The Devlin Diary by Christi Phillips Page B

man breezed into the lounge and walked over to join them. “Lizzie, I was wondering if you’d received my note. So who’s this we have here?” he said with an inquisitive glance at Claire.
    “She’s the new lecturer,” Elizabeth replied. A sour expression crossed her face as she put her glasses back on and opened the English Historical Review once more. “She’s filling in for Emily Scott while she’s on maternity leave. If you had been at the dinner you would know this.”
    He turned to Claire. “My deepest apologies. If I’d known that someone as pretty as you was going to be there, I never would have missed it. Derek Goodman,” he said, offering his hand.
    He didn’t add his title or field of study, as he probably knew there was no need. He was Derek Goodman, Claire marveled, the renowned author of Reform and Revolution: The Roots of British Democracy and Heads Will Roll: Capital Punishment during the Reign of the Tudor and Stuart Kings . Derek Goodman, one of the leading lights of the Cambridge history faculty, a reputed genius and a former wunderkind who’d received his PhD at twenty-five. Ever since, he’d been writing books and articles on British history at an extraordinary rate, and he was published in all the best journals and invited to all the best conferences.
    Claire introduced herself, unable to conceal her admiration. As she shook Dr. Goodman’s hand, he looked her up and down in a way that was discreet enough but was also unambiguously sexual, something that most men would know better than to attempt. She suspected that Derek Goodman was accustomed to getting away with it, for not only was he brilliant, he was handsome. Movie-star handsome. Short, curly black hair that contrasted dramatically with his startling, mesmerizing blue eyes. Confident, charming, of above-average height and way-above-average sexiness. His book jacket photos, while stunning, didn’t do him justice. The images Claire recalled must have been taken some years earlier. He now looked to be three or four years short of forty, and a face that had once been a bit too pretty had taken on a craggy masculinity that was accentuated by his two-day-old beard and the striped wool scarf wound around his neck, one end thrown rakishly back over the shoulder of his navy blue blazer. Under that he wore a white Oxford cloth button-down shirt and a pair of well-worn but well-fitting jeans.
    “You’re American,” he said with delight. “A gorgeous American in our midst. Whatever shall we do with you?” His blue eyes twinkled mischievously. Damn if she didn’t feel a bit weak in the knees.
    “Keep your dogs in the kennel, Derek,” Elizabeth said without glancing up. “She hasn’t been here long enough to know that you’re the most unscrupulous man in Cambridge.”
    “I love you too, Dr. Bennet,” he said sarcastically, though he seemed completely unfazed by her criticism. He went on speaking to Claire as if Elizabeth hadn’t said a word. “It must have been you I saw moving in last week. G staircase in New Court?” At Claire’s nod, he looked at her with an even warmer enthusiasm. “My set is right across from yours.”
    “You might want to keep your door locked,” Elizabeth remarked, moistening a fingertip and flipping a page.
    “Don’t mind her,” Derek said. “We had a fling years ago and she’s never gotten over me.”
    “Don’t you wish.”
    “Has anyone taken you on a pub crawl yet?” he asked Claire.
    “No.”
    “Then allow me. After dinner in hall tonight. We’ll start out at the Rat and Weasel and make the circuit all the way ’round to the Mad Cow.” In spite of the unpleasant associations that rats, weasels, and mad cows brought to mind, Derek Goodman made the prospect of going on a tour of Cambridge pubs seem immensely enjoyable.
    “You’ve come in too late in the game on this one, Dr. Goodman,” Elizabeth said. “I believe she’s already spoken for.”
    “Is this true?” he asked