Page 60 of The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies

Sidney winced when he caught himself again checking the staircase. At the moment, he was a weakness to this mission, mooning after a girl who’d made her feelings plain enough. If Sidney had invited me, I would have laughed in his face, she’d told Finchley. I’m here with Donald. Gin was fierce and capable and didn’t need him to save her from Craddock, her damn fiancé. Their partnership was strictly platonic, and wallowing in his conflicted feelings could only bring Sidney trouble.

He forced himself to turn from the staircase.

Watkins and Neville strolled into the drawing room—or rather, Watkins strolled while Neville clung to her arm for support. The female don didn’t seem to mind helping her friend and observed the party with great interest, directing Neville’s attention toward architectural details about the room. But Dr. Neville had become a hollow shell of the quiet, even-tempered man Sidney remembered from lectures his first year. He had looked ghastly at Leland’s party and was now verging on ghostly.

Watkins brightened at the sight of Sidney and tugged Neville along to join him. “Mr. Braithwaite! I’m rather surprised to see you here. Are you trying to join Damocles?”

“No.” It came out too brusque, too abrupt, and she stared at him as though expecting more. Sidney forced himself to smile. “My friend Harold Webb is, though. I suppose I’m here for the champagne.”

“Cheers to that.” Watkins clinked glasses with him. “Nobody throws a party like the Damocles Club. Isn’t that right, Neville?”

Beside her, Dr. Neville’s posture sagged as though the champagne flute taxed his strength. Shadows underlined his already delicate cheekbones, and his face was more gaunt since Julius Caesar. He murmured something indistinguishable and wandered toward a chessboard arranged in a small study off the drawing room.

“Dr. Neville seems out of sorts,” Sidney said in a low voice.

Watkins sighed. “I don’t think he’s sleeping … or eating much, for that matter.”

“The dustup at Professor Leland’s book reception rattled me too.”

Watkins hesitated, glancing at Sidney as though remembering he was perhaps not a suitable person with whom to discuss a fellow don’s health, but then nodded. “Yes, I tried to make him stay home, but he insisted he had to put in an appearance as an old member.” She snorted. “I think Leland is the only alumnus they care about, but who am I to point out the disparity of preference to my colleague?”

A soft gong echoed from the neighboring ballroom, and the rest of the party eagerly flocked to the dance floor. Sidney swept the room again for any sign of Marion, but the throng made it hard to identify individuals. He did, however, glimpse Harold happily chatting with Iris Finchley, apparently too enamored with her to sample the appetizers, and exhaled a wee fraction of the evening’s stress.

“Are you enjoying yourself, Mr. Braithwaite?” Watkins asked.

“Yes,” he said. “A grand time.”

Watkins snorted, and Sidney realized he’d failed to mask his displeasure. “The house is impressive,” he amended. “I’ve never been anywhere like it.”

“You’re from Cumberland, yes?”

“That’s right.” The band struck up a lilting waltz, and there was a midnight-blue twinge under Sidney’s breastbone. He tried to ignore the stairs. “I went from a mining village to France, and then to Oxford. Didn’t have the time for parties like this; nor the connections, I suppose.”

Watkins shrugged. “There are many in this room who I would wager haven’t experienced a teaspoon of the life that you have. I was a nurse before I turned to teaching, and I don’t regret those years one bit. Variety breeds not so much sophistication as…” She hesitated, surveying those inside the ballroom. “Pride.”

In the study, Neville knocked a chess piece to the floor and nearly fell from his chair trying to reach it. Sidney hurried to his side and knelt to retrieve it while Watkins followed, anxiously tutting.

Neville reclaimed the piece from Sidney without acknowledging him. “Liliya would have seen through that move. I must do better.” His fingers danced across the board again, advancing pieces with a rapidity at odds with his manner.

“Liliya, sir?” Sidney asked.

Neville looked up at Sidney with an apprehensive, clouded expression.

“Liliya is fine, Sam,” Watkins said, easing him back into the chair. “Finish your game.”

Neville returned to feverishly moving pieces, and Sidney turned to Watkins. “Who’s Liliya?”

“A friend,” Watkins said shortly.

Neville mumbled at the board in Russian, and Sidney raised an eyebrow. “A foreign friend?” When Watkins’s eyes cut toward him warily, he added, “I know what it’s like to lose contact with someone. I’m sorry.”

Watkins studied him, sipping her champagne in silence, and finally shifted to stand beside him as they watched Neville play.

“He met Liliya at a tournament in Moscow,” she said softly. “Her family works for the KGB, and their communication has been strictly monitored for years.”

The redactions in Neville’s letter that Gin had translated, Sidney realized. The blacked-out portions had nothing to do with agents passing information. It was Soviet control over citizens.

“Any hope of meeting again was slim, yet Sam has clung to it like a drowning man. Only the letters grew less frequent this year, and he hasn’t heard from her in months. It was worrying him a great deal before the incident at Leland’s party; since then, it’s like he’s being driven mad.”