Sophie left the mansion at Folly Bridge in panic, pedalling furiously all the way. Safely back in college, she plunged herself into the quietest corner of the library and stayed there alone till long past supper. It wasn’t anger, hurt or disappointment that stung. Those had been brief. She felt contaminated, almost guilty; for she had wanted to accept the Ramli devil’s proposition.
Ruminating in the library stacks, at first she thought of telling somebody—Joanna, Marcus, the police? But what would she say? What had really happened? Nothing she could explain clearly. A mysterious, impeccably mannered foreign millionaire had offered her an obscene amount of money to play founder member of his English harem.
But the shame of temptation was eating her alive. The money still lurked there, hanging in front of her eyes in great abstract wads of cash. One hundred thousand Ramli riyals! One hundred and eighty two thousand pounds could have been mine, could still be mine!
And had his request really been that offensive? Sophie couldn’t quite stifle a lingering suspicion that the proposition was not meant to be taken seriously. Maybe it was just some sort of test, a ploy to check her reactions? If it was, she had failed.
And then again, what if his proposition was meant to be taken literally? She didn’t have to feel guilty about accepting his terms. She was being asked to become a kept mistress; what was so shameful or unusual about that? If anything, she should feel a little flattered that such a powerful and wealthy man, with his talk of diplomats and big business, had singled an ignominious university undergraduate out for such attention. And he was certainly handsome enough, too, even if his cold, off-hand manner was not instantly seductive.
But she hated herself for thinking that way. It was all wrong. Was she so desperate that she would let herself be bargained for like a high-class slut, some chattel for a sexist, deviant pseudo-Arab? No, No, NO! Never.
‘Where’ve you been all day?’ Joanna asked Sophie when she finally returned home long after nine o’clock. ‘And how did the interview go?’
‘Oh, not bad really. But I won’t know for a while whether I got the grant or not,’ Sophie lied, busying herself with the festering dishes in the kitchen sink, while Joanna pumped her with questions about the interview. Sophie fed her housemate a story about appearing before the selection committee of a reputable educational trust and reckoned she had soon convinced Joanna that there was little more to report.
Joanna yawned unenthusiastically.
‘Well, let’s keep our fingers crossed. And by the way, Marcus has been looking for you all afternoon. He’ll probably come round later.’
Sophie cupped her head in her hands.
‘Oh, please do me a favour and ask him not to come. Tell him I’m sick or something.’
Joanna looked at her friend curiously. ‘Are you all right? Has something happened? I say, you haven’t met someone else, have you, Soph?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Sophie huffed, escaping the kitchen just as Lucy, her other housemate, arrived to hear about her interview. This wasn’t the time for coffee and confidences. She was behind with work, she told them. It was time for her to go to her room.
Sophie slept fitfully that night and woke early the next morning. Unwashed and without make-up, she set off in her jogging things for a long walk, heading down the Iffley Road towards the Isis and the towpath. The mist was soothing, and she remembered similar mornings last winter when she and Marcus had woken early in his Christ Church rooms to jog to the river for rowing.
But it was not Marcus she wanted to see now. It was the house by Folly Bridge, that magical domain full of secrets, fascination and the prospect of treasure. The moral victory had been hers, but the stranger had snared her enough to make her desperate for a last, sneaky look from the safety of the opposite bank. She wanted to live for a few moments in a world of might-have-beens, a world where she would have been able to finish her studies, get the job she wanted, help out her hopelessly impecunious mum.
It took her twenty minutes to get there. From this side of the river the house looked even more enchanting. Curls of river mist fudged the sand-brown colour of the walls. Lights were on downstairs and above. She could make out a figure silhouetted against the window of the furthest room to the right on the second floor. It had to be him.
Sophie felt suddenly cold. Pulling up the hood of her rowing jacket, an irrational fear seized her. She began to run, steadily at first, then as fast as she could go, right at Folly Bridge, then up St. Aldates, all the way to Christ Church. She went in past the Porters’ Lodge, turned right, and walked across the front quad. Marcus still had rooms in college. It was not yet eight. He would still be there, nice and warm in bed.