chalice. Finally, Clive reached out and touched it, almost reluctantly, and lifted it up, weighing it in his hand.

  ‘It’s heavy.’

  ‘Yes,’ Felicity said listlessly. ‘Clive, what are we going to do? Do you think Laurel Van Gilder meant it — about not calling in the police? That was the unspoken promise, wasn’t it — that if they got it back, there’d be no scandal. No mention of it even having been missing?’

  ‘Give it back? Are you mad? It’s worth over a hundred grand, Flick. Think of it. A hundred thousand quid.’ His handsome face flushed with pleasure as he stared down at the silver object in his hand.

  Felicity sighed. ‘I was mad to take it.’

  ‘Course you weren’t. Why should they have all the luck?’ Clive instantly went on the defensive. ‘Look, you don’t really think we can just hand this back and they won’t do nothing about it, do you?’ he wheedled. ‘Besides, why should we? You risked everything for this — we might as well make the most of it.’

  In his mind’s eye, he could see himself driving a new Porsche. A wardrobe from Armani. Or producing his own play, casting himself in the lead of course. Yes, that was it. If it was successful, they’d make more than the chalice was worth in the first run.

  Felicity sighed. ‘Clive, darling, come down to Planet Earth for a moment. How on earth are we supposed to sell it?’

  She’d been too drunk, and too angry, the night she’d taken it to even consider the practicalities.

  ‘Do you know someone who receives stolen goods?’ Felicity asked half hopefully, half mockingly. Clive was a dreamer and practically useless.

  But her husband occasionally surprised her. He surprised her now.

  ‘Don’t be daft, Flick. It’s no use going to one of those sort. What we need is a collector. Someone who won’t care how or where a piece comes from. He’ll give us top money for it and guarantee that no cops will ever become involved. Now, let’s get on the Internet. There’s bound to be some old codger on there who’d be only too glad to add something like this,’ and he waggled the antique silver relic at her, ‘to his mouldy old collection.’

  * * *

  ‘If you want to know about a collector of sixteenth-century silver, ask a don,’ Gideon said as he turned into the gates of St Bede’s.

  On the way back from George’s, Laurel had told him what had suddenly occurred to her. Namely, that the Ollenbachs, if they had any sense at all, would try and sell the chalice to a collector rather than a fence. It would be easier, safer, and they’d get better money.

  ‘Fine. Which don?’ she asked, clambering out after him.

  ‘Any don,’ Gideon said grimly. ‘Rex would know about clerical silver. A Classics don would know som
eone in a museum who knows someone. Get the idea?’

  ‘Right. How about someone in your Fine Art department?’

  In the event, Gideon preferred going to someone he knew — Rex — and found him easily enough in the chapel.

  He was snoozing in one of the pews, a Theology paper from one of his pupils scattered around him and the latest cantata from the choirmaster awaiting his perusal slipping from his lap on to the floor.

  He started awake at the sound of their entrance and was quick to help when Gideon, without any preamble, asked him if he knew who the biggest collector of silver in town was.

  ‘Oh, Francis Daye, without doubt,’ the cleric said, sitting up straight and rubbing his eyes. ‘Made a fortune in the booming eighties and had the sense to get out in time. Now he does nothing but collect Celtic artefacts and old silver. And cats, I believe. He lives out near Chipping Norton way, in one of those tiny hamlets — Dean, I think it is. Why?’

  But Gideon and Laurel were evasive and quickly dismissed themselves.

  Rex watched them go, somewhat bemused.

  ‘We have to find Sin-Jun,’ Gideon said the moment they’d shut the big oak chapel door behind them. ‘He’ll have the necessary clout to tackle the Ollenbachs or this Francis Daye, if they’ve already sold the chalice on.’

  ‘Right,’ Laurel said.

  But Sin-Jun, for once, was nowhere to be found. His secretary, to make matters even worse, had obviously already gone home for the day.

  ‘He’ll be back for dinner,’ Gideon said. ‘Let’s wait in my room.’

  Laurel, however, soon discovered she didn’t have the patience for waiting. After five minutes of pacing his room like a caged tiger, she needed something to distract her.

  She looked at Gideon, who was sat lounging in his big armchair, looking perfectly relaxed. Until she noticed the book in his hands was upside down.

  She advanced on him, smiling wolfishly.

  * * *

  ‘Here’s one. That’s the name of a village near here, isn’t it?’ Felicity said, staring at the computer screen over her husband’s shoulder. ‘It says here he’s interested in all manner of old silver.’

  ‘Yeah. He sounds like a contender all right. He lives in an out-of-the-way place, made his money in property — that’s a crook’s domain if ever there was one,’ Clive said gleefully. ‘Francis Daye. I reckon he might be just what the doctor ordered. I’ll phone and sound him out.’

  * * *

  Gideon moaned.

  His bare feet were dangling over the bed, since no standard-size bed ever fitted him. He was naked, his arms spread across the pillows, and Laurel was sucking so hard on his navel he was sure she was about to suck it right out of him.

  The ceiling above him seemed to be turning in a slow, crazy circle.

  ‘I was so proud of you when you came up with that “diamond cutting glass” business,’ she mumbled, her mouth full of his hot, pulsating flesh. ‘You’re quite a Sherlock Holmes, aren’t you?’

  She lifted her head and ran her hands lightly down his chest. She watched the sensitive nerve endings in his stomach twitch and jump, and dipped her head to kiss them.

  ‘I was just as impressed with your collector theory,’ he gasped, his voice coming out with all the calmness of an out-of-control see-saw.

  He closed his eyes briefly but that only made the sensations a thousand times more potent.

  He moaned again.

  Laurel smiled. She liked that sound he made. She wanted to go right on listening to it for the rest of her life.

  Abruptly, too needy to go on playing with him, she lowered herself on to him, making a sound all of her own. A kind of purring rumble.

  Gideon arched his back compulsively, but she wouldn’t be dislodged. He felt her thighs clamp around his own, felt her feminine muscles tighten seductively around him, and his hands clenched into fists either side of his head.

  His body became slick with sweat. A tight, spiralling core of intense and ruthless pleasure began to build in his loins.

  Laurel moved rhythmically on top of him, slowly, sensuously, her face tense with concentration and greedy expectation.

  She’d never been so completely herself with a man before. Always before, she’d been playing a role. The rich heiress sorting out her suitors. The playful playgirl, going to the right parties and giving the paparazzi the right pictures of the right man on her arm.

  Never before had she felt free to just be herself. Whether it was bailing him out of a jam, just talking to him in his low-slung car, or making love to him in a bed that didn’t quite fit!

  ‘Oh, Gideon, I love you so much.’

  It wasn’t until he suddenly stilled beneath her that she realised she’d spoken the thought out loud.

  Her eyes snapped open. She looked down at him, only to find his ice-blue eyes staring up at her.

  He looked so startled, she had to laugh.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said softly. ‘I won’t hold it against you.’

  She fought back a lance of fear at her own stupidity in not being able to keep her big mouth shut for once, and leaned back, placing her hands on his shins and clenching herself around him. Time to distract him, before he got the chance to become thoroughly spooked!

  He moaned again as the spiralling tension became almost a pain. Laurel began to move faster, harder, deeper, her long black hair rippling around her shoulders, falling to brush his legs as she threw her head back, her throat taut with passion.

  His eyes narrowed into languorous desire as he looked at her, her pert, cherry-tipped breasts peeking between swathes of her raven-black hair, her face abandoned, her cheekbones impossibly sharp, her eyes closed, her mouth slightly parted.

  She was so magnificent that he felt himself unravelling. His body was her puppet. She’d turned his head around. She’d pulled his life inside out.

  And he didn’t care.

  She loved him!

  She’d said so.

  He moaned again, it turning into a low shout of released desire as he melted into liquid fire and poured himself into her.

  Laurel shuddered and slowly collapsed on to him, her long black hair falling around them as they slept the sleep of the exhausted.

  * * *

  Laurel’s cookery skill consisted of toasting bread and squeezing oranges, and it was these two smells that roused him a while later.

  He must have dozed, for he couldn’t remember her leaving his bed.

  He showered (having to duck in the standard-sized shower stall), and found her in the kitchen, reading the evening papers and avoiding his eyes.

  Gideon set about the ultra-British pastime of making tea, watched her drink her own coffee, and wondered if he should talk about what she’d said just now.

  It seemed to loom there — all important, undeniable — like a huge brick wall.

  ‘So, do you have any idea what to try next?’ Laurel said, bright and breezy, as she lowered the newspaper and looked at him, her eyes dark as plain chocolate.

  He blinked. ‘About what, exactly?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘About getting the chalice back of course,’ Laurel said, fighting back a nervous laugh. At all costs, she had to make what had just happened seem like no big deal.

  Like she said ‘I love you’ all the time.

  ‘If it turns out Sin-Jun has gone home for the weekend or something, we can’t just sit here and do nothing. Not now we know who might have the chalice.’

  ‘Laurel.’

  ‘We could always confront the Ollenbachs. If it’s still at their home, we can bring it back in triumph,’ she gabbled desperately. ‘Can’t you just see Sin-Jun’s face, walking into the Senior Common Room and there the chalice is, right back where it started?’

  She looked so on edge, so taut and on the verge of tears, that he felt like reaching out and . . .

  ‘I love you too,’ he said helplessly.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘You what?’ Laurel shrieked, her whole fa
ce lighting up like a nuclear explosion, and Gideon took a hasty step backwards.

  ‘Wait a moment, woman,’ he warned but she was already launching herself at him.

  Luckily, he caught her.

  The next moment, his face was being smothered with tiny kisses — his nose, his eyes, eyebrows, lips, cheeks, chin, forehead. And he was grinning like an idiot.

  Her legs were hooked around his waist, and he walked with her into the centre of the room, heading towards the sofa.

  ‘Will you please just wait a minute,’ he muffled through her hair, her lips, her hands.

  ‘Wait for what?’ Laurel demanded, laughing and lifting her head. Cradled against him as she was, held high on his chest, she was looking down into his eyes for the first time. They really were the colour of ice, a pale electric-blue fire.

  She brushed the near-white hair off his forehead and sighed. ‘Gideon, I’m so happy,’ she said simply.

  ‘Well, I never would have guessed,’ he said drolly.

  ‘Don’t grouch. You know full well you’re happy too.’

  And he was.

  His heart was thudding while at the same time soaring. He shook his head. ‘Are you going to let go of me now?’ he demanded, but couldn’t seem to get any force into his voice.

  Laurel looked over and down her shoulders, to where his arms were locked around the small of her back.

  Gideon, in response, did the same, to where her heels pressed hard into his buttocks.

  ‘You started it,’ he said softly.

  Laurel sighed and unlocked her legs, and he slithered her carefully down his body, groaning slightly as he did so.

  ‘Was that a moan I heard?’ she asked archly.

  ‘No!’ he said quickly. As she moved to come back into his arms, he pressed one hand flat against her chest — and instantly became aware of her burgeoning nipple pressing against his index finger.

  ‘Stay there,’ he said sternly, and dropped his hand.

  ‘Yes, master.’

  ‘We’ve got to talk.’

  ‘Whatever you say, oh Great One.’

  ‘Cut it out. Humility, even the mock variety, doesn’t suit you. We’ve got to discuss what we’re going to do.’