Chapter Two #2
It was, therefore, with a certain amount of trepidation that she raised a hand and knocked gently on Professor Bombardieri’s door.
“Go away, Doctor, I have no need of you!”
Sarah blinked. She must have misheard. It was not possible that the professor would have said something so uncouth, was it?
Unless…unless he was in character!
Her heart leapt. She had heard of such things—great poets, great writers inhabiting the personality of one of their characters as they sought for the perfect words to say. Oh, he truly was a genius! How much she would learn from him!
Emboldened by this, Sarah reached out and knocked again, this time a little louder.
“Blast you to hell, leave me in peace!”
Sarah beamed. Oh, it was wonderful. Did this mean she was part of his process—was she helping him with his poetry?
It was a wild thought, one which made her feel lightheaded. But she did want to see him. She could not remain out here all day.
Steeling herself to do what Sarah knew she must, she knocked again, this time as loudly as she could manage.
“For the last time, I said—”
Sarah opened the door and stepped forward.
The sight that met her eyes was not one she had expected. Whenever she had thought about Professor Bombardieri—or “the Professor,” as she coquettishly considered him—she had pictured…
Well… An Italianate man, old, older than the provost, with graying hair and a determined mouth. A thin man, hunched from leaning over a desk for so many years.
Not a description which could be applied to the man seated before her.
No, this was a young man. Perhaps only a few years older than her—and handsome.
Sarah blanched at the thought, but there was no getting around it. The man was handsome. Dark hair, untidy and swept back, as though he had just walked through a gale. Bright, piercing eyes examined her closely. A jaw so chiseled he could have walked off a plinth.
That jaw fell open.
A flush crept across Sarah’s cheeks. Was she not what he had expected? Was she improperly dressed for meeting someone as wondrous as the professor?
He swallowed. Sarah’s heart leapt. What beautiful poetry would slip from his—
“What the devil are you doing here?” the man snapped.
Sarah stepped forward and shut the door behind her, certain it would be more difficult to force her to leave if she were actually in the room.
She should have thought of this, she chastised herself silently. A poet in the middle of his work had no desire to be disturbed. She had known the moment she had knocked he was working on something truly magnificent—and now she had disturbed him!
“Speak, woman,” the professor snapped, not bothering to pay her the courtesy of rising from his seat or bowing. “Or get out.”
Sarah hesitated, trying to calm her nerves. He was not what she had expected to look like, true, but he was precisely the tortured artist she had presumed.
The room, however, was also not what she had expected.
There were strict rules about this sort of thing. Ladies could not simply go up to Oxford, it was a university. Ladies did not attend.
But that had not prevented Sarah from gaining a rough idea of what a tutorial room looked like. The building itself was beautiful, elegant, but the interior…
It looked as though the professor was living here, Sarah thought curiously as her gaze flickered across the room. When it fell on the bed, just visible behind the Japanese-style screen, the flush which had started to die down flared again.
Dear lord, was she in his bedchamber?
“Well?” snarled the professor from his chair as her gaze snapped back. “What in God’s name do you want?”
“I-I…my name is…hello. L-Lockwood,” Sarah stammered.
Shame rushed through her. Could she not say anything more impressive than that? And something was tingling at the back of her mind, something she had not noticed.
Professor Bombardieri frowned. “Lockwood.”
Cursing herself for not having power over her tongue, Sarah managed, “Sarah. Sarah Lockwood. We…I spoke with the…we have an appointment.”
At least the last four words she spoke contained some sort of defiance, she thought ruefully. Until now, she had not managed to make a very good impression, that was clear.
But she would. She was determined, shyness notwithstanding, to impress Professor Bombardieri.
At the moment, there was confusion on his face, not admiration. “An appointment?”
Of course, Sarah reasoned, he had forgotten. He was an artist. A genius. Geniuses could not be expected to remember things mere mortals organize. Even if the provost had written.
“Yes, an appointment,” she said, stepping toward him.
She halted as the professor narrowed his eyes. “Did old Sedley put you up to this?”
Sarah blinked. Sedley? Another name she had not heard of—or at least, not paid enough attention to when her mother was introducing her to people. That would teach her.
“No, it was the provost,” she said with what she hoped was a winning smile.
Her smile did not appear to make much of a difference.
The professor’s eyebrows rose. “The…the provost?”
It was magnificently clear, Sarah thought with a sigh, that the provost had forgotten to carry out his word. Poor Professor Bombardieri had received no warning of her coming.
And whatever it was she had not noticed was screaming for her attention, if she could only fathom what it was.
Her unexpected arrival was most unfortunate—but not her fault. She had overcome her shyness too many times to get here, Sarah reasoned, heart thumping painfully. She was not going to simply disappear because the man had received no warning of her coming.
“Yes, the provost, and may I say how absolutely honored I am to meet you,” Sarah said in a rush, moving forward to sit on the sofa opposite him.
The professor stared as though she was out of her wits. “Honored?”
“Greatly honored,” she said, hoping her voice did not sound too sycophantic.
Professor Bombardieri was probably tired of hearing such things, but she could not help it. He had to know just how marvelous he was.
And it is hardly a hardship to look at him. Sarah attempted to ignore the state of informal attire the professor was wearing. No boots, he was…well, at home.
He wore a waistcoat and no jacket, his strong forearms visible through the linen. Sarah tried not to stare at them or his hands, large and strong, but it was difficult. Heat flared in her chest, heat she tried to dampen.
She was here to learn, not goggle at the man!
Even though she had never expected a poetry professor to be…well. So handsome.
But there was more than that. Finally, the thing her mind had noticed yet had been unable to articulate came to the fore. There were no books in the room. No paper. No pens, no hint of any kind that the professor was a poet.
Sarah almost laughed. She knew him to be the greatest poet who had ever lived, so there must be a reasonable explanation for why none of the accoutrements of his profession were visible.
Perhaps he was tidy. Even though he was a poet, it was possible.
“Let me get this straight,” said the professor, leaning forward. Sarah’s heart skipped a beat. “You have been sent by the provost…and you are honored to meet me?”
Sarah flushed. “Greatly honored. So, to business.”
“Business?” Professor Bombardieri said with a dark laugh. “My word, is that what they call it these days?”
She ignored that. “It is an epic poem, and includes a great battle, most of which I have worked out with great difficulty—”
The professor frowned. “Miss Lockwood—”
“But it’s the duel that is the real problem, and why I have come to you today,” Sarah continued. She had to get her words out; she had to gain his help! “The difficulty is, I don’t know—”
“Miss Lockwood,” said Professor Bombardieri with an inexplicable smile. “You might wish to know—”
“See, here,” Sarah said impetuously, pulling her pocketbook from her reticule and opening it to the page she had been so furiously working on. “Here, the moment when the two—how does one precisely—”
“My dear Miss Lockwood,” said the professor in a half-teasing voice. “How the hell would I know?”
Sarah hesitated, her hands outstretched in her attempt to make him look at her poem.
How would he…
It was unfathomable. She had read his poem, The Darkest Ocean, an Ode, and it had included a most impressive duel. She had been forced to stop reading halfway through in case she accidently was too impressed and inadvertently stole a few of the rhyming couplets.
But the man before her seemed more likely to laugh than declaim verse.
“I…I beg your pardon?” Sarah said hesitantly, heart hammering in her chest. “I thought…why, you are the poetry professor.”
And that was when a strange and horrible sinking feeling started to drill into her chest.
The man before her laughed. “No, I’m not!”
Embarrassment rushed through her, previously dammed but now free to incapacitate her as Sarah stared at the laughing man.
He…he wasn’t the professor?
She was forced to swallow twice before she could speak. “You’re…you’re not Professor Bombardieri?”
The man snorted. “What a ridiculous name—no, I certainly am not!”
Sarah could have melted into a pool of shame, his laughter ringing around the room. Goodness, she had managed to walk into the completely wrong room—accosted a man in his own bedchamber, almost given him her poetry to read!
“In fact, my dear woman,” said the man, still snorting. “I am delighted to inform you that you have barged your way into a duke’s bedchamber. My name is Montague Lancaster, Duke of Caelfall.”
And that was when Sarah staggered, thrusting her pocketbook so violently into her reticule that a few pages spilled out—all blank, thank goodness.
“G-Good day, sir,” she managed to stammer as she turned away.
“And quite right too,” came the duke’s parting words. “Dear lord, a woman in Wessex College? What were you thinking?”
Sarah heard no more as she slammed the door behind her. It could not have gone worse.
A snort of laughter crept under the door as she closed her eyes. Far worse than she had imagined.