was going to be a great year after all.
Back at home, Theresa was putting the finishing touches to her signature chocolate fudge cake. It was Theo’s favourite, and she’d spent the entire afternoon baking it, neglecting her book, in the hope of cheering him up. He’d disappeared after breakfast this morning in a foul mood, mumbling something about going into college, and hadn’t so much as texted her since.
Staring out of the kitchen window at the snowy front garden, Theresa watched a little robin hop tentatively across the lawn, eyeing the bird feeder in her apple tree.
Poor thing. I forgot to fill it. Theo was always getting cross with her for her forgetfulness. But how was one supposed to remember not to forget things, that was the question? I’ll do it as soon as I’ve iced the cake.
Biting her lip, eyes narrowed in concentration, she began tracing a perfect, italic T in icing sugar across the gooey chocolate. Like snow on a ploughed field. Jenny and Jean Paul had gone out to Grantchester to make snowmen with the kids. Sensing Theresa’s loneliness, Jenny had asked her to join them, but Theresa didn’t feel like playing gooseberry. Besides, Theo might be back any minute. Whatever was troubling him, he wouldn’t want to come home and find a dark, empty house.
She finished the cake, and then disappeared to hunt for kindling so she could light a nice, welcoming fire.
She’d completely forgotten about the robin.
In St Michael’s wine cellar, curled up naked on the sofa under a big pile of blankets, Sasha Miller lay in Professor Theo Dexter’s arms in blissful shock.
Will Temple’s Casanova reputation would never recover.
‘What are you thinking?’ Theo softly stroked her hair.
I’m thinking about what my wedding dress will look like. I’m thinking about waking up with you every morning for the rest of my life. I’m thinking about spending long, heavenly days in a laboratory with you by my side, unravelling the mysteries of the universe together. I’m thinking that maybe I do like sex after all…
‘Nothing. Only that I’m happy’
He smiled and kissed the top of her head. ‘So am I, Sasha. You do realize we’re going to have to be discreet about this? We know we’re not doing anything wrong. But the university authorities might not be so understanding. And Theresa
Sasha put a finger to his lips. I completely understand.’
I’m a mature woman now. I’m in love with an important, brilliant, troubled man. I must handle this like an adult and show Theo that he can trust me.
The truth was, she didn’t want to tell anybody anyway. Some nameless, inner voice told her that Georgia and the rest of her undergraduate friends might not have understood. Keeping it a secret somehow made it all the more precious. As for Theo’s wife, well, life was complicated. They’d have to cross that bridge when they came to it.
Before her first year at Cambridge was over, Sasha Miller was already being spoken of amongst the physics faculty as a rising star. Not only did she gain the top first in the university in her first-year exams – her independent research project on astrophysical plasmas was easily PhD standard – but she consistently showed an instinctive flair for experimental physics that was rare in one so young. Especially a woman. Girls at Cambridge tended to play it safe, dutifully learning and regurgitating the prevailing academic wisdom of their elders and betters. But Sasha Miller took risks. She was an original thinker, a scientist not just of the mind but of the soul. If she fulfilled just half of her early promise, she might well have great things ahead of her. As long, that is, as she didn’t blow it by doing something reckless.
There was no such thing as a secret at Cambridge. Like all universities it was a hotbed of gossip and intrigue. Within a month of their first tryst in the St Michael’s wine cellar, news of Professor Dexter’s love affair with his star pupil began to spread. Rumours in the Senior Common Room became whispers at high table. Soon every science fellow in the university knew – or thought they knew – about Dexter’s latest extramarital escapade. Among Sasha’s friends, however, the affair was still a deadly secret. As instructed by Theo, Sasha had told nobody, not even Georgia. The Chinese wall between fellows and undergraduates meant that the gossip was effectively contained. Theo got to bask in the envy of his peers, safe in the knowledge that nothing could be proved against him, while Sasha found herself becoming more and more isolated from her friends, unable to confide in them or share what was rapidly becoming the most important part of her life.
As for Theresa Dexter, cocooned by her own blind love and distracted by the twin imperatives of her Shakespeare research and her efforts to conceive, such whispers as did reach her ears were dismissed as malicious nonsense. Theresa was used to other women fancying her husband. But as for Theo having an affair, well, that was just nonsense. Theo loved her. They loved each other. Besides, why would he want an affair when their sex life was undergoing such a renaissance? Recently it was as if they were newlyweds again. He could barely keep his hands off her.
‘I can’t bear it. How can it be summer already?’
Sasha lay her head back against the picnic blanket and gazed up at the cloudless blue sky. Theo had driven her out to Houghton Mill, an idyllic village about a forty-minute drive north-west of Cambridge, for a romantic afternoon. Keen to discuss her latest research findings, Sasha had brought her laptop with her. Theo, needless to say, had other ideas. Unfolding the blanket in a secluded field, hidden from the lane by a high hedge on one side and a beech copse on the other, he’d asked her to take her top off and started taking pictures; from the front, from the side and (his favourite) from behind, a glorious shot of her naked back with Sasha looking shyly at the camera over one shoulder. That had got him so hard he’d had to take her on the spot, bringing her to climax after climax with his mouth and hands before finally allowing himself to come. A light lunch of champagne and smoked salmon sandwiches had restored both their strength, after which they made love again with noisily blissful abandon. It made a nice change from sneaking around in Theo’s rooms at college, always half listening for a knock at the door.
‘I know.’ Rolling onto his stomach, Theo picked seeds out of Sasha’s hair. ‘Every year seems to go quicker than the last. This term was over in a blink.’
‘It’s all right for you,’ moaned Sasha. ‘At least you get to stay here and carry on with your work. I’m banished from the lab for fourteen weeks.’
She made it sound like a prison sentence.
‘Oh, so it’s the Cavendish you’ll be missing? Not me?’ It was childish, but Theo felt piqued.
‘I’ll miss both of you,’ said Sasha truthfully. ‘More than you know.’
The thought of going home to Frant for the long summer filled Sasha with despair. Of course the village was still lovely. And she knew how much her father was looking forward to taking her round to the Abergavenny Arms and pumping her for information on St Michael’s and her friends and the progress she’d made on her research. Sasha still loved her dad as much as ever, but the prospect of their long-awaited chat made her sad. Intellectually she was now so far ahead of Don, it was impossible to talk to him about her studies in any meaningful way. As for her personal life, the one thing she longed to share
