Oxford, Present Day

THE NEXT MORNING Sophie awoke feeling hopeful. Somehow the decision to confide in Winston had already, in her mind, given her an ally. She was up early and at her computer, working on a plan of attack for the day. The first step was frighteningly easy. With nothing more than a fifty-pound membership fee in a genealogical research site, she was able, in less than an hour, to trace her ancestry back to Gilbert Monkhouse and Theresa Wright. Theresa’s father, as the family prayer book had indicated, had also been a printer, which explained why Sophie’s father didn’t associate the name Monkhouse with the printing family from which he was descended. Of course, if Sophie could discover that connection, so could anyone else. Sophie imagined the old woman who conducted the monthly tours of Bayfield told the story of how the family library was begun when a printer kept one copy of every book he printed. Smedley suspected from the inscription in the St. John’s copy of Mansfield’s book that there was a connection between the second edition, Jane Austen, and First Impressions. It would have taken no great power of reasoning to deduce that if there were a surviving copy of that second edition, it might well be either in the inaccessible cases of Bayfield House or on the cluttered shelves of Uncle Bertram’s flat. Smedley had searched Uncle Bertram’s flat after he killed him; but he’d had to enlist Sophie to search Bayfield House. If threats and bribes weren’t enough to rouse Sophie to action, he had dropped the hint about St. John’s, hoping she would uncover the book that brought her beloved Jane Austen into the story.

Sophie’s next task was to research Richard Mansfield. This proved more difficult. The genealogical site was no help this time. Beyond the brief biographical sketch she had found in Alumni Oxonienses, there was nothing. She pulled up Alumni Oxonienses online and looked at his biography again:

MANSFIELD, RICHARD NORMAN, 1s. Tobias Charles, of Bloxham, Oxfordshire, cler. Balliol Coll., matric. 1734, aged 18; B.A. 1737, M.A. 1740. Curate of Bloxham 1743, Master of Cowley Grammar School 1758–1780, Rector of Croft, Yorkshire, 1780. Died 4 Dec. 1796.

He had been an undergraduate at Balliol, but they were not likely to have any records of his adult life. He’d served as a curate in the diocese of Oxford, so any records relating to that would be in the diocesan archives, but he had left there before Jane Austen was even born, so those records were not likely to be helpful. The records from his time as rector at Croft would be in the Yorkshire diocesan archives, a long day’s drive away. That left the Cowley Grammar School. She had never heard of such a school, but a quick search of the online catalog for the Oxfordshire History Centre told her that it had existed from roughly 1750 to 1843. An entry in the catalog stated merely: “Records and papers related to Cowley Grammar School, masters, etc. Eight boxes.”

It was a shot in the dark, but perhaps Rev. Mansfield had left his papers to the place he had spent the bulk of his career. Sophie had no idea if eighteenth-century clergymen had left their papers to institutions the way twentieth-century scholars had. It seemed unlikely, but since the Oxfordshire History Centre was just three miles away—in Cowley, coincidentally—there was no harm in looking.

Sophie stepped out of the house just before eleven. She would take a nice walk through the University Parks and along the river and still get back into the center of town in time to meet Winston at noon. She shivered to think that he was on the train right now heading to Oxford—though she was not sure if it was a shiver of fear or of excitement. She was just passing the bus stop when she heard a voice call out, “Sophie!” She turned and her stomach fell. She had no idea what to say to Eric Hall, who now stood in front of her.

“Hi,” said Eric.

“What . . . what . . . ?” She wanted to be angry that he had surprised her like this in the street, but she felt her cheeks flushing with an altogether different emotion and all she could think was: He found me. “What are you doing here?” she finally managed to say.

“Looking for you,” he said. “Didn’t you get my letter?”

“Yeah, but how did you know . . . ?”

“Well, your mom told me you were in Oxford and then this lady at the Christ Church Library told me you lived on Woodstock Road out near St. Antony’s, so I figured I’d head out this way, and here you are.”

“You said we were never going to see each other again,” said Sophie.

“Yeah, well, the heart plays funny tricks, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?” said Sophie. If he made some sort of crazy confession of love, she thought, she didn’t know if she’d leap for joy or run away.

“I’ve been thinking about you and that night in the garden a lot and I decided to stop thinking and start doing something about it.”

“You said you didn’t want to get me into bed,” said Sophie, remembering his words in the garden.

“What can I say? Paris is the city of lovers. It got me thinking. And I just couldn’t get you out of my head.”

At the mention of Paris, Sophie suddenly remembered the French books and Eric’s deception. “Did you even go to Paris?” she said.

“What do you mean? Of course I went to Paris. Didn’t you get my letters?”

“Then why did you lie about the books you sent me? You didn’t buy them in Paris for a song; you bought them from a dealer in Bath for fifteen hundred pounds.”

“I talked him down to twelve fifty,” said Eric.

“That’s beside the point. You don’t spend over a thousand pounds on books for someone you hardly know.”

“I know you well enough to know that you would love that set—a piece of Jane Austen so close to the time she was alive. I lied because I didn’t think you’d accept it if you knew how much it cost.”

Sophie stared at the pavement for a long minute. “I did love it,” she said at last. “But you can’t just walk up to me on the street and expect me to drop everything and run off with you.”

“I didn’t ask you to run off with me,” said Eric. “Besides, what are you doing that’s so important that you can’t take a half hour to have a cup of coffee with me and see if maybe there’s something to this?”

“Actually,” said Sophie, “I have a date.”

“You have a date?”

“Surely if you are infatuated with me it must not be so hard to believe that someone else might have an interest as well.”

“And who is this mystery man?”

It was none of his business, she knew, but somehow Sophie thought that naming the man she had romped around naked with just a few days earlier—and with whom she might very well do the same thing again tonight—would help her stop thinking about that kiss, and those sweet letters, and those amazing books.

“His name is Winston Godfrey.”

“The publisher?” said Eric.

“Do you know him?” said Sophie, unable to hide her surprise.

“I’ll say I know him,” he said. “We were at Oxford together.”

“You were at Oxford?”

“They do admit Americans once in a while.”

“Let me guess,” she said. “You were at St. John’s.”

“No, Balliol,” said Eric. “But listen, Sophie, you’ve got to trust me on this. Winston Godfrey is bad news.”

“You’re hardly a disinterested party,” she said. “And it just so happens that Winston is a perfect gentleman.”

“Right, a total gentleman. Candlelit dinner on the first date, flowers on the second, dinner at his place followed by the best sex you’ve ever had on the third. Trust me, he’ll push all those buttons about three more times and then he’ll toss you aside like yesterday’s paper. I saw it for two years. He went through girls like potato chips.”

Sophie was disturbed by how accurately Eric had summarized her relationship with Winston. “Did it occur to you that Winston may have changed since university?”

“Guys like Winston don’t change,” said Eric. “Believe me, the guy may look good coming out of the lake in a wet shirt, but he’s trouble.”

“Listen, I appreciate the warning, I really do, but I can take care of myself. And I appreciate . . .” She wasn’t sure how to word it. “Everything else. And I would like to have a coffee with you. Just not today, OK?”

“Can I give you my number?” he said.

“You give me your number and I’ll give you my number and I’ll be careful. And if Winston turns out to be what you say he is, I’ll call you for coffee and you can say ‘I told you so.’”

“And if he stays a perfect gentleman?” said Eric. “I don’t want to walk down this street and never see you again.”

“All right—no matter what happens, I’ll call you for a coffee,” said Sophie.

As she left Eric at Martyrs’ Memorial, she realized she hadn’t succeeded in simplifying her love life—anything but. But she didn’t care. If Eric had come all the way from France to find her, maybe he did deserve another chance, particularly if Winston turned out to be as much of a scoundrel as Eric predicted.

On a whim she pulled out her phone and rang a friend who worked at the Balliol College Library. A quick query revealed that both Eric Hall and Winston Godfrey had been undergraduates there. Winston was a year ahead of Eric, but they had overlapped for two years. So Winston had lied about his undergraduate college and Eric had told the truth.

“Can you check one more name for me?” said Sophie to her friend. “George Smedley.”

“Yep,” he said. “George Smedley was here. Took his degree the same year as Winston Godfrey.”

“Thanks,” said Sophie. “That’s very helpful.”

So Winston and Smedley had not been at St. John’s, but they had been at Balliol together. Sophie was beginning to think that her conversation with Winston might be very interesting.