Page 20 of The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies

As though summoned by her ire, one of the men looked over. “Kirk!”

Marion Kirk ground her teeth. She pushed off the filing cabinet and walked in the opposite direction.

“Oh no,” the man said, “you’re not escaping so easily. I told you, none of your Commie nonsense is getting into my paper. We don’t take political stances at The Blue, even in Latin.”

Gin’s ears perked. Was Marion Kirk a known Communist sympathizer? This might be even easier than she expected.

“I’m surprised you could even read it.” Kirk yanked a jacket off the back of a desk chair. “You wanted this asinine column, and I’m doing it. Find someone else if you’re not happy with my subject matter.”

Whitby shook his copy of the paper in her face. “Change it, or I will.”

“Didn’t you nearly fail Smalls twice?” Kirk taunted. “I’d like to see you try.”

A muscle twitched in Oliver Whitby’s jaw, but it was then he noticed Ginevra. “What are you doing in here? This is a private—” he stopped, his mouth falling slightly open. “Are you Gin Bishop? The Honorable Ginevra Bishop, I mean,” he corrected with an obsequiousness that made Gin cringe.

The air around Marion Kirk thickened with surprise and distrust.

“I am,” Gin said. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

The man slicked a hand over his dark hair and grinned. “Oliver Whitby. Friend of Don Craddock. It’s a pleasure to finally meet, Don talks about you all the time.”

If Donald had been discussing their marriage prospects, Ginevra would throttle him at the first possible opportunity. “Only good things, I hope.”

“He says you’re brilliant.” Whitby’s smile lit up the dingy room. “We’re always recruiting notable voices to add to The Blue. If you ever want to write a piece, you’d go straight to the top of the submission pile.”

“You’re too kind, but I can’t imagine what I should even write about.” Gin forced a laugh. “Women’s woes finding nylon stockings?”

Kirk rolled her eyes and stabbed both arms into her jacket.

Whitby snapped his fingers. “A human-interest piece from a female perspective. I like it!”

“It was a joke,” Gin said, taken aback. “I have no desire to write about stockings. Women are already quite aware of the issue. It’s not particularly newsworthy.”

“It’s not only the information, it’s how you present it.” Whitby leaned on a desk, thumbs hooked through his suspender straps. “I’m sure most gents have never considered the issue—and it’s got sex appeal.”

“Drivel.” Kirk jammed a brown felt hat onto her head, the brim at a jaunty angle. “I’m not changing the piece about Bevan, Whitby; I don’t care how you feel about his politics. It’s relevant, it’s interesting, and you can take it or leave it. I have another meeting, so I’m done here.”

But Whitby was now fixated on Gin, and his eyes lit up further still when he noticed the paper in her hands. “Keep that and read it over. You can see the kind of stuff we do.”

Behind Whitby’s back, Kirk rolled her eyes. She stalked to a desk in the middle of the room and picked up her handbag but was accosted by Jenkins holding a fresh page. With a relish that boded ill for the man’s grammar, Kirk leaned against the desk and exchanged the handbag for her fountain pen.

It was at that moment, Gin found herself at a terrible crossroads. She absolutely did not want to turn the price of stockings into human interest with sex appeal, but this was an easy way to put herself in Marion Kirk’s crosshairs without finding new excuses to bother Tweety.

It might also put her on Kirk’s bad side.

Gin forced a smile. “I’ll think about it. Perhaps the muse shall strike when I least expect it.”

Whitby leaped off the chair and grabbed her hand, pumping it with enthusiasm. “Don said you were a brick, and he’s right. You won’t regret it, Bishop.”

Gin smoothed her mauled gloves and edged backward toward the exit. “Thank you, Mr. Whitby. I’m sure I won’t.”

Only as Ginevra hurried from the bowels of the smoky office, breathing deep the fresh air of freedom, she rather suspected the regrets would arrive soon enough.

There was still, however, an opportunity to turn this disastrous day around. Marion Kirk ought to emerge and return to Lady Margaret Hall, and Gin could follow her. If spotted, making her own way home was an easy excuse. Gin strolled to the nearest bus stop, pretending to review the newspaper, and waited. As expected, Kirk soon appeared and walked down the street—but in the opposite direction of LMH.

Gin cursed under her breath. She hadn’t considered that postgraduate students didn’t usually live in halls of residence. Following Kirk to a boardinghouse would prove more difficult if caught.

But at the corner, Kirk stopped. She turned toward a chemist’s, already closed for the evening, and appeared to address someone hidden under the shadow of its awning.