Career Girls Read Free Page A

other words-and Oriel was a poor relation. Christ Church had produced something like twelve prime ministers and nineteen viceroys of India. Its hall was one of the architectural wonders of England. It had a private picture gallery, boasting drawings by Michelangelo and Van Dyck.
    Peter Kennedy could not possibly have gone anywhere. else, Rowena thought. She smiled. And neither could I.
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    She walked through magnificent Tom Quad, admiring the grey Elizabethan stone, lit gently by the setting sun. Tom Tower, rearing up behind her, began to strike the hour five minutes early, because the college was exactly one degree west of Greenwich. She felt very nervous, as if even the ancient walkways and carved gargoyles were ranking up behind Gilbert, now that Kennedy was on his side. She’d have to talk him out of it. That was all there was to it.
    Under the soaring archways of the walk into hall, someone had pinned up the standard-issue poster announcing the Union elections, listing the candidates and somewhat improbably requesting that any breach of the rules be reported toJ. Sanders, Exeter, Returning Officer. Since the rules stated that no candidate should solicit votes, much less form an electoral pact - a slate, in other words - they were universally ignored, except on polling day, when the deputy returning officers had fun making life even more miserable for the hacks than it was already. Every hack, once they stopped running, had a go at being a DRO and enjoyed it immensely.
    Rowena examined the poster for graffiti and was pleased to find that someone had scrawled ‘Prat’ after Gilbert’s name. She also noticed, laughing, that someone had carefully written ‘xo,^z ROSSL sx LDA’S’ at the top of the list of standing-committee nominees. My friend the sex symbol. She’d tried to get Topaz to run a million times, but unless she could interview it, report on it or give it an impossible deadline, Topaz wasn’t interested. ‘Tina Brown didn’t have time for the Union,’ she’d said dismissively.
    Rowena strolled through the glorious cathedral cloisters to Old Library. The door to the staircase wa heavy, solid wood, studded with metal bolts like a dungeon entrance. Maybe, thought Rowena fancifully, they locked Protestants in here when Bloody Mary was queen.
    She bounded up the narrow stairs to Kennedy’s room, her heart hammering, and knocked loudly. I am Librarian of the Union, she told herself firmly, and he’s a threat, that’s all, to be dealt with like any other threat.
     
    eter, tall and tanned from rowing, opened the door. ‘Miss Gordon, delighted to meet you’, he said. ‘I’ve been expecting you. Won’t you come in?’
    Rowena stepped into the most luxurious undergraduate rooms she’d seen anywhere. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Please call me Rowena, Mr Kennedy.’
    ‘Only if you’ll agree to call me Peter,’ he said, smiling, waving her to an armchair. ‘I am seeing your best friend, after all. I’m amazed that we haven’t managed to meet up before now.’
    ‘Then that’s settled,’ said Rowena, ashamed to find herself momentarily jealous.
    Christ, the guy was attractive. He was wearing a dark blue Boat Club tracksuit, with HOtSE emblazoned on the back in large white letters, the colour emphasizing his blue eyes and luxuriant blond hair. To Rowena, his size and strength made him seem even older than twenty-three, perhaps nearer to twenty-five. There was discreet evidence of immense wealth displayed all over the room; an antique gold carriage clock, a couple of leather-bound first editions on his table without library stickers on them. The bed was made up with a feather duvet and crisp Irish linen, and she doubted even Christ Church would run to that. Peter Kennedy was studying Anglo-Saxon under the legendary tutelage of Richard Hamer, one of the most learned and pleasant dons at Oxford, but there were textbooks on advanced economics stacked in rows on his bookshelves. Two pairs of oars