Stephen was still humming under his breath as he strolled into the packed lecture room. The sight was familiar, but it still touched him. There were the dozens of fresh faces, the clean notebooks and brand new copies of his own Commentaries. The size of the audience was gratifying. Stephen had given not a thought to his lecture, but that didn’t matter. He had delivered this introduction to his pet subject so many times that it was as familiar to him as his own name. He put his unnecessary sheaf of notes down on the desk and smiled around the room.

‘Okay,’ he said softly, as if speaking to just one of the faces turned up to him. ‘I’m going to talk to you today about love. Romantic love, sexual love, real love, as we find it in the greatest of Shakespeare’s great comedies.’

There was a ripple around the room as pens were unscrewed and eager hands began to scribble down Stephen’s words.

Chloe Campbell was the only person who didn’t move.

Instead she cupped her chin in her hands and looked intently back at Stephen. Fortyish, she thought, and not a bit like the stooped academic she had expected from reading the lecture list. This Doctor Spurring was slim, not tall, but undeniably sexy. His hair was just a little too long but it was well shaped. He wasn’t conventionally good-looking but his eyes were a startling clear blue. And his mouth, almost too full and curved, looked as soft as a girl’s. There was something in his voice that attracted her too. Under the conventional, cultivated tones there was something – someone – else. Was Stephen Spurring a Yorkshireman, Chloe wondered, or a Geordie perhaps?

After his forty-five fluent minutes, Stephen began smoothly to wind up his introductory lecture. All around her Chloe saw that there were sheets of notes with underlined headings and numbered points, now being clipped with satisfaction into new folders. Dr Spurring was an excellent teacher, she realised, but she hadn’t written down a single word of his instruction. Stephen Spurring the man interested her far too much.

When Stephen came out of the lecture, hitching his black gown familiarly over his shoulder and thinking cheerfully of coffee and the rest of The Times, he found three people waiting for him. Two of them, he saw, were Oliver Mortimore who was lounging characteristically against the wall to watch the girls streaming past, and an intent-looking Tom Hart from the Playhouse. The third was a girl. Stephen had glimpsed her mass of dark red hair in his lecture audience, and now he took in green eyes, an aura of self-possession and a direct, challenging smile. He had no idea who she was, and wished that he did.

He turned reluctantly to Oliver and Tom.