The Devlin Diary (15 page)

Fourth week of Michaelmas term

S
TEERING CLEAR OF
Derek Goodman was more easily said than done, Claire soon discovered. They lived and worked in the same small universe: New Court, hall, the history faculty building. Only a week after her maddening conversation with Andrew Kent, Claire was standing in the dinner buffet line trying to choose between the meat and the vegetarian entrées (roast pork loin or cannelloni Provencal?), when Derek Goodman entered the hall and took a place right behind her.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he said.

“Are you speaking to me?” Claire asked, incredulous.

“Of course I’m speaking to you. Do you see anyone else around here who’s gorgeous? Except me, of course,” he added with a wink. He glanced over at the elderly waiter who stood near the buffet table, presumably to help the fellows spoon food upon their plates. “Not that you aren’t a fine-looking man, Mr. Digby.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Derek turned back to Claire. “What do you say to dinner tomorrow night? And none of this Dutch treat business you Americans go for, it’s all on me.”

“I hardly think—”

“But why wait until tomorrow to do what we can do today? Why don’t we pile up a couple of plates with enough sustenance to keep us alive ’til tomorrow morning, and go back to my set?”

“Are you insane, or do you just have a very bad memory?”

“Now why would you want to hurt me by saying something like that? I thought we were getting on so well.”

Claire put her plate down on the buffet table. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. How dare he act like nothing had happened? Derek Goodman was a piece of work, all right—an egomaniac and a complete narcissist. “Have you forgotten that you stole my idea for a paper and then lied about it to Dr. Kent?”

“
I
lied?” Derek’s voice shot up a few decibels; every head nearby swiveled to stare at them. “I’m not the one who’s the liar here. Just because you found me attractive and wanted to
shag
”—at this, more heads turned—“and I said no, you’re going to tell lies about me to the other fellows?”

“What?” Claire gasped. “You
are
insane. Or completely unconscionable.”

“Did you really think you could get away with it?”

“Get away with what?” Not only the fellows at High Table but also the students were listening with rapt interest.

“Slandering me. Just because you’re American and you’re young and pretty you think you can say whatever you want and get away with it. Well, you’re not going to get away with stealing my paper—”

Claire could recall being this angry only once before: when her (now ex) husband Michael had announced that he was in love with another woman on the day of Claire’s mother’s funeral. She’d had the same response then as she did now. Before she was completely aware of what she was doing, she clenched her right fist and aimed. She knew it connected when she heard Derek Goodman’s yelp of pain.

“Bloody hell!” Derek’s hands flew to his face, where a bright red mark spread across his cheek. “She hit me! Did you see that, Mr. Digby?” The waiter looked too shocked to form words. Derek pointed an accusing finger at Claire. “She bloody hit me!”

Stunned by what she had done, Claire stood frozen in place. A few
seconds passed before she realized how quiet the hall had become, and that everyone in it was staring at her. She felt a hand on her shoulder and glanced up to find Hoddy at her side. “You best get out of here,” he said, steering her toward the door.

Once they were outside, Hoddy looked at her with dismay and concern. “Now why did you go and do that?” he said. “Derek was just egging you on.”

“I know, but what he
said
—”

“I heard what he said. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. What’s been going on with you two, anyway?”

The following morning broke foggy and gray, with a somberness that suited her mood. Claire looked out her window onto New Court, empty except for a few sparrows that flitted from the tree in the center to the lawn and back again. Much like her thoughts, which kept returning again and again to the events of last night.

After leaving hall, Hoddy had spirited her away to his favorite café in town for dinner. Claire had sworn to him she’d never lost her temper like that before—well, only once, anyway. She should have known better than to allow Derek Goodman to goad her like that. Twice now she’d fallen for his manipulative behavior, but this time had been worse than the first: there’d been lots of witnesses, most of whom were probably convinced that she was unstable, angry, and violent.

But she couldn’t deny that she had acted in a highly unprofessional manner. She supposed there were worse things than having a public argument and punching a man in the face, but at present she couldn’t think of any. It didn’t really matter that Derek Goodman had sorely deserved being punched. Claire asked Hoddy if it might be possible, in stereotypical English fashion, for everyone to simply pretend that it never happened?

Unhappily, Hoddy’s response was a firm no. She’d have to make a formal apology to the master and the vice-master if she wanted to be back in everyone’s good graces. She drew the line at apologizing to Derek Goodman. But she would have to let the others know she’d made a mistake, that she regretted letting her anger get the better of her, and
that it would never happen again. She wanted to ask Hoddy exactly how she should word it, but it was much too early in the day to ring him and ask.

Indeed, some mind-clearing exercise was in order. She donned her warmest workout clothes, tied on her Nikes, and headed for the Backs. The gravel and dirt paths along the river were perfect for jogging and cycling. The hours before breakfast tended to be the quietest, and she was already becoming acquainted with a number of other early-morning enthusiasts like herself. From her stay in Venice, she knew that Andrew liked to run in the morning, and she harbored a faint hope that she might see him. Certainly meeting him casually would be easier than going to his office again.

She cut across the lawn behind New Court and took Trinity Bridge over the river. She planned to run to St. John’s, then turn south to go all the way down to Queens’ College and make the loop back to Trinity. But on the path ahead, at the intersection of the Cam and a tiny stream that fed into the river, a small crowd had gathered. A few uniformed constables kept the joggers and cyclists away from a police car and a black van that had driven off Queen’s Road and onto the grass. The back doors of the van were thrown open. On the ground, medical personnel were busy strapping a man onto a gurney. Claire peered past the heads of the others watching but managed to get only a partial view. Someone must have suffered a heart attack, or perhaps a jogger had been hit by a bike. Whatever had happened, it must have been serious; she could tell just from the hushed silence of the onlookers and the solemnity of the scene. She craned her head and saw, as the paramedics lifted the gurney and walked it to the van, that the body was encased in a blue nylon body bag. Serious, indeed. A sort of sigh went through the crowd as the paramedics pushed the gurney inside and closed the doors.

As the van drove away, Claire spotted Andrew Kent on the far side of the stream. He was wearing his running gear, and he was talking with a pretty blond woman in a black raincoat, black jeans, and boots. She was almost as tall as he, and as they spoke their heads leaned together in a friendly, familiar way. Seeing him immediately brought back her
regrets about yesterday, and, oddly enough, stirred some vaguely proprietary feelings. Who was the blonde, and why was she talking to Andrew in such an intimate manner?

“All right, everybody,” one of the constables announced, “it’s time to move on. There’s nothing more to see.” With a few soft murmurs of protest, the crowd began breaking up. A woman in pajamas, a dressing gown, and knee-high Wellingtons pushed past Claire. Her face was pale and her eyes were red. At first Claire didn’t recognize her.

“Dr. Bennet,” Claire called as she quickly caught up with her. “What’s happened?”

Elizabeth stopped and looked at Claire blankly, as if she didn’t know her. Then a flicker of recognition glimmered in her dulled eyes.

“Derek Goodman is dead,” she said.

Ralph Montagu dusts his letter with powder as Arlington dismisses his clerk with a wave of his hand. Montagu waits for the ink to dry while looking out the window at the desolate view. Miserable English rain pours down on the palace courtyard, on the Banqueting House, on the offices of the king’s ministers and secretaries, stewards and masters, comptrollers and clerks; miserable English rain pours down on the workshops of barbers and carpenters and laundresses and cooks. God’s balls, Whitehall is a dismal place. Once he earns enough in bribes from his newly purchased office, he will build a house for himself in the French style such as no one in London has ever seen.

Montagu stifles a yawn. On days like today his grand future feels much too far away. He folds his letter in two and suddenly remembers that he is supposed to be meeting someone. He has little inclination to
go out in the rain. No matter, she will wait. They always do. This fact used to surprise him, but no longer.

Instead of stirring himself from his chair or going out into the inclement weather, he thinks of Mrs. Devlin. He noticed the resemblance between Hannah and her father. It wasn’t their appearance so much as the fact that they both seemed to possess lofty principles—in itself, a rare quality these days—tempered by kindness, although neither was inclined to suffer fools. He smiles to himself as he recalls the way she spoke to Sir Granville. The man might never have the courage to address a woman again—most surely a victory for womankind.

Montagu is drawn to Hannah, although she is not really his type. He regards her as a little too thin, not coquettish enough; and he generally prefers fair-haired, not dark-haired, women. Nevertheless, Mrs. Devlin has captivated him. He cannot help but like the quick understanding in her warm brown eyes. He likes even more the promise of her lush mouth; indeed, her lips are almost too full, as if in defiance of her fine-featured but angular face. A tiny fox’s face, wise and sharp, looking out from under all that raven hair. And she has something few women have: learning combined with passion. He wonders what it would be like to kiss her. Would she be equally passionate then?

A woman like Mrs. Devlin would set him down whenever she thought he deserved it, however, which makes him uneasy. Montagu knows that he deserves setting down all too often. Still, he is attracted to her. There is something in her eyes, something more than just her quick wit. He has to think for a moment before he hits on the answer: her eyes had seen too much suffering. He has never considered before how something like that could leave a person marked, but he is sure of it now. He remembers Dr. Briscoe from Paris; yes, the same eyes. Passionate, strong, perceptive. The kind of eyes it’s easy to get lost in. Montagu reminds himself that Hannah is not his type, and then it occurs to him that he may be getting tired of his type.

His meandering thoughts are interrupted when a solitary figure enters the courtyard. The man angrily strides across the rain-soaked square without hesitation, as if he were impervious to the storm, the head of steam on him noticeable even at this distance.

“Trouble this way comes,” Montagu says.

“Clifford?” Arlington asks. At Montagu’s nod, he gestures at the back of the room. “Go on,” he says, “get behind the curtains.”

“What have you done with him?” Clifford shrieks.

“Done with whom?” Arlington says.

“Osborne, of course.”

Sir Thomas Clifford has a rather pretty face, Montagu decides, even when it is red with rage. It’s not the first time he’s seen the Lord Treasurer in a temper; he habitually resorts to shows of anger in order to achieve his ends. Although no one else on the king’s privy council believes that Clifford deserves the king’s favor, he has it, and as long as he does his tirades must be endured. Although a tirade delivered soaking wet, while wearing a wig that looks like a drowned muskrat, makes his performance somewhat comical.

Arlington appears genuinely bewildered. “I’ve done something with Osborne?”

“Don’t act the fool with me, I know you too well. Osborne was supposed to be here three days ago with the money from France, and I’ve not had one word from him. What was his price, Arlington? How much did you pay him to relieve him of the king’s gold?”

“Good Lord, man, calm down.” Arlington appears genuinely concerned. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’ve got Castlemaine and Severin and that brat Monmouth all banging on my door wondering where their money is. Why don’t I send them over here so that you can explain?”

“Are you telling me that you don’t know where Osborne is—or the money? He keeps a room on Drury Lane. Have you checked there?”

“He hasn’t been seen there since he left for France three weeks ago.”

“I’ll have it looked into, then.”

Sir Thomas eyes him suspiciously. “If you’re lying, I swear to God I’ll take you down to the Devil with me. And you know very well I can.” He looks to the back of the room, where Montagu is concealed. “And that goes for you too, Montagu,” he calls. “I know you’re there. I used to
stand behind those curtains myself. Take care that you see what being Arlington’s favorite will get you—a stab in the back.” Clifford storms out, slamming the door behind him.

Montagu comes out from hiding. “You honestly don’t know where Osborne is?”

“For God’s sake, man, I am to be guilty of every black deed some idiot dreams up? I don’t have a clue where he is.” Arlington sighs. “Trouble this way comes, indeed.”