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“Have you seen him?” demanded a voice, rather less quietly than its owner likely imagined.
“No, not yet,” scream-whispered another. “You?”
“Caught a glimpse outside his office. Swoon.”
“They say he’s the Indiana Jones of archaeology.” A second conversation, a third voice. Same topic.
“Surely Indiana Jones is the Indiana Jones of archaeology,” observed voice number four in a wry drawl. “Seeing as he’s, you know. An archaeologist.”
"Please, Indiana Jones is basically a grave robber. Professor Wentworth made his discoveries without having to exploit any racist caricatures or fend off even a single Nazi.”
“Probably a relief for him, in 2021.”
Anne slipped as unobtrusively as she could through the busy corridor, navigating her way in a sea of similar conversations, head aching as it spun. Of all the archaeology departments in all the universities in all the world, she thought with a near-hysterical irony, he takes a job as the interim chair of mine. And people would not stop talking about it. Even her own father, who fifteen years ago had denied him a place on a prestigious postdoc research team, was in raptures. Likely he thought the eager young man whose nascent career he had done his best to destroy was a different Frederick Wentworth. Because there were so many in British archaeology.
Though it was more likely he simply didn’t remember the young man’s name.
And now Freddie had made a triumphant return, riding the wave of his discovery of a new species of hominid straight into the department chair her father was about to vacate. At least for the autumn term, possibly for good. He deserved it, of course. No one more. But Anne could hardly bear to contemplate it. And not only because she had harboured a tiny, fluttering little flame of a hope that she might be chosen to occupy that very chair.
“Don’t be foolish, Anne,” her father had scoffed, when she’d ventured to suggest it. “Why, you have hardly any field experience. It’s remarkable you ever became a full professor.”
At least three digs I could have gone on, Anne did not say. You prevented me each time. Eventually, I stopped applying. She held the words inside her, as she always did. There was no point in arguing with Sir Walter Elliot, PhD, CBE, when he got an idea fixed in his head.
“Not to mention that the Chair needs to be someone with presence,” chimed in Elizabeth. “Someone who can charm the Board and the donors. You’re lovely of course, Anne, you’re an Elliot, but prepossessing you are not.”
Elizabeth, who had failed to complete her own bachelor’s degree but still managed to be an expert on everything, up to and including the delicate politics of university departments. Equally impossible to argue with as their father, but at least she was right. Anne wasn’t especially prepossessing.
There had been a time, during her undergrad at Cambridge, when she’d bloomed like a flower that had germinated in the shade, when finally exposed to the light. She could remember laughing, freely and without care, cheeks pink and eyes bright. Eager and inquisitive and exited to learn. To explore.
Those days were long past.
The weak hypothesis she’d indulged herself with, that Freddie might not know she was still here, at Aquae Sulis University, Bath, fifteen years after he’d been refused and she granted admission to it, was proved false when she arrived at the department meeting and his eyes found her, immediately, the moment she stepped through the door.
“Ah, and this is my daughter, Anne,” drawled Professor Emeritus Sir Walter Elliot, who though now officially retired still considered his presence at the university essential ‘to help the new chap settle in.’
“We’re acquainted,” said Freddie drily. Those eyes bored into her, cool and unsurprised. He’d been expecting her.
“Are you indeed?” Sir Walter’s eyes narrowed on Anne’s pale face.
“Yes,” she replied, so breathily she wondered if that could really be her voice. “Same course at Cambridge.”
“Ah.” Sir Walter’s lip curled slightly. “Cambridge,” he repeated, in the same tone he might use to say paedophilia or the north of England. Going to Cambridge rather than Oxford, her family’s alma mater for generations, had been Anne’s sole teenage rebellion. A decade and a half of unflagging obedience later and Sir Walter still had not forgiven her.
“Well, I believe that’s everyone.” Sir Walter glanced about the room. “Perhaps I should remain here for this first meeting, Wentworth, just to be certain—”
“You are too kind, Sir Walter, but I can take it from here,” interrupted Freddie firmly. Anne blinked. No one spoke to her father in such a tone of voice.
Freddie didn’t wait for a response. He took the hand of the astonished Sir Walter, shook it warmly, and used the grip to steer him towards the door. “I shall of course let you know if there’s anything I need,” Freddie continued, “but I don’t foresee any issues. You have a smoothly running ship, here, Sir Walter, I’m confident I can keep her on course. Good day, sir.”
And he closed the door in Sir Walter’s face.
He turned to find every eye in the department upon him, in faces with expressions ranging from astonishment to delight. “Well,” he said. “Perhaps we should get started.”
Anne’s heart was pounding. Freddie glanced at her before he took his seat, intently, his expression unreadable. This did nothing to slow the pace of her heartbeat.
He didn’t look at her again for the rest of the meeting.
As the term got underway, Anne found that new management had not brought about much change. She simply went from cowering beneath one opprobrious gaze to cowering away from another. Not that Freddie’s gaze was ever on her, not as her father’s had always been, but she lived in fear of it being so. To see his eyes, those dear blue eyes that once had been so full of warmth and love for her—to see them now cool and expressionless, empty of every feeling when their sight fell upon her, was a thing she could not bear. She did her best to stay out of his way and mostly succeeded, though the bimonthly department meetings remained a particular species of excruciating.
One such meeting was just drawing to a close on an afternoon in late November, when after Freddie asked for any other business, Louisa Musgrove, Anne’s graduate assistant, gave a squeal and clapped her hands in excitement.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Oh, I nearly forgot. What about Secret Santa? We are doing that this year, right? Anne?”
All eyes turned to her, and Anne fought not to squirm. “Of-of course we are,” she said. In truth, she’d forgotten all about it. “We do every year.”
“Secret Santa?” Freddie repeated.
“Haven’t you heard of it?” trilled Louisa. “I suppose what with being off in the wilds adventuring as you were, you mightn’t have. It’s a gift exchange. We all put our names in a hat and then draw another person’s name. Then we buy or make a gift for that person, for Christmas. But you have to do it secretly, so they don’t know who the gifts are from. It’s such fun. Anne organises it every year.”
“Does she?” Anne did not look up but she could feel the weight of those eyes. “Well, I don’t see any reason not to continue that. Professor Elliot? You’re fine to take charge again this year?”
“Yes, of course,” Anne replied.
“Excellent. Now, anything further to discuss?”
Anne paused in front of his office door and did her best to brace herself. She squared her shoulders, drew a deep breath, then knocked. When his deep voice called out for her to enter, she took another breath and entered the room with as much confidence and self-assurance as she could muster. Which was not a very great deal, but she did her best.
“Ah.” Freddie looked startled when he saw her, then oddly flustered. “Er—Professor Elliot. Um, hello. What can I do for you?”
“I’m here about the Secret Santa.” At his blank look she rushed to elaborate. “You remember, the gift exchange? Are you interested in participating?”
“Oh, right. Yes, of course I will. Er… what do I need to do?”
“Just put your name down on this paper”—she handed him a small square—“and put it in the hat.” She waited as he wrote his name, folded the paper, and deposited it into the foolish red velvet Santa hat duly appointed for the purpose. “Once I have all the names, we’ll draw for giftees. Probably at the next meeting. You can buy or make anything you like for your person, but try to keep the cost below fifteen pounds. Preferably closer to ten.”
“I shall do my utmost,” he replied solemnly. She had the strangest sense that he was teasing her. Or would be, if teasing were a thing they did anymore.
“Right, well, er, thank you. I’ll, ah. See myself out.”
He nodded, and returned his attention to his work.
“I’m telling you, it must be him,” hissed Louisa a week or so later, in what must be recorded history’s least-inaudible whisper. She had her head together with her sister Henrietta—nominally a graduate student in the literature department, though she spent so much time in their office gossiping with Louisa that Anne was half-tempted to put her to work. “He’s the only one who didn’t know how Secret Santa is done.”
“I don’t know, Lou, don’t you think that’s kind of inappropriate?” Henrietta’s brow wrinkled in concern. “He’s the department chair and you’re a postdoc. It’d be different if you were a tenured professor, but he has control over your job. If you really think it’s him, maybe you should talk to Anne—”
Louisa shot a sidelong glance at that very Anne, who pretended to be engrossed in her paper-marking. “Don’t be silly, it’s just a game,” she replied, in a far more effective whisper. “It’s not like it means anything.”
Her tone, though, made it clear she thought it meant something very significant indeed.
“And anyway,” Louisa continued, “he’s only interim chair and it’s not likely he’ll stay. Once his fixed term is up, he’ll be straight back onto a dig. I heard he has a new one lined up in Peru. Who knows, maybe he’ll need another pair of hands there?”
“That’s rather a bold leap, from a simple book of poetry to a job in Peru,” remarked Henrietta drily. “Particularly when you’ve no idea if it’s from him or not. It could be from anyone. For all you know, it’s from Charles Hayter.”
“Perish that thought,” exclaimed Louisa, and the sisters collapsed into giggles.
Anne’s face burned but she said nothing, and kept her eyes on her work.
On the tenth of December, Anne arrived in her office to find a cream-coloured envelope with a deep red emblem propped up against her monitor. Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, the emblem proclaimed. She picked the envelope up, opened it, and frowned in bafflement at its contents.
“A reading spa!” squealed Louisa from just over her left shoulder. “Oh, fabulous! I did one of those last year, it completely changed the way I read!”
“What on earth is a reading spa?” said Anne blankly.
“Anne! Don’t tell me you’ve lived in Bath, what, fifteen years? And you’ve never done a reading spa at Mr B’s?”
“No. I’m aware of the shop, obviously, but—”
“Well then, it seems that your Secret Santa has chosen wisely.”
Anne felt intensely flustered. “Oh, but it couldn’t be a Secret Santa gift, surely,” she demurred, “it’s far too early, and I don’t think this is actually something I would li—”
“Listen,” Louisa interrupted her firmly. “You go in to the shop and they take you to a private room upstairs, give you tea and cake and talk about the books you like to read, and they have a stack of them there all ready for you, ones they think you’ll enjoy, and they talk you through their selections, and then at the end you can take away the books you want to keep. It’s fabulous. What’s not to like?”
A dozen protests died on Anne’s tongue as her mind latched onto the one thing in Louisa’s rapturous description that seemed to make no sense. “But… how do they know what books I like to read?”
“Oh.” Louisa frowned. “Well, usually when you reserve the spa date they have a few questions they ask to get an idea of where to start. Whoever arranged this for you must have answered them.” Curiosity lit in her bright eyes. “Who might know what sort books you like?”
“I’ve no idea,” said Anne faintly. “I’m not even certain I know that myself. It’s been years since I had time to read for pleasure.”
“Nonsense,” replied Louisa briskly. “You’d have time if you made some. You’re just always so busy cleaning up other people’s messes. If you ask me, a reading spa is just the thing for you.”
“But it’s this afternoon!”
“All the better. That way, you don’t have enough time to talk yourself out of it.”
The next afternoon found Anne in the faculty break room, curled on the broken-down sofa under the window with her shoes off and her feet tucked beneath her, a book in her lap. She had quite lost track of time.
“What’s that you’re reading?”
“Oh!” Anne gave a start and pressed her hand to her chest, as though by doing so she might be able to keep her heart from beating clean out of it. She looked up to see Freddie standing in the little kitchenette, making a cup of tea. He wasn’t looking at her but as they two were alone in the room there was none other he could be addressing. “It’s, er, a book,” she said.
“So I observed,” said Freddie. “Hence my question.”
“Erm. It’s a-a sort of alternate-universe 1984, in which people are able to travel into books… it sounds mad when I describe it that way, doesn’t it?”
“Not at all.”
“I’m really enjoying it, far more than I thought I might,” mused Anne. “I’d never have chosen it for myself but it was, um, recommended to me and I have to say I can’t put it down. I—” she glanced at her watch, “goodness, I had no idea how late it was! I should get back to my office.”
“Did you take a lunch break today?” inquired Freddie. The faintest smile hovered about his lips. Anne lost herself in watching it for a moment, then quickly looked away.
“I had a sandwich at my desk,” she murmured.
“So, no.” He still didn’t look at her, but she felt his admonishment. “You have, by my estimation, roughly fifteen years’ worth of lunch breaks saved up. One afternoon spent reading fiction will exhaust only a fraction of that.” He looked at her then, the merest glance but she happened to be glancing at him in the same moment and their gazes nearly caught. “I’m pleased you’re enjoying the book.”
With that, he took his tea and departed the break room, leaving behind a most befuddled Anne.
“First a book spa and now an actual spa!” Louisa clapped her hands gleefully the following week when another mysterious envelope appeared on Anne’s desk, this one containing a voucher for a day’s worth of treatment sessions at the Thermae Bath Spa. “Your Santa is going all-out!”
“But—they shouldn’t be!” exclaimed Anne, staring blankly at the voucher. “It’s supposed to be a fifteen pound upper limit!”
“You blew well through that on Mr B’s alone,” Louisa pointed out. “Look, it’s clear this person just wants you to relax and do something for yourself for a change, and I have to say I fully support their endeavours. Just roll with it, is my advice. Go. Enjoy.”
“But I can’t take an entire day to go to a spa!” Anne was beginning to feel quite uncharacteristically vexed. “It’s the middle of the week! I have work!”
Louisa airily waved this aside. “Of course you can take the day. All you have scheduled is one undergraduate lecture and some office hours. I’ll cover for you.”
“Louisa, I couldn’t pos—”
“Anne.” Louisa took her hand, gave it a reassuring squeeze, then used it to gently, inexorably, propel her towards the door. “You don’t have to handle absolutely everything by yourself. Let people help you. I’m quite a competent lecturer, you know, and I could use the practice.”
“I know, but—”
“No buts,” said Louisa firmly. “No more arguing. Go.”
The office door closed in Anne’s face.
When she returned later that afternoon, steamed and massaged and polished to a high sheen, she found Elizabeth at her desk, reclining in her chair with casual elegance and an air of profound impatience.
“Really, Anne,” she said, in a voice just shy of shrill. “I’ve been waiting here for you for nearly twenty minutes! It’s unlike you to be late. Where have you been?”
“Oh, Elizabeth, I’m dreadfully sorry,” said Anne, though the truth was perhaps not precisely that. “I was—er. Occupied. The time got away from me somewhat.”
Elizabeth stared at her, with that probing gaze of hers that always made Anne feel like a naughty child. Her lip curled. “You’re glowing,” she accused. “Are you pregnant?”
“Good heavens! No! Whatever would make you think—”
“No, of course you wouldn’t be. You’d need to have sex for that.” Elizabeth gave a high, trilling laugh designed to suggest that her remark had been a simple jolly jest, and that any offence Anne might take to it was merely evidence of her lack of humour. “Perhaps you’re ill.”
“Of course I’m not ill.” Anne observed from the corner of her eye Louisa slipping through the office door and Freddie standing just at its threshold. “I had a facial.”
Elizabeth stared. “A… facial?”
“Yes, Elizabeth, a facial. I’m certain you know what they are.” For a moment Anne thought she may have gone too far as Elizabeth’s eyes flashed with genuine anger, until she spotted Louisa giving her a discreet thumbs-up whilst concealing a smirk behind her hand.
“I think you look fabulous,” Louisa declared, loudly, when it seemed as though Elizabeth might be girding her loins for a proper riposte. “You really are glowing.” She narrowed her eyes. “You know, you’re beautiful, Anne. You hide it behind a blah hairstyle and inadequate skincare, and the less said about your wardrobe the better. But you have a wonderful face.”
Anne wasn’t sure whether to chastise her for this remark that was over-familiar even for their very informal working relationship, or to laugh at her sister’s reaction to it. Elizabeth began to sputter and choke; Anne quickly took her arm and helped her up from the chair.
“Come,” she said, “we’re running terribly late.”
Freddie was still standing just outside her office door—waiting for Louisa, perhaps, thought Anne—but she felt the heat of his gaze on her until she disappeared into the lift.
“So. A spa day.”
Anne started again, this time with a tea bag dangling half-out of her mug. Tea splashed on her hand and the already dingy countertop of the faculty break room kitchenette.
“Ah, yes,” she replied. She could feel Freddie standing behind her, not particularly close but enough to play havoc with her senses. “Someone seems to be going rather overboard with my Secret Santa.”
“Perhaps someone merely thinks you deserve to have a nice time every now and then.”
“That’s what Louisa said,” laughed Anne, “but I can’t imagine whom.”
“Can’t you?”
Anne was saved from making a reply by the arrival of Prof. James Benwick. He greeted them warmly, made himself a cup of tea, then departed again, whistling.
Anne realised too late that she should have used Benwick’s interruption to make her escape; instead she found herself once again alone with Freddie, trapped in a silence that soon grew unbearably awkward. “He—seems in high spirits these days,” she remarked, to fill it. “Benwick, I mean. I’ve always had the oddest feeling that he was nursing a secret sorrow, somehow, for as long as I’ve known him.”
“He was,” Freddie replied. “Benwick is an old schoolmate of mine and I know him well. He was married once, long ago now, to a wonderful woman whom he loved consumingly. When she died, she took most of him with her.”
“Oh!” cried Anne. “Oh, how dreadful! I never knew! Oh, the poor man, how did he bear it?”
“With great difficulty,” said Freddie. “He didn’t easily speak of his feelings, even to me, but I understood it—I understood it to be the worst kind of pain.” He swallowed visibly. Anne’s heart twisted at the care he held for his friend. She wished she could offer him comfort.
“You knew her?” she prompted instead. “What was she like?”
“She was kind. Lovely, but in a quiet way. Considerate, competent, thoughtful. Full of life, and of joy.” A shadow crossed his face as he caught Anne’s gaze and held it. “I’m pleased that Benwick is happier again,” he continued softly, lowly. “He deserves to be and I wouldn’t wish unhappiness on anyone, much less a friend. And yet he loved her so much, and I often feel… I think… a man cannot recover from such a passion, for such a woman. He ought not. He does not.”
Anne made no reply. She could think of nothing to say in response to such vehemence, such intensity, or the dear eyes that were fixed on hers as they had not been since that first day in the department meeting. She felt as though the words he spoke carried some deeper meaning, a message he wished her to understand, yet she hesitated to comprehend it for fear she might be dreadfully, devastatingly wrong. For how could he, still, after all this time?
Freddie blinked rapidly as if coming out of a daze. “But I suppose one can, in time, move on from even the greatest loss.” He dropped his gaze and stepped back, on his lips a faint, wry smile. “As it appears Benwick is beginning to. Would that we all could be so fortunate.”
And with that he nodded to her and was gone.
“A personal stylist?” Anne stared at the card, withdrawn from an envelope she’d found propped against her monitor just as the others had been, a few days later. She felt as though she’d have rather better luck in deciphering its meaning were it written in hieroglyphics, and Egyptology had never been her calling. “What—why?”
Louisa plucked the card from Anne’s fingers and her eyes lit up. “Ooh, Marianne Dashwood!” she cooed. “I’ve heard of her!”
“Of course you have,” muttered Anne. Louisa, it seemed, knew everything there was to know about book spas and spa spas and now personal stylists as well. She didn’t even seem surprised by the contents of the envelope, only impressed by the name on the card. Anne would almost suspect her of being the bounteous Secret Santa herself, except Louisa was well-known for being unable to keep a pound in her pocket if she could find a place to spend it. And this Santa must be laying out a small fortune.
“What, er, does she do?” Anne inquired.
“Well, it depends on which specific service you have, but basically she’ll help you figure out which clothing flatters you best, in style and colour, you know, and give you tips for hair and makeup. And you’d do well to listen to what she has to say, Anne, and heed her advice.” Louisa fixed her with a surprisingly effective gimlet eye. “It’s well past time you smartened up a bit.”
This was pure cheek, but Anne lacked the wherewithal to chastise her for it. “It all seems rather… superficial, doesn’t it though? To put so much effort into one’s appearance? Surely what a person does counts for more than—”
“Yes, yes, of course actions count the most,” Louisa interrupted in a tone of brisk impatience, “and character as well, naturally. But consider this, my dear Anne: unfair it may be, and sexist and shallow and anything you like, but people make assumptions based on appearance, always, and especially when it comes to women who are No Longer Young. This is a fact that you cannot change, and your disregarding it does nothing but get you dismissed and ignored when you should not be. What would you lose by dressing a bit smarter, or by having a hairstyle that flatters your face? It wouldn’t change a thing about who you are inside. But it would make the outside of you more representative of what’s within. You don’t need to look like a different person, just the best version of yourself.”
Anne wavered. Louisa made a compelling argument, and it wasn’t as though she had any objections in principle to the idea of presenting herself a bit better. She’d just never really thought about it, and didn’t quite know how.
Hence the need for a personal stylist, she supposed.
“But how can I be certain this Marianne will make me look like the best version of myself, and not like someone else entirely?” she pressed.
“Anne.” Louisa’s voice was gentle and faintly amused. “No one who’s known you—truly known you, mind—for longer than about five minutes would want you to be any different than you are. Marianne Dashwood is a well-respected professional, she knows what she’s doing. Have a little faith in your Santa’s judgment. Have they steered you wrong yet?”
“They have not,” Anne conceded.
“Well then,” said Louisa.
“Very well, then,” sighed Anne.
“…the hiring committee will begin taking nominations for a permanent chair appointment”—Anne looked up sharply—“beginning in—”
“But aren’t you staying?” she exclaimed, interrupting Freddie’s announcement quite without intending to and drawing the gaze of every eye in the department meeting, including his own. He looked up, also sharply, also involuntarily she would imagine, and their gazes clashed in a way that must surely be audible. She caught her breath as his eyes widened and his mouth fell open slightly and he, for lack of a better word, stared.
Anne could feel her face begin to heat. She was wearing a new blouse and blazer that day, and a pair of whimsical dangly earrings, with a touch of mascara on her lashes and blush on her cheeks and a new hairstyle that swept across her forehead to frame her face with wispy tendrils. All recommended by the charming and very passionate Marianne. Standing in her salon on Milsom Street the day before, Anne had been quite pleased with the effect. Now she wondered if it wasn’t all rather too much.
“Er, no.” Freddie cleared his throat, and developed an absorbing fascination with the papers on the table in front of him. “I—I have decided that when my appointment is up I’ll return to the field. I’ve enjoyed my time here very much but I feel that there may be… another, who is better suited to the duties and responsibilities of the Chair.”
He glanced at her then, the briefest flutter of his eyes, but it set Anne’s heart to racing. He couldn’t possibly mean…
Could he?
“A life coach,” groaned Anne in despair, in response to yet another card retrieved from yet another envelope. Just when she’d imagined her Santa could go no further. “What quackery is that?”
“It’s not quackery,” declared Louisa. “It’s advice, from someone who can help you approach your life differently. Be a bit more assertive, for example. Take charge for your own destiny, and so forth.”
“And how is that not quackery?”
“It’s not medicine, Anne, or magic, nor does it claim to be. It’s just… perspective.”
“Perspective on what, though?” cried Anne in exasperation. “What precisely am I meant to be taking charge of?”
“Oh, I don’t know, perhaps this golden opportunity you now have to finally become the chair of this department,” drawled Louisa. “Personally, I maintain that you’ve done more than enough already to deserve it. But you’ll never get appointed if you always stand in a corner with your shoulders hunched and never make eye contact with anyone, even when speaking directly to them. Confidence is everything, you know. I mean. Look how far it’s got your father. Isn’t he about to embark on a lecture series?”
He was. But that was not simply down to confidence, Anne thought. “My father has excellent credentials,” she pointed out. “More than enough to chair a department or lead a lecture series. And he has field experience—”
“Yes, from fifty years ago,” Louisa retorted. “He made one minor discovery and developed one theory that’s now disproved. And since then, he’s been coasting along on that reputation and on his unshakeable belief that no one is his equal.” She gave Anne a stern glare. “Tell me I’m wrong, I dare you.”
Anne could not.
“You, Anne, are clever and competent and qualified. You are excellent at archaeology and even better at managing archaeologists, which is perhaps the rarest gift of all. No one could be a better choice for the Chair. But you have to believe that, and you have to project it. This life coach will show you how.”
Anne sighed. She supposed Louisa was right. Again. After all, everything her Santa had given her thus far had enhanced her life in some way. She felt—not like a different person, but more like… like the person she was always meant to be, but had never quite learnt how. Perhaps this life coach was just the next step in fully becoming that person.
She imagined she’d soon find out.
December the twenty-third, the last working day before the holiday break and the date of the department’s Christmas do. Anne completed her marking, submitted her final grades, triple-checked that she’d done everything she needed to, then succumbed to the inevitable.
Remember, project confidence.
The party was being held, as it was every year, in one of the archaeology lecture halls. The break room being too small to accommodate everyone at once and the university being too cheap to spring for a proper restaurant meal, they made do with pushing tables together and covering them generously with food and drink—most contributed by the attendees, Anne knew—and with an ad-hoc mobile-phone-and-speaker setup to provide the music.
Despite this, or possibly because of it, the atmosphere was jolly and relaxed, the party well underway by the time Anne arrived. She snagged a glass of wine—or rather, a plastic cup of it—and forced herself not to retreat into the corner. Instead she smiled, made eye contact, and chatted lightly with her colleagues about the inconsequential things they seemed to love and she normally did her utmost to avoid discussing.
After an hour or so of successful small talk and socialising, Anne was buzzing on more than just wine, enough that when she spotted Freddie standing at the window in quiet contemplation of the quad beyond it—fading slowly into the winter’s falling dark—she moved to join him.
“So,” she said, smiling, “you’ll be off again soon, I suppose. Back adventuring, as Louisa would say.”
He returned her smile. “And you’ll be the department chair.”
“That’s far from certain,” Anne demurred. She felt more confident about her chances than she ever had before, but it wouldn’t do to tempt the fates with hubris.
“You will be, though, Anne”—she caught her breath at the way his voice caressed her name—“I’m certain of it. The way you are now, so self-assured and polished… and your pitch to the hiring committee was inspired. I’d say you were a new woman except… this is how I’ve always seen you.”
“Always… have seen?” said Anne, breathlessly. She cursed her lack of eloquence but something lit in Freddie’s eyes at her response, and he turned to face her.
“Always,” he said softly. “I came to Bath because I knew you were here and I hoped—well, to see you defeated, I suppose. To show you how I had triumphed without you. But when I saw you, wilted beneath the weight of your father’s oppression and taken for granted by every single person in this bloody department—I found I couldn’t bear the sight.”
Anne could not look away from him, from the softness in his eyes and in his confession. She could produce no words, but fortunately, this time at least, none seemed to be required.
“I have been weak, I admit it, and resentful,” Freddie continued. “Unjust, to you and I dare say even to myself. All these things I have been but never, never inconstant. In all my life I have loved none but you. I know now that I never will.”
“You—you were my Santa,” Anne cried, in a rush of realisation.
He nodded. “I was.”
Anne found that she was clutching his hand tightly in her own; she had no notion of when they had joined but equally no intention of letting his go. She wished she could fling herself into his arms as she had done so often in their youth, and press kisses to his cheeks and his nose and his lips—his lips—but the party was in full swing around them, all their colleagues—hers at least—and so she could do nothing but cling to his hand in a desperate grip and pray he understood what she intended to convey by it.
He did. She saw it in his face and in his dear, dear eyes, felt it in the insistent press of his thumb on the back of her hand.
“You did all this,” she whispered, “all this, for me.”
“You did it, Anne. I just gave you a tiny shove in the necessary directions. The success of the endeavour is all on you.”
“But however did you know what directions were necessary?”
“Ah.” He looked wry. “At first my intent was only for you to enjoy yourself a bit, with the spas, you know, but then Louisa gave me a few ideas—”
“Louisa!”
“Oh yes.” He was smiling now, the wide, carefree smile she remembered so well. “She figured out quite quickly that your Santa was me.”
“But…” Anne struggled to take this in. “I heard her say… she was convinced you were her Santa!”
“Perhaps at the beginning, but not for long,” said Freddie. “She soon divined, as many of us did, that her Santa was Benwick all along.”
Anne considered this—the books of poetry Louisa’s Santa had given her, the invitations to gallery exhibitions and concerts. They weren’t Freddie’s interests at all but—“Benwick,” she mused, with a shake of her head. “Of course. It seems obvious now.”
“Yes,” Freddie agreed. “He had taken a fancy to her and saw the Santa as an opportunity to test whether they had any real compatibility. Which, it seems, they do.”
Anne glanced at the corner of the room where Louisa and Benwick were tucked away, looking most confidential and very cosy.
“So it seems,” she said. “But he really shouldn’t have done so much and neither should you. You’ve set a dreadful precedent for future Santas.”
These words, though lightly spoken, recalled them both to the reality of their situation, and how soon circumstances would part them yet again.
“You must know that I—return your feelings,” said Anne, haltingly. “Every one of them, with all my heart.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“But I would never ask you to stay, if you didn’t wish to. I would never want you to give up anything for me.”
“I’m committed to this dig now, anyway, it’s too late to back out.”
Anne’s heart sank. Perhaps she had wanted him to give it up for her after all.
“However,” Freddie continued, “there is room for another expert archaeologist. Perhaps you’d care to come with me?”
“Oh!” gasped Anne. “Oh, but I couldn’t—could I? I’m about to be—at least I think I am—”
“About to be appointed department chair, yes indeed I believe you are. But you’ll still have the summer free, won’t you?”
“I will. But—”
“The dig starts in April, I can stay in Bath until then. And when the spring term ends, you can join me in Peru. Get some of that field experience your venerated father so enjoys holding over your head.”
Anne’s world, so narrow and confined just a few months ago, now widened, burst open in a blaze of colour, like that neglected flower when it finally feels the sun. She could have this, she realised. It could all be hers, everything she’d ever dreamt of and so much more.
And as she looked up into Freddie's dear, familiar eyes, now so warm and soft with love for her, she knew—
At last she had the courage to take it.
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