By Jove (12 page)

Paul Harriman took out a flute and played a duet with his friend from the Music Department, a lively tune that sounded more Irish than Greek. Marlowe rose from his couch where he had dined with the girl in the disheveled costume and began to dance. Everyone clapped, and Paul increased the tempo of his playing. The girl jumped up to join him, and after a minute so did another; Theo saw that it was Dr. Herman’s green-eyed friend.

Marlowe jigged and leapt with abandon while somehow still managing to take swigs from a bottle without spilling a drop. His partners were less adept, but matched him drink for drink. Then, unable to restrain themselves, first one, then three or four of the undergraduate servers jumped in as well. Marlowe roared his approval and waved a hand in invitation to all the diners to join them. His eye lighted on Theo.

“C’mon, Theo! You too!” He waggled his bottle at her. She laughed but shook her head.

“Well then! It’s getting a little close in here, my friends!” Marlowe shouted above the crescendoing music. He leaned forward and formed a huddle with his partners, dancing in place as he exhorted them. Then, with a shout that sounded suspiciously like “Yippee hi-yi-yi-yi!” he ran for the door, followed by the dancing women. Theo heard the outside door of Hamilton Hall bang open, and wild cowboy yells rise into the chilly November evening.

Dr. Waterman chuckled. Theo looked at him in surprise.

“They’ll not be a happy crew in the morning,” he commented, refilling his cup.

Theo heard another
whoop!
from outside the building. “Won’t they get in trouble? They’re a little, uh, loud.”

“No. Julian will smooth things over.” At the mention of Julian’s name his expression sobered. “The campus police are an understanding lot. They’ll leave them to run it off.”

“So long as nothing gets in Marlowe’s path. Did you see what happened to those squirrels they came across last time?” Di called, dabbling her fingers in her cup and holding them up to the light so that wine dripped from them like blood. She had evidently been listening in.

Dr. Waterman frowned at her.

“Wish I could have gone with them,” Dr. Forge-Smythe said wistfully. Everyone laughed, and Renee tweaked his wreath with a coquettish smirk.

By one-fifteen Theo had had enough. It was getting harder and harder not to rest her head on the soft cushions and abandon herself to the warm languor that Julian’s wine seemed to induce in her. Most of the faculty were still chatting and laughing with tireless vigor, but their student guests were drooping. Theo looked at Grant and saw that he was still watching her steadily.

“I’m falling asleep. Is it all right for me to leave?” she murmured to Dr. Waterman.

“What’s that? Had enough? But it’s early yet.” He peered into her face. “Well, maybe not so early. Yes, you may certainly run along if you wish, but we’ll be at this for a while longer.”

“Next time, maybe. Thank you, Dr. Waterman. You were very kind.”

He made a dismissive noise. “It was nothing. I hope you enjoyed yourself a little, anyway. See you on Monday.”

Theo slid off the couch and walked up to Julian. From the corner of her eye she saw Grant rise as well.

Julian regarded her, leaning back on his cushions. His hair was tousled, which made him look boyish, and his eyes were their usual warm turquoise as they rested on her. “I’m sorry to see you leave so early, my dear. I hope you enjoyed your first symposium.”

She resisted the impulse to reach out and smooth his hair. “Thank you very much, Julian. I did.”

“Then you must come to them all. Good night, my Theodora.”

Grant came to stand behind her. She tensed, but Julian nodded politely to him as well. “Good night, Proctor.”

Theo felt him nod in return, felt him slip an arm around her and lead her to the door of the Great Room. At the doorway she paused and looked back. Julian still watched her, but it was impossible at this distance to read his expression.

In the entryway Grant knelt at her feet. Theo stared down at him. “What are you doing?”

“Helping you with your sandals.” He slipped one then the other onto her feet, rose, and looked at her. Then, without a word, he folded her in his arms and fastened his mouth on hers.

It was a queer sort of kiss. Even through her haze of wine and weariness she could feel that. There was passion, yes, in the way his lips took hers, rich and greedy, his tongue probing and coaxing so that she had to cling to him lest her knees give way as she concentrated on returning the kiss.

But there was something else in it too, something that had little to do with desire. With a shock of embarrassment and chagrin, she realized what it was. The door to the Great Room was still open. When she broke the kiss and looked up, she could see that Julian had had a plain view of them.
Are you watching, Julian?
that kiss had said.
No roll of the dice could give anyone this. Not even you.

Theo jerked away from him. “Why did you do that?” she whispered fiercely, grabbing her coat from the rack.

Grant looked at her, his face expressionless. “Why do you think?”

“You knew that Julian could see us. I don’t care what you think, Grant, but I’m not going to be a pawn in whatever game you’ve decided to play with him.” Her hands shook as she tried to do up her buttons.

“No, you’re not a pawn. You’re the prize.” Grant took his cloak from the rack and settled it over his shoulders.

“Damn it, that’s a load of bull. Don’t you
dare
ever kiss me again unless you do it out of love, not to score a point on someone.”

He sighed. “You don’t understand, do you?”

“No, it’s you who doesn’t understand. Good night, Grant. I’ll see you on Monday.
Monday
,” she emphasized, as his mouth opened in protest. “I don’t want to see you tomorrow until you’ve had a chance to think about just what it is you want.” She swept past him and into the starry night.

Chapter Eight

On Monday morning Theo arrived to teach her Latin class a few minutes late, hoping to avoid Grant a little longer. It was no use. When she walked into her classroom she was greeted by whistles and catcalls from her students, and saw the reason why. An enormous bouquet of deep shell-pink roses, two dozen at least, stood on her desk, and Grant and half his class peered around the door that connected their rooms. The words “mea culpa” had been written in foot-high calligraphic script with colored chalk on her blackboard.

“That means ‘my fault’, right? C’mon, Ms. Fairchild. Whatever he did, you
have
to forgive him. Those are the most gorgeous roses I’ve ever seen,” gushed one of her students.

“Thank you, Kelly, your translation is correct. How would you say, ‘I’ll think about it’ in Latin?” she replied crisply, picking up an eraser and ignoring Grant. The entire room groaned.

After class Grant sidled back around the door. Theo shooed away her remaining students, mostly girls, who looked disappointed as she closed the door behind them.

“And?” Grant said.

She studied him for appropriate signs of contrition as she put her books away, and decided to let him stew a little longer. Glancing at her watch, she said, “I’m sorry, Grant. I’ve got rhetoric in three minutes. We’ll have to talk later.”

“No we won’t. I told Arthur you’d be late to his class this morning.” He stepped forward and put his finger on her lips to stop her indignant sputter. “I apologize, Theo. You were right. I shouldn’t have kissed you like that in front of everyone. It was rude and embarrassing to you. But I don’t apologize for my feelings about Julian.”

“But why? Why don’t you like him?”

“Do
you
like him?”

Theo sighed and fingered one of the roses, stroking its velvety petals. “Yes, I do. I wasn’t sure about him when I first met him at the start of school. He gave me the creeps those first few days. But since then he’s been very nice and not at all creepy. Some of it is just his manner, I guess, and I’m used to it now. Yes, I do like him.”

“Do you trust him?” Grant persisted, taking her by the shoulders.

“What has he done to make me
not
trust him? Grant, what is it with you and him? He’s never seemed hostile to you. At least not till the other night. I still don’t understand what that was about, either.” She shook her head.

“Can we make a bargain? I’ll keep out of Julian’s way if you’ll promise to be careful around him.” He looked earnestly into her face.

“Careful of what?”

“Just careful.” He pulled her closer. “Please?”

“Grant—”

He bent his head and kissed her neck. She closed her eyes as her arms crept up of their own accord to hold him. “I missed you yesterday,” he murmured in her ear. “All I could think about was how you’d looked in your toga that night. And what it would have been like to unwrap you and—”

There was a faint cheer from somewhere. Theo opened her eyes and saw a row of faces peering over the edges of the window ledge.

“We have an audience,” she said, pulling away.

“Let’s give ’em a good show, then.” Grant pulled her back and kissed her on the lips. The cheers grew louder.

He pulled back and smiled with satisfaction. “You’re blushing, you know.”

…

Despite her rapprochement with Grant it was Tuesday before Theo felt comfortable resuming her usual study spot in the Great Room. She did not want to run into Julian, knowing what he must have seen the night of the symposium, embarrassed at the image she and Grant must have presented. But when he passed her in the hallway later on Monday morning he was his usual affable self. After a few more chance encounters with him she began to relax.

In fact, no one referred to the symposium. She had expected to hear some rumor of Marlowe and his band of merry women getting their wrists slapped for running roughshod over the campus, but not a whisper of it came to her. Theo concluded that what Dr. Waterman had said about the blind eye of the campus police must be true. It seemed odd, but not odd enough to waste time thinking about.

A few days after the symposium Theo blew into the graduate student lounge for coffee with Grant. A northeast storm was beating the last of the campus’s leaves into a pulp, making the brick walkways treacherously slimy. Theo had run all the way from her room, dodging the chilly rain and slippery patches, but warmed by her news.

“Umbrellas have been around for several thousand years, but I don’t suppose you own one,” Grant scolded, helping her remove her dripping jacket.

“I do, smarty-pants, but in this wind I wouldn’t much longer. Oh, good. You ordered,” she said as their coffee arrived. She held her cup in her hands to warm them and smiled out at the rain streaming over the window next to her.

“All right, what is it? You look fit to burst,” he said, looking at her over the rim of his cup.

“Pooh. I’m happy, that’s all. My mom just called. She wanted to know if you had any plans for Thanksgiving.” She put down her cup and took his hand. “It’s a bit of a drive, but if we left right after my last class Tuesday we could be in Philly by nine, barring traffic. We can think up some new Latin insults for my Dad on the way down, and if he’s not feeling too shy we can get him to do Cicero’s
In Catilinam
after he’s had a little wine. It’s his favorite oration.”

Grant stared down at their joined hands. Theo cleared her throat. “That is, uh, if you didn’t have any other plans for Thanksgiving break,” she continued in a small voice.

He had never mentioned family. He must be going back to them, wherever they were. She should have thought about that. But when Mom had suggested she invite him home for Thanksgiving, it had seemed like such a wonderful idea. “Of course, I should have known you’d want to go home to your own—”

“No, that’s not it. I’m sorry, Theo. I’d already arranged to go to New Hampshire over the holiday. Olivia needs me to take care of a few things, and there’s some work for my project that I need to do up there.” He looked embarrassed.

“Porcupines not learning their lines?” she said before she could stop herself. “Or is it the moose again? Or—” She made herself stop.
Get hold of yourself, girl!
He had told her, point-blank, that Olivia was merely a friend and colleague. Why couldn’t she just accept his word and stop torturing herself like this?

Grant leaned forward and took her hands again. “Or do I need to go keep my girlfriend happy? No, Theo. You’re the only woman who has any claim on my heart. Some day you’ll meet Olivia, and then you’ll understand. But I have responsibilities at Eleusinian that I can’t shirk. I’d planned all along to go up there some time this fall but I haven’t been able to tear myself away. And now I have to pay for it by disappointing you.” He glared down at his coffee and muttered, “Damn!”

Theo squeezed his hands. “Grant? Did you really want to come?”

“Yes!” he snapped, then continued in a quieter tone, “I would have loved to see your father declaiming,
‘O tempora! O mores!’
”

“It
is
quite a sight.” She sighed. “I guess I’ll just have to concentrate on those papers over Thanksgiving instead.”

“I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

“No, it’s all right. It’s not your fault. I should have thought before I blurted it out like that. It’s just that—that I’m going to miss you.”

Grant looked back down at his cup. “I’ll miss you too—my love.”

…

The memory of that whispered “my love” carried Theo through Thanksgiving and her parents’ disappointment at not meeting Grant. She did manage to get one of her final papers written over the holiday, which was a relief; the end of the semester always seemed a lot closer on the Monday after Thanksgiving than it did the Wednesday before.

But when she arrived to teach her class that Monday morning, eager to see Grant after nearly a week apart, he wasn’t there. Dr. Waterman took his Monday Latin class for him. Theo moped alone in the Great Room that afternoon until Julian stopped to chat with her and invited her to his office to try a new bottle of wine he had brought back from his cellar in Rhode Island. She went, feeling defiant; if Grant couldn’t make it back from the Institute when he was supposed to, she didn’t see why she couldn’t have a friendly talk with Julian about her paper on Greek influences in Etruria.