Perhaps it was the strange presence of a woman inside the college that made him frown. Perhaps it was that I was drawing the attention of his students and causing a disturbance. Or perhaps he recognized what I did, looking at him. My face was a younger, feminine copy of his own. In any case he did frown, very deeply, and then cast a look of distinct disapproval at Dominic.
“Are you going to go speak to him?” I asked Dominic, who still hovered by the archway.
“I’m not meant to be here,” he said. “No more than you are. I hoped he’d come speak to us—ah, here—”
The professor—my father—was coming toward us, still frowning. He stepped past us, out of the archway so that he was no longer visible from the hall.
“Is something wrong at the laboratory?” he asked Dominic, his eyes gliding over me with discomfort.
“No, sir, I only came to tell you the substance is ready, but this young woman was asking for you at the gate. Miss Hope.”
Vellacott turned to me, and if he had seemed stiff before he had gone rigid now. He stared at me for a long moment, his dark eyes wide with shock.
“Miss—Miss Hope—?”
“Theosebeia Hope,” I said, and sank into a shallow curtsy. “I believe you knew my mother, Marguerite Hope. Do you remember her?”
“I—” Professor Vellacott recovered himself enough to lower his eyes. “I did. Certainly I do. She—is she here?”
He looked alarmed at the idea.
“No, sir,” I reassured him quickly. “She is in France. But I had to leave her there. I find myself in need of a place to stay.”
“And she sent you here?” Vellacott’s frown deepened. “I can’t imagine why. I suppose—”
He looked at me again, disquiet behind his disapproval.
“Dominic, see Miss Hope to the inn.” He bowed to me. “Miss Hope. We may speak—” He hesitated long enough to betray his distress at the prospect. “Later.”
He went back into the warm glow of the dining hall, and Dominic went quickly to the door. I followed him across the quad, forcing down the unruly feelings that tightened my throat and chest. I was grateful, now, that Dominic seemed so determined to look only at the ground. Perhaps he wouldn’t notice my trembling hands and twisting mouth.
Back at the gatehouse, Dominic lifted my trunk more easily than I expected, and the porter opened the gate to let us out. He said goodbye politely, and with evident relief.
The great door shut behind us with a clang. I had been inside half an hour, at most, and the whole time everyone who saw me had been wishing me out.
Except Dominic. He shot me a keen glance that might have been sympathy, then looked back at the cobbled ground.
“Professor’s got a room rented at the Tackley Inn.” He nodded up the road. “Not far.”
We set off toward it, and I let the brisk air and exercise loosen my tight chest and steady my shaking hands.
“Why does he stay at an inn?” I had hoped my father was better established than a rented room would suggest, though of all my hopes to be disappointed today, this looked likely to be the least. “Doesn’t he have a house?”
“No house. Fellows usually live in the college if they aren’t married. But the professor gave his rooms to a visitor of his.”
I eyed Dominic, easy to do when there seemed so little danger of him looking up. Other than the poor posture, there wasn’t much to distinguish him from all the young men we’d just left behind. I remembered what he’d said when we were there.
“Why aren’t you supposed to be in the college dining hall?” I asked. “Aren’t you a student?”
“No,” said Dominic. “I’m not enrolled. Can’t be.”
“Why not?”
“Costs money, for one thing,” he said. “And I’m a Catholic.”
“Are you?” This was just interesting enough to distract me from my own painful feelings. “I didn’t think there were many of those left in England. Are you Irish?”
I supposed that might explain the squashed accent. I had assumed he was hiding a London slum argot, but perhaps it was in fact an Irish brogue.
“No,” said Dominic shortly. “English Catholic. Church of England didn’t stamp us all out.”
“It’s harder to do than you’d think, isn’t it?” I mused. “You can still find the occasional Protestant in France as well.”
“Is that where you’re from?” He said it with a glimmer of interest, the first he had shown in me.
“I suppose it is.” I laughed, and Dominic glanced at me for another fleeting moment. He did have very nice eyes, when one managed to get a glimpse of them. Warm brown and very serious. “Though in France, I always said I was from England. I was born here, but all I remember is France.”
“You don’t have an accent,” said Dominic.
“I learned English from my mother,” I said. “French, too.”
Thinking of her was as painful as thinking of my father. I frowned.
For a moment I thought Dominic might say more. He looked as though he wanted to, but instead he turned left onto a wider and busier street. The buildings were fronted with shops here, and in a few yards Dominic stopped in front of a bookseller’s. We passed through an archway into a very narrow, covered alley. I followed Dominic up two flights of stone stairs and watched him set down the trunk and try the door at the top.
“It’s locked,” he said, and frowned. “I should have thought to ask for the key.”
“He should have thought to give it,” I said.
Dominic glared at the doorknob. “You could come down to the tavern until he gets back. I imagine you’d like supper.”
I was on the verge of denying it, out of habit. My mother always forgot to eat, too absorbed in her work, and found it disappointing when I preferred regular meals. But I was hungry, in fact, and there was a pleasant smell of bread coming from across the alley.
“I would, yes.” The words came out sounding defiant, and I glanced at Dominic in case he found it strange. He could have no idea whom I was defying by admitting a strong preference for food over hunger.
He lugged the trunk down the stairs again and down another set under the first floor. The tavern, it turned out, was a spacious vaulted cellar, sparsely inhabited, dotted with tables between the stone arches. Dominic pulled out a chair for me at one of them, then went to the bar in the back. I looked around while I waited and quickly noticed that I was the only woman here, as well. The few patrons were men, gentlemanly in appearance, but not in manners. They stared at me openly. I assumed my most forbidding expression, one I had practiced often on my mother’s last patron before the Comte. It was a mixture of contempt and boredom that had usually frozen him quite effectively. I was still wearing it when Dominic came back, which perhaps explained why he left an empty chair between us and didn’t try to make conversation.
A boy brought us a platter of food, some roast beef and boiled potatoes. After a few moments of attentive eating, I started to feel more warmly toward Dominic, despite the ill-mannered way he hunched over his plate.
“Thank you for supper,” I said. He nodded, mouth too full to reply.