The Independent Bride

‘Excuse me, Master.’

Steven was miles away. He was standing by the high window staring down into the quad.

Not with pleasure. Other people saw a medieval hall the colour of warm butter, with mullioned windows that overlooked a succulent velvet lawn. Steven saw crumbling stonework, blocked guttering and the cost of a new roof that made his eyes spin just to think about.

Queen Margaret’s College was an ancient institution and a historic building. It was also broke.

Valerie Holmes, who had been the Master’s secretary for so long that she remembered when Steven Konig was a new undergraduate, looked at him with sympathy. Poor chap, she thought. He was the classic compromise candidate: neither the pure academic that the old guard wanted, nor the racy media darling that the politicians had been pushing so hard. As a result, he was disliked by both sides. And he knew it.

She coughed gently. ‘Master?’

Steven jumped and turned guiltily. ‘Oh, it’s you, Valerie,’ he said, surprised. ‘Is the car here already?’

He had an appointment to do a television interview and they were sending a car for him. It was Valerie who had insisted on that. She knew how much he hated the publicity stuff. But when you were Master of a college that was falling down you had to do it.

But this was not the car reluctantly provided by Indigo Television. This was something a lot more troubling. Though Valerie was much too discreet to say so.

‘No, Master. The car won’t be here for another hour.’

Steven sighed. He pushed a hand through his dark hair. She really should have reminded him to have it cut, thought Valerie, momentarily distracted. But at least he had shaved this morning. Sometimes, when he strode in from his morning jog round the Parks, he looked more like a guerrilla who had been in the jungle for too long than a senior member of the university.

He gave her his best grin, the conspiratorial one that made his eyes twinkle. Not a lot of people saw that grin. Most of them thought the Master of Queen Margaret’s College was a dour workaholic. And those were his supporters. Valerie knew different—as she told her husband.

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