I’d left Holden in the library, figuring a permanently early-thirties vampire would stick out like a sore thumb in a third-year English class. I had no idea how right I was until I got there. The room was filled to capacity, and in spite of knowing two students were missing, I had difficulty getting a seat.
I slid into an empty desk near the back of the classroom and took stock of my surroundings. Every seat was filled with a young, pretty girl. I looked around twice, but my search was fruitless. There wasn’t a single male in the entire room. It was like a midnight screening for a new Sex and the City movie.
The smell of estrogen and desire was thick in the air, not exactly what I was expecting to smell coming off these girls at seven thirty in the evening. At first I thought maybe Gabriel was the reason they were all here. A smart, handsome guy offering to help them decipher ye olde English? I could appreciate the draw.
Then the professor came in, and the entire room let out a collective, feminine sigh of approval.
From the reaction, I expected some Daniel Craig lookalike with a piercing gaze and an ovary-exploding accent. Professor Mayhew was not at all what I’d envisioned.
He was short, for starters, maybe five-foot-eight or five-foot-nine. He was about fifty, judging by the creases wrinkling his forehead and deepening the frown lines around his mouth. His eyes were gray, an unsettling stormy color that peeked out from hooded lids but was alight with some sort of spark I couldn’t pinpoint. Once-dark hair was peppered with silver and had been hastily swept back but was already falling forward and obscuring his vision. There was a slight limp in his step as he walked.
A sex god, this man was not.
Then he spoke. “‘Allo, loves. I trust we’ve all done the readings from Chaucer?” His accent wasn’t upper-class British, but it wasn’t a street urchin’s slang either. Holden had tried to teach me the differences once, but I was having trouble pinpointing it. Whatever the origin, it made the inside of my body feel like melting butter on a stack of fresh pancakes.
Lusty little sighs erupted all over the room.
When no one replied to his question, he grinned like a rogue from a bodice-ripping historical romance and took a worn leather volume out of his bag.
“No?” he asked. “Then I suppose I’ll have to read it to you, shall I?”
Chapter Fourteen
Two hours later I waited as dozens of girls filed out of the classroom. Three still lurked around Mayhew’s lectern, twirling their hair and giggling while they asked questions about papers and the deeper meaning of “A Knight’s Tale”. I was willing to bet most of them still thought about Heath Ledger whenever they discussed the finer points of Chaucer, but I wasn’t in a position to judge. Before tonight I’d never given a thought to The Canterbury Tales, let alone an in-depth analysis.
When I’d lived with Gabriel, he’d been nuts for all the old authors—Chaucer, Edmund Spencer, Goethe. He’d bought me a beautiful antique edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets for Valentine’s Day one year. Romantic, right?
I’d read one poem and left it to collect dust on a shelf.
I do remember something about love not being love when it demands someone to change. That could have been a motto for my relationship with Gabriel. Seemed like it also applied to my relationship with Lucas.
Pulling out my phone, I hoped to see a missed call from Desmond. I only had a text message from Holden saying, Exactly how long does a Medieval Literature class last? The books aren’t going anywhere.
Leave it to Holden to be cheeky and sarcastic in a text. But at least he used full words. I had a remarkable loathing for people who insisted on using moronic text abbreviations.
The last of the stragglers left the room, and Mayhew slipped his notes back into the leather briefcase next to his lectern. He seemed to notice me then, for the first time, still sitting in the back row with my Converses propped up on the back of the seat in front of me.
“Did you have a question for me, love?” He leaned against the podium and dipped his head to the side. With his full attention focused on me, I felt a little warmth grow in the pit of my stomach. There was definitely something special about this guy. No wonder all the girls tried to worm their way into his favor.
Grabbing my purse off the floor, I moved down the steps so I could stand in front of him. Because I was already shorter than him, and wearing flat shoes, he still looked down on me in spite of being below-average height for a man.
“My name is…” I hesitated, wondering if I should make something up. If Gabriel had mentioned me, then Mayhew might question my presence in his classroom. But there wasn’t much sense in lying to this man when I wanted honesty from him. “I’m Secret.” Then almost as an afterthought I added, “McQueen.”
“Secret?”
I wasn’t sure if his question stemmed from the oddity of my name, or because he recognized it. “The one and only. I hope.” I offered him my hand, which he shook firmly.
“Oliver Mayhew. Though you probably already know that.”
I smiled. “And you probably know I’m not in your class.”
He nodded. “It’s a little late in the year for waitlist, Secret. Are you auditing?”
“I’m actually here for a friend of mine.”
“Oh?” He picked up his briefcase but made no other move to leave.
“Lucy Renard.”
“Oh,” he said, his eyes focusing somewhere over my head. He looked a little guilty, but not in a way I recognized. After a moment he gave me a weak smile and shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know all my students by name. My TA is a lot better with that sort of thing.”
“Gabriel Holbrook?”
Mayhew banged his briefcase against his leg and returned his focus to me. “Oh, do you know Gabe?”
“Not very well. I was actually wondering how well he knew Lucy.”
“Well…” He chuckled. “It’s not really my place to discuss Gabriel’s personal affairs. But it’s my understanding he’s pretty…popular.”
“I bet.” In my pocket, my phone vibrated. Probably Holden asking how long I planned to be. The vampire was going to have to wait.
“Was there a reason you came to my class tonight?”
“Lucy’s…away. I wanted to be sure she wasn’t missing anything important.”
“Ah.” He switched his briefcase from one hand to the other and pulled a pocket watch out, flipping it open to check the time. “It’s a bit late, but if you’d like to follow me, I can give you the notes from this week’s class so Miss Renard doesn’t fall behind. This is a third-year class, a lot happens every week, and it can be a time-intensive study responsibility. I hope your friend isn’t planning to miss too many more classes.”
“It remains to be seen.”
Mayhew left the room, and I followed him.
“Nothing too serious?”
That remains to be seen too, I thought. “No,” I answered. “At least I hope not.”
Down a dark corridor, I became aware for the first time it was almost ten o’clock at night and no one else appeared to be in the building anymore. Instinct told me to check my weapons, but pragmatism told me there wasn’t a hell of a lot a limping British professor could do to me.
He unlocked a door marked with his name and ushered me into a small room. When he turned on the light, I got a better handle on my surroundings. The office was cramped, shelves stacked high with books and his small desk overrun with papers and an ancient-looking desktop computer.
“Cozy.”
Mayhew chuckled. “I don’t spend much time in here.” Sidling behind the desk, he started rifling through the paper towers. If there was a system to how they were organized, a maniac must have been the one to establish it. Mayhew was that maniac, as it turned out, because he found the stapled sheaf of papers he’d been looking for and handed them to me with an apologetic smile.
“Thanks,” I said, stuffing the notes in my purse. I wished I’d come better prepared, with at least a notebook or a proper school bag, but I didn’t own either.
He smiled and patted his pockets as he scanned his desk, then let his arms drop, shrugging to himself over some internal thought he was processing. When he rounded the desk and stood in front of me, it took all my will not to move away from him.
My phone vibrated, making me jerk in surprise. Mayhew didn’t seem to notice. He held out his hand again, and although I felt another handshake was a bit much, I didn’t want him to think me rude, especially not after he’d been gracious enough to give me notes for Lucy.
I shook his hand, appreciating the firmness of his grip. He clasped his other hand on the back of mine, his thumb brushing my knuckles. This was a little too intimate. I tried to pull away, but he showed surprising strength by holding me in place. His hooded eyes, the color of an old sweatshirt, locked on me.
“It’s been a real pleasure.”
“Thanks,” I repeated, my hand going limp between his.
“You’re welcome to sit in on my classes whenever you’d like. I mean, until Miss Renard comes back.”
My eyelids flickered, and my limbs felt heavy. It was too early in the night for me to be feeling sleepy, yet I stifled a yawn. Mayhew gave my hand one last squeeze with both of his, then let it fall. My fingers tingled slightly.
“You have a good night.” He smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
Outside, halfway between the English department and the library, I retrieved my cell phone from my pocket to see what Holden was pestering me about and to tell him I was on my way to meet him. When I flicked open the message screen, I stopped dead in my tracks.
The first message was from Holden, time stamped before ten, right as I was about to leave with Mayhew. It was the second message that startled me, for two reasons. It was from Desmond, and it said, I’m home. We need to talk.
The real kicker wasn’t his cold words, though, or that he was back. It was the time I’d received the message. Quarter after eleven. I’d only been in Mayhew’s office for ten minutes, tops.