An Oxford Scandal

by Maxine Barry

  Into the hedge.

  Gideon had to wait hideously long seconds to see which way the big vehicle was going to go, before committing himself and the Morgan.

  He slammed the wheel around just in time, and the Range Rover scraped the passenger side of the door as the two cars passed, the horrendous screech of metal-on-metal filling the night air.

  Then the Morgan was on the grass verge, nearly toppling over into the ditch that side, but Gideon turned back into the road and pulled over, finally beginning to shake.

  They both heard the screech of tortured metal and a crumpled, ominous bang, and Gideon turned off the engine, his hands cold and shaking.

  ‘Wait here,’ he told her curtly, and for the first time in her life, Laurel obeyed him.

  He got out of the car and jogged back. The first thing he saw was the gap in the hedge, then the Range Rover lying on its side in a ploughed field.

  He stumbled across the rough sod as he ran to get to the car, then he was on his knees looking inside. But Clive Westlake wasn’t visible — only a large white airbag.

  ‘Clive!’ he yelled. ‘Clive, can you hear me? Can you speak?’

  But there was only an ominous silence.

  Cursing, Gideon climbed to the top of the vehicle and wrenched open the door, reaching inside. He felt material, managed to locate one arm and worked his way down to a wrist.

  There was a pulse. Strong and steady.

  As he lifted his arm, his elbow hit something hard and he yelped. Whatever it was, it was trapping his arm between it and the dashboard. As he rocked his arm loose, the object came out of the Range Rover with him.

  He slithered back on to the ground, then ran to the Morgan.

  Inside, he saw that Laurel was already on her mobile phone. As he opened the door, he heard her giving their location — presumably to the police or ambulance service. He opened the passenger door and stooped to look inside.

  When she hung up, she turned big, wide eyes on him. Her face looked ghostly pale in the moonlight.

  ‘Is he OK?’ she whispered.

  ‘He’s got a pulse,’ he said quickly. ‘How long before they get here?’

  ‘They didn’t say. Where will the ambulance have to come from?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said blankly.

  ‘What’s in there?’ Laurel asked, and it was only when she pointed downwards to his hand that he realised he was still clutching the box.

  It was, he saw now, a big black square box with a gold clasp. The kind of travelling jewellery box that had been popular back in the twenties.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said again wearily. ‘It was with Clive, and was getting in my way. I didn’t even realise I’d brought it back with me.’ Feeling his knees finally giving way, he slung the box carelessly into the footwell and went down in front of her. With a wordless cry, Laurel swung her legs out and then pulled him close, cradling his head against her breast. Her hands ran through his hair, her fingertips pressing against his warm scalp and massaging comfortingly.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she murmured, feeling his big body shake.

  ‘I thought I might lose you,’ he said, his voice muffled. ‘No, worse than that. That I might be the cause of your death. Again. I’m going to sell this stupid car,’ he said, pulling his head back and looking at her with agonised eyes. ‘Twice it’s almost killed you.’

  In the moonlight, he looked more of an iceman than ever, his face pale, his hair white, the glitter of his eyes almost silver.

  ‘Oh no you won’t,’ she said, running her hand along the doorframe and patting the car’s framework lovingly. ‘This Morgan is gonna be ours forever. She saved our lives tonight, remember?’

  Gideon shuddered, then leaned forward again. He closed his eyes.

  In the distance, they could hear the sound of sirens.

  * * *

  The police took their statements which, by common consent, they’d already agreed to keep as simple as possible. They’d been coming back from the direction of Dean when the Range Rover, travelling much too fast, had banged into them and then catapulted into the hedge.

  They doubted, when he came around in hospital, that Clive Westlake would say anything different.

  The ambulance staff who’d come and gone had been optimistic — they’d detected a fractured collarbone and a broken leg, but not, they thought, any serious internal or head injuries. The airbags had done their job well. Clive, they’d said, had been lucky.

  Once it was over, Gideon insisted on driving back but slow and easy this time.

  The Morgan, apart from the dents and affronts to her paintwork, purred like a well-satisfied cat after a particularly interesting night on the tiles.

  It wasn’t until they’d pulled up outside Laurel’s villa and had remembered the jewellery box that Laurel brought it up on her knees and opened it.

  And found inside, undamaged and glowing serenely in the moonlight, the Augentine chalice.

  * * *

  They trooped inside, feeling bone weary and yet strangely alive. Gideon, at least, recognised the feeling as a combination of shock at their near brush with death, and euphoria at beating the grim reaper.

  In the villa’s spacious living room, Laurel shrugged off her shoes and coat and then stood staring down at the chalice in her hands. So much trouble for such a small thing. Still, she knew she’d always have a soft spot in her heart for this little silver cup.

  It had brought her to England. To the lovely city of Oxford . . . and the man of her dreams.

  ‘Do you have a safe?’ Gideon asked, watching her place the precious silver object carefully down on to the coffee table in front of the sofa and giving it an affectionate little pat.

  ‘I don’t think so. Why?’ she asked curiously.

  Gideon laughed. ‘Just wondering. It would be a terrible thing if we had a normal burglar come tiptoeing in during the middle of the night and it got nicked again,’ he pointed out drolly.

  ‘Don’t even think it!’ Laurel screeched, giving him a mock thump on the top of his arm. ‘That’s not even funny.’

  ‘Ouch!’ Gideon said, and rubbed his arm playfully. Then he sighed and ran a hand through his silvery hair. ‘I suppose we could always take it up to bed with us. Sleep with it under the pillow,’ he mused half-heartedly.

  ‘What, and put a dent in it?’ Laurel huffed. ‘Not on your life, buster. Besides . . .’ she trailed off, looking at him archly, ‘what makes you think we’re gonna spend the night together in the same bed? Did you hear me issue an invitation?’

  Gideon glanced at her quickly to see if she was kidding, saw that she was and heaved a sigh of relief and then began to grin. ‘Bit late in the day to start getting coy now, isn’t it?’ he teased her. ‘Besides, if we’re going to be a respectable married couple, we get to go to bed together whenever we feel like it, all nice and legitimate. Even the most staid bachelor in St Bede’s allows that married couples, if they really have to do that sort of thing, can share a bedroom in perfect rectitude. So long as we each keep one foot on the floor at all times of course,’ he added, as he saw her wrinkle her nose at him playfully.

  ‘I might even take my clothes off in front of you, if you’re lucky,’ he added magnanimously.

  ‘Well, you romantic old fool, you!’ Laurel admonished. ‘But you’ve got me curious. Which foot is it exactly that we have to keep on the floor at all times?’

  ‘One right and one left, of course,’ he grinned.

  Laurel laughed. ‘I take it these respective feet have to be on opposite sides of the bed?’

  ‘Naturally. Or else . . .’ Gideon blinked as he pictured in his mind the exact circumstances needed for both of their feet to be on the same side of the bed — his right, her left. Or vice versa. He was adaptable.

  ‘Oh no. I’m sure that wasn’t what they had in mind at all,’ he laughed, backing away as she advanced menacingly on him.

  ‘No?’ she queried, her voice rising in a squeak of mock surprise. ‘Pit
y that, because it’s precisely what I had in mind. Come here. Grrr.’ She made a sudden lunge for him and succeeded in tackling him down on to the sofa. The springs gave a surprised yelp that almost matched Gideon’s.

  Her lips came down and nibbled his earlobe.

  ‘The chalice,’ he gulped, pointing at it feebly.

  Laurel told him, in a few choice words, exactly what he could do with the chalice.

  Gideon pointed out, reasonably enough, that it simply wasn’t physically possible.

  ‘No, but this is,’ she said huskily, reaching her hand down between them and rubbing her palm suggestively against the hardness that pressed against her there.

  Gideon closed his eyes, his face taut. She watched his eyes flutter open again and the smoky, fiery depths of his blue knowing gaze had her nipples hardening to attention.

  ‘You keep on doing that,’ he warned her, ‘and you’re going to be in trouble, missy.’

  ‘Promises, promises,’ she whispered drolly, lowering her head and kissing him. Thoroughly. When she lifted her head at last, he drew in a deep, ragged gasp.

  ‘We really need to talk,’ he said, but Laurel, who was busy undressing him, was too distracted to pay much attention.

  ‘Really? What about?’ she asked vaguely. Then her voice became arch. ‘You know, it amazes me how you academics can talk and talk and talk, even at the most inappropriate of times. Can’t you see that I’m busy seducing you, man? Now shut up and let me get on with it.’

  ‘You’re a one to talk about talking,’ he gasped, his big body shuddering as she found naked skin and dipped her head to take advantage of it.

  He closed his eyes again as her hot mouth brushed against the sensitive skin above his ribs, and he jerked on the sofa, almost dislodging her. But she clung on hard.

  ‘We still,’ he panted, ‘have to,’ he gulped, ‘t-talk,’ he gasped, as her hands found his belt buckle and began to unfasten it.

  ‘Oh for Pete’s sake!’ Laurel said, her voice necessarily muffled, for she was now in the process of burrowing her tongue into his ear. ‘What about?’

  ‘Us,’ Gideon groaned. ‘The future.’

  Laurel pushed her hands further down the front of his trousers, cupping and caressing, and Gideon arched, this time succeeding in getting his elbows under him. Then he managed to wriggle his way up into a near-sitting position, and lay back against the sofa arm, panting.

  When she looked at him, it was to see hectic colour on his cheekbones and a febrile light in his eyes.

  ‘Men,’ Laurel said disgustedly and settled herself more comfortably over him, until she had a knee on either side of his hips and was sitting snugly in his lap.

  She was gratified to feel just how hard and lumpy his lap was. She wriggled her hips suggestively. ‘So talk,’ she said, faking a bored yawn and knowing, with smug feminine satisfaction, that at that precise moment in time, he simply didn’t have any breath left to talk with.

  ‘Talk? What about?’ Gideon murmured at last, reaching for her and managing, in one supple motion, to slide his hands under her sweater and place one palm directly over each of her breasts.

  Laurel gasped. ‘Well, I like that! Of all the sneaky, low-down tricks. I thought you were the one who was all in a lather about getting our future straightened out?’ she accused.

  She loved this. This playful, sexy, uninhibited side of him. If this was what he was like after only a few weeks, what kind of lover would she have after a couple of years?

  ‘I am,’ he said distractedly, watching the movement of his knuckles through the sweater as he massaged her breasts. ‘In a lather, I mean. To talk.’

  ‘Gideon.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you going to make love to me or what?’

  ‘What do you call this?’

  ‘Aggravating,’ she gasped, and reached up to pull the sweater over her head, and then reached behind her to competently unhook the bra.

  Gideon leaned forward to kiss the tender valley between her breasts and breathe in her scent.

  ‘I love you,’ he said softly.

  Laurel closed her eyes, afraid that the tears might escape if she didn’t, and tenderly brushed his hair from off his damp forehead.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said softly. ‘I love you too.’

  ‘And we’re really getting married, right?’ he said, his fingers walking down her hips to tug on the back of her skirt in silent command.

  Obediently, Laurel unclasped it and let him push the garment down to slither across his lap.

  ‘That seemed to be the general idea, as I remember it,’ she agreed, as he tugged on the elastic of her panties suggestively. ‘Anything else you need to know? Or can we ravish each other now?’

  ‘Nope. There’s one other thing. A prenup,’ he said, and Laurel immediately froze.

  He felt her shock immediately.

  ‘What?’ she said, her voice faint and all sense of fun totally gone.

  ‘A prenup,’ Gideon repeated, lifting his eyes to look at her calmly. ‘I know you tend to think of us Oxford dons as mole-like creatures who live on cloud nine, or in some Victorian-like time capsule, but some of us do poke our heads out occasionally now and then to sniff the real air and breathe in some twenty-first-century culture. So I do know what a prenup is.’

  Laurel swallowed hard. ‘Now you tell me.’

  But in spite of her feeble attempt to get back to the sexy playful mood of just a few moments ago, in the back of her mind, warning bells were going off loud and clear.

  In spite of herself, she remembered her first infatuation. (She could no longer call him her first love — knowing now what true love really meant.)

  He’d wanted nothing from her but her money. Luckily though, she’d had her family to look out for her on that occasion.

  But now here was Gideon, at the height of their passion, talking money.

  She didn’t like it. Not one little bit.

  ‘You want to do without one, I suppose?’ she said hollowly. ‘Like it’s some kind of a test for me? If I really love you, I’ll marry you without any legal protection because we’re never going to divorce so why worry about it? Is that it?’ she asked, her voice a little hard. A little hurt.

  A strange look crossed over Gideon’s face. He became suddenly very still.

  ‘And you would do that?’ he asked quietly. It felt, for some reason, as if his life depended on her answer. Probably because it did.

  Laurel stared down at him, and the whole of her life — her life with Gideon — flashed across her mind.

  The way she’d turned her bike into his Morgan and then woke up to see his face in hospital.

  Their arguments.

  Their love-making.

  Their combined brush with death only a few hours ago. The way he’d changed her whole life around.

  When she’d first come to Oxford, she’d been a sad little princess mourning for her father and still, absurdly, totally unaware of what life was really all about.

  Now she had a man to love and to marry. To have children with and grow old with. To die with, when the time came.

  And for all of this, all he was asking in return was for her to trust him.

  Was it really so hard to do?

  Everything about her past life said yes. All her family, as far as she knew, had married with airtight prenups firmly in the bag. Her rich friends all did the same — it was just a sad, simple reflection of the way the seriously wealthy lived their lives. Always prepared to believe that somebody was out to con them.

  Those who married poor, those who married for love, those who married in haste only to repent at leisure, were objects of pity or worse — scorned by her crowd.

  But that was her past life.

  This was her life now.

  She looked down into his face — his strong, fair, handsome face — and met his level blue gaze.

  ‘Yes,’ she heard her voice saying. ‘Yes, I’ll marry you without a prenup. I’d marry you tomorrow.
In a tent. Anything you say, sweetheart.’

  Gideon reached up and put a finger to her lips. ‘Enough,’ he said softly. And the last piece of ice surrounding the iceman’s heart finally melted.

  ‘Now, if you’ll let me get a word in edgeways and say what I was going to say before you interrupted me,’ he told her, eyes twinkling. ‘About this prenup thing. I want you to get one arranged. Talk to your solicitor. Whatever you and he think is fair, I’ll sign it. Because, as far as I’m concerned, it’ll never see the light of day again after that.’

  Laurel gaped at him and didn’t know whether to hit him or kiss him.

  ‘Gideon!’ she finally yelped. ‘You could have saved me all that soul-searching and just said so right away!’

  She felt as if she could cheerfully throttle him. Or love him to death. ‘Besides, I don’t know if I want a prenup now,’ she said, knowing she sounded petulant and childish but not caring. ‘Why do you want one anyway?’ she demanded curiously.

  ‘Because I’m not a gold-digger,’ he said simply. ‘I don’t want you to keep me in a lifestyle that I could become accustomed to. I just want us to live together as equals. Partners. You can be the rich one, I’ll be the clever one.’

  Laurel grinned. ‘Gee, thanks. I can be the pretty one, you can be the ugly one.’

  ‘I can be the Nobel prize-winning one, and you can be the clothes horse.’

  ‘I can be the woman billionaire, and you can go suck eggs.’

  ‘Grandmothers suck eggs, not Oxford dons,’ he corrected her pedantically.

  ‘Ex-Oxford don,’ she corrected him primly. ‘You’re giving all this up to come and live with me in the lap of decadent luxury in the States, remember!’

  But then a shadow crossed her face and she became pensive again. ‘Gideon, all this larking about aside, you are sure, aren’t you? I mean, really sure? About everything. It’s such a big step to take.’

  Gideon tugged at her panties and watched her face become tight and hot. ‘Oh yes, I’m sure,’ he said firmly. ‘You know, you really do have the damnedest sense of timing,’ he muttered. ‘Wanting to chat instead of make love.’ And so saying, he wriggled down beneath her, pulling off her panties as he did so. ‘I thought you were supposed to be seducing me?’ he complained.