Though now that the cat was out of the proverbial bag and running around the tiny, hot room, I supposed it helped me in that I didn’t have to find an awkward way to tell Dr. Holmes myself. “It’s true,” I said simply. “I was planning to tell you this week.”
“Forgot where my office was?” Sarcasm always sounded a little more sarcastic from an English accent, but also less mean and more appealing.
“My apologies. I’ve been...busy.” I refused to back down, however. I was prepared with my argument. I straightened my shoulders and looked Dr. Holmes in the eye. “The fact is that I’ve spent months preparing and I don’t want to see my hard work go to waste.” There, that was true. How could he argue with that?
“I see,” Dr. Holmes intoned. “Who is your new partner?” It was so like him to get right to the point.
“A friend. I’m teaching him.” I hoped my voice sounded casual but confident.
Dr. Holmes’ white eyebrows hitched up. “Not another professor or one of the members of the Austen Society?”
“No.” I swallowed and stared down at the papers on my desk. I knew the question coming next. Dr. H wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to pose any serious competition for Harrison and Lacey.
“What does this...friend...do for a living?”
There it was again, the judgey snobbery I’d begun to despise in myself and others. I lifted my chin. It took everything in my power not to tell Dr. Holmes that Jeremy was an engineer with a master’s degree from Stanford. It didn’t matter, and I shouldn’t care. “He’s a woodworker. A custom woodworker.”
“I see. Does he know anything about Austen?” The word Austen always sounded so much better with an English accent too, whether fake or real.
“Not much more than the average educated person off the street,” I admitted. There. How was that for honesty and the absence of snobbery? Though even I had to admit to myself that a part of me was hoping to make them think Jeremy and I didn’t stand a chance so they would have their guards down and then we could swoop in and beat their asses.
“Hmm.” Dr. Holmes crossed his arms over his chest. He continued to do his best to pace. It continued to be awkward. I wondered briefly if he was getting nauseated. I would be. “I see.”
We both knew that used in that particular context, “I see” meant, “You don’t have an ice cube’s chance in Hades.”
“Dr. Knightley, I know you’ve been angling for tenure for some time now.”
I froze, my hand arrested on my coffee mug. Ice water poured through my veins. “Yes.” I nodded. And swallowed.
Dr. Holmes stopped pacing and folded his arms behind his back. He faced my desk and rocked back and forth on the heels of his badly worn loafers. His weird hat cast a shadow over his face. “I’d hate to see anything compromise that.”
I took a deep breath and set my jaw. I’d also prepared myself for this moment over the past week. “Are you implying that if I go to this competition, my tenure will be in danger?”
“I’m not implying anything,” Dr. Holmes said in a smooth, cold voice. “You’re more than welcome to participate in the competition. Winning, however, is another matter entirely. I’m certain you realize that the best thing for this department and Everton as a whole is for Dr. Macomb and Miss Lewis to win. We both know they have a strong chance. I’d hate to see anything jeopardize that. Especially one of our own.”
Chapter 17
Tuesday night
Jeremy was in the dressing room in Mitchell’s store, trying on his Regency clothing, when Mitchell leaned over the glass countertop toward me and said in a singsong Southern accent, “Guess who was in here this morning?”
I leaned down to pat Ms. Julia on the head and replied in the same singsong, “I can’t imagine.”
“Your ex, Professor Plum.” Mitchell scooped up the dog and held her under one arm.
I shook my head and tried not to smile. “That’s not his name. And he’s not my ex.” I hadn’t even had a chance to speak with Harrison since our encounter at the restaurant. I’d been busy preparing for the competition with Jeremy, and presumably Harrison had been busy doing the same thing with Lacey. We’d texted a couple of times. Halfhearted, boring things like:
Him: How was your day?
Me: Busy.
Him: Mine too.
Nothing of importance, and I hardly thought a text message was the place to ask Harrison why he hadn’t defended my black maxi dress. In fact, when I thought of it like that, the whole thing seemed petty and unimportant.
“I don’t care what his name is,” Mitchell continued. “It’s fun to say Professor Plum, and he should be your ex. I’d toss him over in a hot minute for Hunky back there.” He leaned farther over the counter and stared toward the back as if trying to see into Jeremy’s dressing room.
I hadn’t even told Mitchell what had happened at the restaurant. “Stop it.” I slapped at his sleeve. “Hunky and I have nothing in common.”
“You grew up together, didn’t you? Both went to the same high school? That’s something in common.”
I put a fist on my hip. “Do you have a point?”
“Yes. Professor Plum was with that actress of his and they were not getting along.”
“Reeeeeally?” I leaned in closer, propped an elbow on the counter top, and planted my chin atop my fist. “What happened?”
A catlike grin spread across Mitchell’s face. “I thought y’all might be interested.”
I waved my free hand in the air. “There’s only one of me. Now spill.”
“Well...” He came around the counter and took a seat on one of the tufted stools next to me, Ms. Julia still under his arm. “Lacey Lewis was telling him she didn’t like half of his outfits, and he was telling her that you’d picked them out, and she was saying that you’d probably picked them out just to sabotage their chances, and he pointed out that you’d picked out everything before you knew you wouldn’t be his teammate, and she said he always sticks up for you, and he said that it had been really hard on you to have to let go of the chance at winning, and she said it couldn’t have been too hard or you wouldn’t have decided to get another partner.”
Hmm. I digested all of that for a few seconds. At least Harrison had apparently defended me a little. That was something. “Did they ask if you’d met my partner?”
“Of course, sister.” Mitchell looked at Ms. Julia and shook his head as if commiserating with the dog about the fact that I’d asked that question.
“What did you tell them?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“That he’s a total f.o.x. Then I told Professor Plum he’d better watch that you don’t take off with such a fine man.”
“You didn’t?” I smothered my laugh with my fingers.
“He said they’d seen you the other night at Orsay.”
I nodded. “That’s true.”
Mitchell nodded sagely. “So he knows I’m not lying about the fox thing. And I could totally tell girlfriend agreed. She might be a stuck-up Hollywood type, but she knows from good-looking.”