Chapter Fourteen. Other, More-Academic Pursuits
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Other, More-Academic Pursuits
GOLDEN light filtered out the windows of a nearby pub as I tugged my coat tighter around me.
My temper hadn’t eased one little bit in the last half hour, and I was most of the way home.
All my concerns—my mysterious shadow, the prospect of yet another imposter, the fact I might be seeing people who aren’t really there, and the tangled web with Ruan—all of those minor problems took a back seat to the fact that Leona had lied to me.
Lied to me and explicitly had her flatmate turn me away.
I blew out an irritated breath. Mary told me Leona had been arguing with Professor Reaver over Julius Harker, and now here she was having secret assignations.
I’d bet my life the two things were connected.
Pausing outside the pub, I blew into my half-frozen hands.
I’d forgotten my gloves when I set out this afternoon—a fact I already regretted as my fingers were quite numb and stinging from the cold.
The proprietor here had trimmed the windows and doorways in cheery shades of red, gold, and green.
A sprig of mistletoe hung over a nearby doorway.
The main taproom was full of souls gathering around a pint—or three—and having a bite of supper before returning to their homes for the night.
The door opened and a teetering rosy-cheeked old man stepped out into the cold, allowing the roar from inside to flood the street.
I did not long to be inside among them—cozied up by the fire and veiled by frosted windowpanes.
For some, the idea might bring a sort of wistfulness for days gone by, but I simply wanted to walk away from this world and not look back. My chest tightened.
Leona was keeping secrets from me. She might well know the answers to my questions about Harker’s missing cache, but I could no longer trust her words.
My heart ached at the thought. I should go home.
Wash my hands of this whole sordid affair and return to Exeter, away from murderers and antiquarians.
And yet I could no more abandon poor Mr. Mueller to his fate than I could forego the sea.
It was an impossibility. Unthinkable. And if I could no longer trust Leona, then there was only one person in the world who could help now. Me.
I would simply have to return to Harker’s museum and search for the missing antiquities myself.
I already possessed a notion of the lay of the museum.
The bulk of his collection likely lay beneath the public floors, as in any other museum.
I was perfectly able to translate both hieratic and demotic on my own.
While it took me longer than Leona with translation, I knew my way around an ancient text.
What’s more, I even knew what objects I sought.
It should be a simple enough task. Let myself in, look around, leave.
Easy.
“Miss Vaughn! It’s lovely to see you again this evening.”
Emmanuel Laurent stepped out of the pub, the wind catching the door and slamming it hard behind him.
He turned, embarrassed by the sound, before returning to my side.
“My dear girl, I did not expect to see you tonight. How is Owen this evening?” He adjusted his bowler before tucking his fine red-and-navy-striped scarf into his overcoat.
I met his warm smile with one of my own, unable to resist the warmth of his presence.
“Mr. Owen is well. I was headed home just now. I’m late for supper and I suspect he will be worried.
” It was a harmless fiction. Mr. Owen worried in his way—but he seldom let it show.
If I had to guess, he was most likely sitting in the kitchen playing gin rummy with Mrs. Penrose while she plied my greedy housecat with tinned fish.
Laurent stretched, running his hands over his belly. “I met some friends for dinner and was about to head off to a lecture tonight. You are more than welcome to join us, my dear. I do so enjoy your company. You are a breath of fresh air amongst our staid set.”
I started to tell him no, that I really ought to go home, but for some strange reason I could not make the words come.
His brows drew up as he studied me. “Are you quite all right, my dear?”
I nodded, opening my mouth, then snapping it back shut. “The cold air stole my breath, that’s all.”
The door to the pub opened again, the merry bell jingling in the night, and I glanced up to find Ruan standing in the threshold beneath the mistletoe, none too pleased to see me. “Ruby…”
Laurent gave me a queer look, then turned to Ruan. “You are acquainted then?”
“We”—I suddenly felt rather ill—“are acquainted.”
“That’s right! All that business in Lothlel Green I’d read in the papers. I’d nearly forgotten. How silly of me.”
The muscles in the edge of Ruan’s jaw quirked as he watched me, struggling to control whatever fit of temper was going on inside his brain.
Are you well? I didn’t know if he could hear me, but it was worth a shot.
His nostrils flared as he made a cynical sound in the back of his throat.
Apparently not.
I turned my back on my irritated pellar. “I am afraid as much as I’d love to join you this evening, I’d best get back to Mr. Owen. I did promise him I wouldn’t be gone long.”
Laurent checked his pocket watch and frowned. “If you are certain. I’d better be off as well. I don’t want to be miss the start of the lecture. Are you ready, Kivell?”
“Go on without me, Professor. I’ll be along dreckly.”
Oh God.
I knew good and well what dreckly meant.
A convenient Cornishism that Ruan employed that meant whenever he damn well pleased.
It could be anywhere from imminently to two weeks from now.
A wise woman would have felt an iota of fear at the tone of his voice—might have said or done whatever necessary to remove that strange flash of anger from Ruan’s unusual green eyes—but I was not wise, certainly not when it came to him.
Oblivious to the razor’s edge of tension growing between us, Laurent dipped his head and headed off down the lane, disappearing into the shadows. Ruan loomed on the sidewalk in front of me until long after Laurent was out of earshot.
The muscle in his jaw worked, as he debated what he was going to say to me. I could see from the look in his eyes he wasn’t happy. But whatever it was, I wasn’t having it. “Where have you been all day?” The question came out sharper than I’d intended.
He let out an aggrieved grunt, folding his arms across his chest. “It isn’t as if you ever ask my permission before you decide to hare off somewhere.” His tone softened. “If you must know, I’ve been with Laurent all day. He wanted to speak of Ernst. I lost track of time.”
Ernst? Then suddenly I recalled the conversation I’d had with Professor Laurent in his library earlier this week.
Of how he was waiting on his former student who had been friends with his late son, Ernst. Ruan must have been that student.
“He was your friend…” I murmured. Whatever ire I’d been holding on to fled.
It also certainly explained Ruan’s ragged expression tonight. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not— I hadn’t spoken of him in years before tonight.
It felt good to be with someone who loved him.
Who’d not forgotten the light he brought into this world.
Ernst never treated me differently or less than—even though he knew I was a miner’s son.
” Ruan closed his eyes, giving his head a shake.
“Gods. There were times back then I thought he was only kind because he felt sorry for my lot, but I sometimes think he saw something in me. Something I’ve never seen in myself. ”
I swallowed hard, knowing that feeling intimately. “I hadn’t thought—I didn’t mean to bring back the past. Mrs. Penrose said you’d gone out looking for a book. I assumed you were out—”
“I had been, then I stopped by to see Laurent…” He let out a sad small sound. “But it is nothing. A fool’s errand. My melancholy has nothing to do with you and I should not have been curt with you over it.”
I sighed.
“My temper however, that is deserved…”
My relief was short-lived. I placed my hands on my hips, when I caught the edge of humor in his eyes. He was teasing. I wasn’t sure what to make of that.
“Returning to Oxford brings back those last few months before I left the University. I was angry then. Ernst— he cautioned me to control my temper.”
“I’m still not certain you have much of a temper. I’ve seen you cross but never truly angry.”
Ruan chuckled. “Then Ernst would feel he’d done the job well … though I doubt he would believe it after the way I left Oxford.”
“You never told me what happened.…”
Ruan closed his eyes, exhaling through his nose. The familiar divot of worry reappeared between his brows. I squeezed my icy fingers tight to keep from reaching up to smooth it. “It’s a story for another day.”
“No.… I didn’t mean to you, I mean to him. Was it the war?”
Ruan’s attention remained fixed on the empty street behind me. “He died on the first day of the Somme.”
Were you there?
I didn’t even realize I hadn’t spoken the question aloud until he shook his head.
The pain on his face—the helplessness at the memory of his old friend dying. My fingers went to his wrist of their own accord.
He closed his eyes again and pulled away from my touch. “I heard you earlier, Ruby.”
Good God, my thoughts had been a cacophony tonight. I could only imagine what he’d overheard.
“All of it.” Ruan dropped his voice to little over a whisper. “But in particular, while I was finishing my supper, I heard you planning on going back to Harker’s museum. I’m beginning to rethink my assessment that you aren’t mad, or perhaps it is only that you are intent on driving me that way?”
I clenched my fingers into a fist and shoved my hands deep into my coat pockets, stinging from his rebuke. “Perhaps if you weren’t intent upon controlling everything around you then you wouldn’t be as concerned about your precious sanity.”
His nostrils flared. “Me? Control you? Gods, if only one could. I am simply trying to keep you alive and am doing a poor job of it. No wonder Hecate said you’d be the death of me.”
My stomach churned at his mention of the White Witch’s prophesy. I almost had been the death of him in Scotland. My eyes dropped down to where the scar was hidden beneath his thick coat and oatmeal-colored jumper.
He’d heard that. His expression softened. “You understand, then.”
My mouth felt like cotton. “I understand nothing. Least of all you—this.” I gestured between us.
“Then at least we are matched in that.” Bitter amusement tugged at the corner of his lips—whatever anger with me he’d harbored moments before had fled as quickly as it came, replaced by an emotion I dared not name.
“Two months ago, I watched a man place a rifle against your breast, powerless to do anything to save you. Unable to look away for fear that if I did, I would lose that final second in your light. And I could not bear the thought.” He reached to touch my face, but instead closed his fingers and shoved his hand into his pocket.
Emotion thick in his voice. “I know that we are at odds right now.”
“We’re always at odds.”
“But gods, I cannot bear the thought of you putting yourself needlessly at risk. I am sick at the thought of it. Whatever happens between us, I cannot bear the thought of you being in danger. Promise me, Ruby.”
I leaned closer to him, close enough to catch his green scent, and inhaled deeply. In that moment I might have promised him anything his heart desired. The man was a witch indeed. My voice came out hoarse. “Promise what?”
“Promise me you will not go to Harker’s museum without me. I will come back to the townhome after the lecture. Then we will go together. I will help you, but we must do it together.”
I nodded, far too numb to form words. Ruan leaned closer, his breath grazing my cheek, and I thought he might bend.
He might not let me touch him—might not touch me—but perhaps he might kiss me again as he had in Scotland and end this unpleasantness between us once and for all.
But his iron will held firm. He straightened and turned, calling back over his shoulder, “Until tonight, Ruby Vaughn.”
And I watched him walk away into the snowy night.