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I’d left Holden in the library, figuring a permanently early-thirties vampi
re 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.
