The Light Over London(26)

“So you’re a professor?” Nicole asked.

“At Barlow, I’m technically a reader in the history department. Professorships are rare.”

“Will you be staying?” Nicole asked, shooting Cara a significant look.

“Yes. For the first time in my career, I’ve found a permanent placement,” said Liam.

“Congratulations,” said Cara, lifting her glass.

While they all toasted, Cara took the chance to study him. He was handsome in an endearing, academic sort of way. He had a good smile, and his hair always seemed to be threatening to flop over his forehead and brush the top of his glasses. The sleeves of his washed-out blue Henley were pushed up to his elbows, exposing ropy forearms and a plain steel watch on his left wrist. He was too old to be boyish, but there was something youthful about the curious energy that seemed to pulse around him. She was sure he was one of the professors students gossiped about, speculating about his private life as he assigned pages of reading, no doubt oblivious.

“I wanted to ask: Has Rufus’s barking bothered you?” Liam asked.

“I haven’t heard him at all,” Cara said.

“Rufus is my dog,” Liam explained to Nicole. “He seems to be adjusting now, but the first day he barked every time the church bells rang.”

Cara laughed. St. Luke’s marked every hour, regardless of the time of day. “You poor man.”

“He also keeps escaping. I had to chase him through one of the neighborhood’s yards yesterday.”

“Whose?” she asked.

“The big brick Victorian on the corner,” he said.

She winced. “Not Mrs. Wasserman’s?”

The grim set of his mouth told her it had indeed been Mrs. Wasserman, the tyrannical octogenarian who patrolled the street. “I barely survived the tongue-lashing. She has a remarkably expansive vocabulary for a woman who looks so sweet.”

“You have my sympathy. I’ve already had a run-in with her over not taking my rubbish bins in by four in the afternoon on collection days,” she said.

“There’s always one in every neighborhood, isn’t there?” he said with a rueful laugh.

Cara toyed with her wineglass, stealing another glance at him. Attractive, seemingly kind, and willing to laugh at himself. A few years from now, when her divorce was well behind her, he might be just the sort of man she’d go for.

“Liam,” Nicole said abruptly, “maybe you can help us with a dilemma Cara has.”

“Nicole,” Cara said sharply, not trusting her friend not to say something mortifying like, Cara hasn’t had a date since she was twenty-one. Want to take her out?

“What?” Nicole tipped her head to one side innocently. “He could help with your discovery.”

The diary. Of course.

“What’s this?” he asked, looking between the two women.

“Cara has a historical mystery she’s trying to solve,” said Nicole.

“It’s just something I found. The diary of a woman from World War Two.”

“Really? Did you find it in the cottage?” he asked.

She shook her head. “At a property I’m helping clear for work. It was in a biscuit tin in the back of an armoire that looked as though it hadn’t been touched in decades.”

“The tin you showed me earlier this week?” he asked.

A grin slid over Nicole’s face, showing her to be no doubt concocting all sorts of reasons why Cara had conveniently left out mentioning that she’d done more than just introduce herself to her cute neighbor.

“What is it that I can help with?” he asked.

“Cara wants to find out who wrote it,” said Nicole.

His eyes twinkled. “Then it really is a historical mystery. Do you know where your author was from?”

“A village in Cornwall. She mentions riding her bicycle to attend a dance, so she couldn’t have been too far.”

“There was an RAF base in Cornwall,” he said. “Actually, there were a few.”

She nodded. “The writer mentions the planes and a raid when the Germans bombed a storage building on a base. And she also talks about going to Newquay to the pictures. She went out with a pilot, Paul, who was stationed in the area for a brief time.”

“A wartime romance. Do you know how it ended?” he asked.

“Not well, I think, but I’m still reading.”

“Paul the pilot,” he mused. “We could check the records of the local RAF bases against the dates in the diary to see how many pilots named Paul there were, but it’s a common name.”

The mention of “we” sent a tingle of excitement through her.

“Do you think I could see the diary?” Liam asked.

“Sure,” she said slowly.

“Cara, you should make Liam dinner and show him the diary then.” Cara tried to nudge her friend with her foot, but missed as Nicole turned to Liam. “She’s a wonderful cook and a fantastic baker. You should’ve seen the cakes she used to make in our terrible student kitchen. They were incredible.”

Cara was going to kill her friend. “Nicole, I’m sure Liam’s busy with the new start of term and—”

“I’m not, actually.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “And I can barely warm up a tin of baked beans, so I’ll never turn down a good meal. If it’s on offer.”