Page 14 of Vows of Revenge

She felt her arm taken.

‘Fascinating,’ Damos Kallinikos murmured. ‘So, what else has this place got? I only wandered in as I’m staying at the hotel opposite.’ He guided her towards some display cabinets a little way off. ‘What’s this lot in here?’ he asked.

Mechanically, Kassia started to expound upon and explain the contents, amplifying the descriptive cards. Her head was reeling. How had Damos Kallinikos suddenly turned up like this, out of the blue, in the Ashmolean Museum, of all places? How come he was here in Oxford on business at all, when she was here for a conference? And how come he just happened to be in the museum when she was?

Well, coincidences do happen, she thought helplessly.However unlikely, sometimes you did just bump into someone you never expected to.

He was still listening to what she was telling him, distracted though she knew she sounded, but when they’d exhausted two more display cabinets he held up a hand.

‘That’s it—you’ve hit the limit of my brain capacity! Time for tea.’

‘Tea?’ Kassia said blankly, as if he’d suggested something she’d never heard of.

‘Yes, afternoon tea. My hotel does a very good one, so I’m told. Come along—you must be parched after that ancient history lesson you’ve given me.’

Once again she felt her arm taken, then she was being guided up the stairs to the entrance level, and out into the fresh late-summer air.

‘That’s my hotel,’ Damos Kallinikos said, pointing across the road.

Kassia was not surprised—it was the most expensive in Oxford.

He guided her down the broad flight of shallow steps from the museum to the pavement, and then across the road. Kassia was still trying to make sense of what was happening...encountering Damos Kallinikos again, totally unexpectedly. And why he was bothering to spend time with her.

She tried to rationalise it in her head. Well, why shouldn’t they have tea together? They did know each other, albeit slightly, and he had, after all—so she’d heard from Dr Michaelis—agreed to sponsor next year’s season. Maybe that explained his asking her more about the ancient world?

Yet as they settled down to be served it was not antiquities that Damos asked her about.

‘Do you know Oxford well?’ he posed.

‘Not very well, no,’ she answered. ‘Only for conferences, really.’

‘This isn’t your old university?’

She gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘No, nothing so lofty! I went to a north-country uni—decidedly redbrick.’

He frowned. ‘Redbrick?’

‘Just about any university more modern than Oxbridge,’ she explained dryly.

‘Oxbridge?’ He frowned again.

‘Short for Oxford and Cambridge,’ she expounded. ‘One is either Oxbridge or one is not,’ she went on, even more dryly. ‘I’m definitelynot. But I do get to go to conferences here sometimes.’

He looked at her. ‘It sounds very elitist.’

She could hear an edge in his voice. Condemnation.

‘All of academia is elitist, really, if you think about it. An ivory tower. It’s a privilege to be part of it—even if I’m only from a humble redbrick or a provincial Greek museum. Speaking of which,’ she went on, ‘Dr Michaelis is delighted at your decision to help fund next season’s dig.’

‘Well, I hope he’s thanked you for your sterling efforts to that end over dinner that evening!’ came the reply.

‘I didn’t really do anything,’ Kassia said awkwardly. ‘Just bored on about the Bronze Age.’

‘It was,’ said Damos Kallinikos, ‘far from boring.’

His eyes—dark, thickly lashed, and with an expression in them that did things to her heart rate—were resting on her for a moment, and to her dismay Kassia felt her cheeks flush with colour. To her relief, the waiter arrived, setting down their repast. It was lavish in the extreme, with savouries, scones, jam and cream, and sweet pastries.

Kassia’s eyes widened.

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