By early September Marten had gone to Jura again and had been invited to the Rothfels home, where Rebecca was spending more and more time and where, Gerard Rothfels confided, she was beginning to feel increasingly like family. He hoped that at some point she might move in with them to take care of the children as a kind of full-time au pair.
And with Jura close by, and Rebecca able to continue her sessions with Dr. Maxwell-Scot, by the end of September she had. It was a move that not only underscored the enormous strides she had made and gave her a huge boost of confidence, but came with an additional benefit. In their determination to give their children a complete education, the Rothfels employed private tutors several days a week to give the children lessons in piano and foreign languages, and Rebecca was invited to partake of both. The result was an introduction to the discipline of classical music and a marked elevation of her language skills.
For Nicholas and Rebecca the change over barely half a year had been extraordinary. In both, there had been growth and healing and independence. For Marten had come the further delight that, while his relationship with Lady Clem out of necessity remained secret from anyone but Rebecca, Clem had become not only his best friend but Rebecca’s as well. It made for an almost familylike comfort that was warm and loving and a feeling he could only remember from years before when he and Rebecca had been children.
Little by little the horror of the past was fading and wholly new lives, safe and happy, were taking root. In much the same way John Barron had given way to Nicholas Marten, the life of the homicide detective had morphed into that of a graduate student in search of green and order and tranquil beauty.
17
THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER, WHITWORTH HALL. SUNDAY, DECEMBER 1. 4:10 P.M.
Winter howls and “the pieces” still lie dormant, Marten wrote in his journal. Eight months and no sign of Raymond’s purpose whatsoever.
Nicholas Marten had come to England on April first, and now, nearly three-quarters of a year into British society, he still did not know how to hold a teacup properly. Yet today he was expected not only to hold it but to carry it, and the saucer beneath it, around a large room, stopping to sip from it every now and then as he was introduced to this person and that.
For a foreigner the formality of an English four o’clock tea and the inevitable proper small talk that went with it was difficult enough, but add to it a place as official and venerable as Whitworth Hall and pack it with several hundred supercilious guests invited to make acquaintance with the incoming chancellor of the university—among them the vice-chancellor; members of the Court, the university’s supreme governing authority; any number of university directors, deans of faculty, and professors; and local political power brokers such as the Bishop of Manchester and the city’s Honorable Lord Mayor—and the idea became more than uncomfortable, it bordered on the horrifying, especially for a man who wanted nothing of the public limelight whatsoever.
Under other circumstances Marten might have been less concerned about his lack of refinement, Tetley savoir faire, or even public presence and simply kept in the background and passed the time as best he could. But this was different. He was there because Clem had invited him and because, as he had just learned, her father would be there. How conveniently she had devised their meeting.
Meeting her father was something he had successfully avoided for those same eight months—made easier in a way because most of the old man’s time was spent in London, and dodging him when he did come to Manchester was done under the pretext of being crushed with university work or the coincidence of an already planned trip out of the city, say to Paris to visit Dan and the now-pregnant Nadine Ford.
It wasn’t so much that Marten wanted to avoid the man, it just seemed the wisest thing to do. Social standing aside, or his reputation as a fiery, abrupt, demanding man who spoke his mind, expected you to speak yours, and then immediately demolished you once you had done it—there was something else, the nature of their relationship. Or, more particularly, the secret nature of their relationship. They had been lovers since that day in London and yet, with the exception of Rebecca and Dan and Nadine Ford, no one knew and no one could know. As Clem had said before, copulation between students and professors was strictly forbidden, so it had to be done in secret, and for eight months it was. Naturally, meeting any parent under those circumstances would be somewhat awkward, especially when it was the first time and particularly when the parent, not to mention the rest of the university-at-large, was unaware of what was going on.
What pushed it past difficult was her father’s position as a ranking member of the university Court. That Robert Rhodes Simpson, Earl of Prestbury, was a member of the House of Lords and a Knight of the Garter didn’t help either.
“Afternoon, sir.” Marten nodded at a familiar face and, balancing his teacup on its saucer, moved on across the great stone cathedrallike hall that was filling by the moment with suits darker and more sober than his and with people of much higher ranking than the lowly graduate student he was. Another sip of tea. It was cold now, and the milk in it nearly made him gag. He was a coffee man, hot and strong and black, as he’d always been. He looked around. Still no sight of them. Suddenly he wondered why he was even there, his stomach in knots, putting himself through all this. He swore he didn’t know.
Well, yes he did.
She’d blackmailed him into it at a quarter to midnight three days earlier during one of her usual and impressive performances of oral sex. Suddenly she’d stopped and looked up when he was all sweaty and quaking with exhilaration and invited him there. The manner of her gaze and the tone of her voice—while holding his penis in one hand like a bulging Popsicle and keeping her mouth breathing only inches away—made it perfectly clear that if he didn’t agree to come to tea at Whitworth Hall Sunday afternoon, he wouldn’t be coming at all. Considering her timing, it was hardly a decision to be fussed over, and he’d immediately agreed. It had been a teasingly wicked thing to do, but it was also the kind of bawdy humor that was built into her and one of the reasons he loved her. Besides, it had seemed innocent enough at the time; he assumed she simply hadn’t wanted to spend a long two or three hours alone in the company of academics. He hadn’t known then about her father.
“Good afternoon.” He nodded to another familiar face, then looked past him, scanning the ocean of dark suits holding teacups and munching little cakes and cucumber sandwiches, looking to see if Clem and her father had arrived.
Not yet. Not that he could see. If they were there, they were elsewhere in the building perhaps with father holding court with the Lord Mayor or the bishop or vice-chancellor. It was a moment in which he realized he still had time to escape. An excuse could be made up later. All he had to do was put down the teacup and saucer and find an exit door as quickly as possible. That it was raining cats and dogs outside, or that it had been raining in Manchester almost every day since he’d been there, didn’t matter. He’d had no raincoat then, he had no raincoat now. All he wanted was out. Father could be met at some time in the distant future.
There it was, a side table. Carefully, he set down the cup and saucer, then turned, looking for a way out.
“Nicholas!”
His heart caught in his throat. It was too late. They had come in through a side door and were making their way toward him through the crowd. There was no mistaking “Father.” He was in his early sixties, tall and very fit, and very tweedy in his perfectly tailored London-cut suit, just as Nicholas had seen him on television and in the newspapers, and in the photograph she kept on her dressing table. A powerful man of immense aristocratic bearing, he had sharply chiseled features, coal black eyes, and dazzling curly gray hair that matched perfectly his great bushy eyebrows.
“Okay,” he said to himself, “deep breath, take it easy, make the best of it.”
He saw the sparkle in her eye as they reached him and knew right away she thought the whole thing was sheer, devilish, if dangerous, fun.
&nb
sp; “Father, I would like you to meet—”
Father didn’t let her finish.
“So, you are Mr. Marten.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you are a graduate student.”
“Yes, sir.”
“School of Planning and Landscape.”
“Yes, sir.”
“American.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How do you find my daughter as an educator?”
“Challenging, sir. But very helpful.”
“I understand that from time to time you employ her as a personal tutor.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
“I need it.”
“You need it. What is ‘it’?” The old man’s glare cut him in half, as if he knew everything.
“It—tutoring. There are things, terms, processes, manners of approach that as a foreigner I don’t quite understand. Especially as they apply to European sociology and the psychology of landscape.”
“You know how I am called?”
“Yes, sir. Lord Prestbury.”
“Well, you are learning some of our ways.” Suddenly his black eyes shifted to his daughter. “Clementine, will you please leave us.” His order was both abrupt and unexpected.
“I—” Lady Clem glanced at Marten, surprise and apology written all over her. Quickly she looked back to her father. “Of course,” she said. Her eyes darted to Marten once more, then she turned and was gone.
“Mr. Marten.” Robert Rhodes Simpson, Earl of Prestbury, Knight of the Garter, fixed his eyes on those of Nicholas Marten. He crooked a finger. “Come with me.”
18
“Whiskey. Two glasses. And the bottle,” Lord Prestbury said to a plumpish, red-faced young man in a starched white jacket standing behind a heavy oak bar in what was a very secretive tavern somewhere in the bowels of the Whitworth Hall complex. So secretive that at the moment, the three were the only ones there.
Moments later Lord Prestbury and Nicholas Marten sat down at a small table toward the back, the two glasses and a bottle of Lord Prestbury’s private-label single-malt scotch between them.
To Marten there was no question as to why they were here. Lord Prestbury knew about his relationship with his daughter, was sickened by it, and was determined to end it right then and there, probably by threatening to have Nicholas expelled from the university if he put up a fight. It was easy to understand. Nicholas Marten had no title, no blue-blooded family, and no money, and, worst of all, he was an American.
“I have only just met you, Mr. Marten,”
Lady Clem’s father poured three fingers of whiskey in each glass, then looked up and let his eyes bore into the young man across from him.
“I have been accused of being abrupt. That is because I say what is on my mind. It’s the way I am and I don’t know if I would correct it if I could.” Lord Prestbury suddenly picked up his glass, drained half the whiskey with one swallow, then set the glass down and once again let his eyes cut into Marten’s.
“That said, I wish to ask you a direct and personal question.”
Just then the great oak door they’d entered through opened and two other members of Court entered. They nodded toward Prestbury and then went to the bar. Prestbury waited for them to engage the barman, then looked to Marten and lowered his voice.
“Are you porking my daughter?”
Jesus Christ! Marten’s eyes went to the glass in front of him. Abrupt and to the point was right. The old man knew. Now he was demanding confirmation.
“I—”
“Mr. Marten, a man knows if he is porking or not. And to whom he is slipping the old nail. The answer is simple. Yes or no?”
“I—” Marten’s fingers circled his glass and he picked it up and drained it.
“You have known her for eight months. She is why you are at university. Correct?”
“Yes, but—”
Lord Prestbury stared, then refilled both their glasses.
“My God, man, I know the story. You met her at the Balmore, where you had brought your sister for treatment. You had been hurt in an industrial accident and were pondering what to do with the rest of your life. Landscape design was a lifelong dream and, at Clementine’s urging, you decided to pursue it.”
“She told you this?” Marten was astounded. He had no idea Lady Clem had told her father anything about him except that he was one of her students.
“No, sir, I made it up. Of course she told me.” Suddenly Lord Prestbury’s hand shot across the table and grabbed Marten’s, his coal-black eyes boring into him once more.
“I am not here to cause you trouble, Mr. Marten. I am gravely concerned about my daughter. I know I don’t see her often. Certainly not often enough. But she is nearing thirty years old. She dresses like a dowdy matron from an era even before mine. I know the rules of the university, far better than you, I’m sure. No bedding between teacher and student. Good rule. Necessary rule. But by God, she talks about you as if you were her best friend in the world. And that is what I am worried about. And why I must know, between gentlemen, if you are pumping her or not.”
“No, sir—” Nicholas Marten lied. He had no intention of falling into one of the old man’s infamous traps. Pleading for a truthful answer and then slamming him with his own admission.
“No?”
“No.”
“Oh, Jesus, man.” The Earl of Prestbury let go of Marten’s hand and sat back. As quickly he leaned forward again.
“For the sake of God, why not?” he said in a harsh whisper. “Is she that unattractive?”
“She’s extremely attractive.”
“Then what is wrong? By now she should have been a mother twice over at least.” Lord Prestbury picked up his glass and took another strong pull at the whiskey.
“Alright,” he said with sudden resolve, “if it’s not you, do you know of some chap who is boffing her?”
“No, sir, I don’t. And with all respect, I find it very difficult to continue this conversation. If you will please excuse me—” Marten started to get up.
“Sit down, sir!”
The two members of Court looked over from where they stood at the bar. Slowly Nicholas Marten sat back down. Then, his eyes fearfully on Lord Prestbury, he picked up his glass and took a large sip of the scotch.
“You don’t understand, Mr. Marten.” Lord Prestbury was clearly upset. “As I have said, I don’t spend much time with my daughter, but in all her years at Manchester she has only twice brought a man home. And not the same man either. My wife is thirteen years dead. Lady Clementine is my only child. I am becoming deathly afraid that as a single parent—Order of the Garter, House of Lords, noble rank and proud and ancient lineage bloody aside, I have raised—” the Earl of Prestbury leaned even closer and whispered, “a Leslie.”
“A what?”
“A Leslie.”
“I don’t understand.” Marten took another pull of the scotch and held it, waiting for whatever was next.
“A lesbian.”
Marten reacted suddenly, swallowing the whiskey he held in his mouth. The rush of straight scotch nearly choked him and he coughed loudly, bringing them the sharp attention of the two men at the bar. Lord Prestbury ignored it all, only stared at Marten.
“I pray you, sir, tell me she is not,” he said fearfully.
Nicholas Marten’s response, whatever it might have been, never came, because at that same moment every bell in the entire Whitworth Hall fire alarm system erupted.
19
Marten lay in the dark watching Lady Clem as she slept—nude, the way she always did when they were together—her body rising and falling ever so gracefully as she breathed; her grand mane of chestnut hair in a gentle tumble to her jawline; her skin milky white; her breasts, large and firm, with the big areolas around the nipples he so particularly liked. The only child of the Earl of Prestbury might dress and act like a plain and dowdy matron, but that was for England and the university and for se
lf-protection. Beneath the dark folds of the conservative dresses she wore almost as a uniform was the figure of an exceptionally well endowed and beautiful woman who, even at the age of twenty-seven, could well have been any magazine’s centerfold.
Lord Prestbury had no cause for concern about his daughter’s sexual orientation, although she would have been no less striking as a lesbian. She was bright and sexy and handsome, and at the moment held the innocent expression of a child, as if she were soundly asleep with a stuffed animal cuddled in her arms.
Innocent?
Lady Clementine Simpson, daughter of the Earl of Prestbury, was absolutely mischievous, wildly profane, and wholly without remorse when necessity called. Barely six hours earlier they had stood with her father and God knew how many highly prominent others beneath hastily grabbed umbrellas in a bone-chilling rain outside Whitworth Hall watching as dozens of firemen from the Greater Manchester Fire Service, sirens blaring, arrived full-bore at the scene. With police holding onlookers back, the firefighters rushed forward donning masks and breathing apparatus and bravely entered the treasured building expecting to encounter a cauldron of flame and choking smoke. What they found instead was little more than the silent remains of a rapidly abandoned afternoon tea. Someone, it seemed, had chosen the occasion of greeting the university’s new chancellor to sound a false alarm.