Gabriel's Inferno Trilogy

  Despite Julia’s overall shyness, a character trait that she would never lose completely, she fit into the Harvard landscape like a hand into a glove. She found an undergraduate tour guide called Ari who gave her an orientation to the campus, the library, and the graduate school. She secured a library card in advance of registration, which would be held in August.

  Julia dropped into the graduate student lounge on occasion to see Zsuzsa and to learn more about the atmosphere of the department. And she spent long hours in the library, hunting down books that she would need to read that summer. Exploring the neighborhood, she found a grocery store and a bank and claimed a particular Thai restaurant, which was just down the street from her apartment, as her new favorite place to eat.

  So by the time Rachel called her on June twenty-sixth, Julia was completely at home in her new life and happy. Almost.

  Julia was in between customers when Rachel called her cell phone, so she asked one of her co-workers to cover for her and walked out to the front lawn so as not to disturb anyone.

  “Rachel, how are you?”

  “We’re fine! I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you. Some bastard stole my phone and I had to get a new one. Then I had to go back through all the messages, starting with the ones about the wedding and —”

  Julia gritted her teeth only slightly as she waited for Rachel to draw breath so she could steer the conversation in a completely different direction. In two or three paragraphs, her patience was rewarded.

  “Gabriel quit his job.”

  “What?” Rachel almost shouted. “How do you know?”

  “A friend of mine was his research assistant in Toronto.”

  “That explains it,” Rachel said.

  “Explains what?”

  “Gabriel sold his condo. He sent Dad an email saying that he was moving and that he has been staying in hotels while he looks for a house.”

  Julia leaned her back up against the old, gnarled oak tree that stood in front of Peet’s.

  “Did he mention where he was looking?”

  “No. Just that he’d hired a company to pack up his things and put them in storage. But if he quit his job—”

  “He’s in the process of quitting.”

  “Then you should call him! Julia, it’s the perfect time. You have to call him.”

  Julia gritted her teeth. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He broke up with me, remember? I’m not going to be the one to fix this—assuming it can be fixed.”

  Rachel grew very quiet for a moment. “I’m not suggesting you sweep whatever happened under the carpet. But I hope that you two could talk about what happened. He needs to hear how you feel about all of this and what happened to you after he left. And frankly, he needs to offer some kind of explanation. He owes you that. Then you can tell him to get lost, if that’s what you really want.”

  Julia squeezed her eyes shut as a wave of pain washed over her. The thought of seeing Gabriel—and listening to his explanation—physically hurt.

  “I’m not sure my heart can survive his explanation.”

  Chapter 42

  Julia buried herself in busyness for the next few days, studying in preparation for her introduction to Professor Marinelli. Since the Professor was the guest of honor at the lavish reception where they met, their conversation was short, but a success. Professor Marinelli was still settling into her new home, but recognized Julia’s name thanks to Professor Picton’s recommendation and suggested that they meet for coffee in July.

  Julia wafted home on a breeze of optimism. She was so happy, she decided it was finally time to begin the project she’d been avoiding—unpacking her books and arranging them on shelves in her small apartment. Until that evening, she’d availed herself of Harvard’s libraries. But every day the collection of boxes nagged at her, and so she finally decided it was time to organize them. The process took longer than she anticipated. She finished about a third of the boxes that evening before walking to the Thai restaurant and ordering take out.

  Two days later, Julia was down to the final box. After a very enjoyable evening with Zsuzsa and a few other graduate students at Grendel’s Den on June thirtieth, Julia came home determined to finish unpacking.

  As had been her practice, she shelved the volumes in alphabetical order almost mindlessly. Until she came to the last book in the bottom of the last cardboard box, Marriage in the Middle Ages: Love, Sex, and the Sacred, published by Oxford University Press. Frowning, she turned the volume over in her hands. It took a few minutes for a distant memory to creep back to her—Paul, standing in her studio apartment, saying that he’d retrieved her mail from the department.

  “A medieval history textbook,” he’d said.

  Out of curiosity, Julia leafed through the volume and found a business card wedged in the Table of Contents. The card was for Alan Mackenzie, the Oxford University Press textbook representative in Toronto. On the back of his card was a handwritten note that stated he’d be happy to help her with her textbook needs.

  Julia was about to close the book and shelve it when her eyes alighted on one of the readings.

  The Letters of Abelard and Héloise, Letter Six.

  It only took an instant for Julia to recall her last conversation with Gabriel.

  Gabriel turned away from Jeremy, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Read my sixth letter. Paragraph four.”

  Her heart racing, she turned the pages, shocked to find an illustration and a photograph marking the place where Abelard’s sixth letter was found:

  But whither does my vain imagination carry me! Ah, Héloise, how far are we from such a happy temper? Your heart still burns with that fatal fire you cannot extinguish, and mine is full of trouble and unrest. Think not, Héloise, that I here enjoy a perfect peace; I will for the last time open my heart to you;—I am not yet disengaged from you, and though I fight against my excessive tenderness for you, in spite of all my endeavours I remain but too sensible of your sorrows and long to share in them. Your letters have indeed moved me; I could not read with indifference characters written by that dear hand! I sigh and weep, and all my reason is scarce sufficient to conceal my weakness from my pupils. This, unhappy Héloise, is the miserable condition of Abelard. The world, which is generally wrong in its notions, thinks I am at peace, and imagining that I loved you only for the gratification of the senses, have now forgot you. What a mistake is this!

  She must have read the passage five times before its message began to sink into her agitated mind.

  Julia looked at the illustration closely. The title read The Contention for Guido de Montefeltro. The name was familiar, but she couldn’t quite remember its significance. She grabbed her latptop, intent on looking the image up on the internet but quickly remembered that she didn’t have internet access in her apartment.

  She located her phone, but the battery was dead and she had no idea where the cord was to recharge it. Undeterred, she returned to the book and picked up the photograph that had been placed next to the illustration. It was a picture of the apple orchard behind the Clarks’ house. Gabriel’s handwriting was on the back:

  To my Beloved,

  My heart is yours and my body.

  My soul, likewise.

  I will be true to you, Beatrice.

  I want to be your last.

  Wait for me…

  When she’d overcome her shock, she was desperate to speak to him. She didn’t care that it was close to midnight and Mount Auburn Street was dark. She didn’t care that Peet’s had closed hours ago. She grabbed her laptop and fled her apartment, knowing that if she could stand just outside the door to Peet’s, she’d be able to pick up a wireless signal and email Gabriel. Julia had no idea what she would say. All she could do was run.

  The neighborhood was almost silent. Despite the gentle drizzle and mist of warm vespertine rain, a small group of what looked like frat boys were about a half a block away, talking and laughing. Julia stepped from the cu
rb and began to cross the street, her flip-flops squishing against the wet asphalt. She ignored the droplets that fell from the sky, soaking through her T-shirt. She ignored the thunder that began to roll and the flash of lightning that illuminated the eastern sky.

  In the very center of the road, she stopped because straight ahead of her, she glimpsed a shadowy figure lurking in the darkness behind the oak tree in front of Peet’s. Another flash of lightning revealed that the figure was a man.

  He was half-hidden by the tree and in the absence of light, she couldn’t make out his features. She knew better than to approach a stranger in the shadows, so she stayed where she was, craning her neck to see him.

  As if in response to her movements, he came around the edge of the tree and slowly walked into the pool of light that cascaded onto the sidewalk from the street lamp. Another bolt of lightning shimmered overhead, and for one brief instant Julia thought he looked like an angel.

  Gabriel.

  Chapter 43

  Gabriel saw the pain in her eyes. That was the first thing he noticed. Somehow, she looked older. But her beauty, her goodness made visible, was even more breathtaking than it had been before.

  Standing in front of her, he was overwhelmed by how much he loved her. All his trials fell away. He’d been working up the nerve to go to her, to ring the doorbell and beg entrance. When he thought he couldn’t wait a minute more, the door to her apartment building opened and she scampered like a deer into the road.

  He’d fantasized about their reunion. On some days, it was the only thought that sustained him. But the longer she stood, statue still, making no move to come to him, the more a feeling of despair grew. Several different scenarios coursed through his consciousness, few of them ending happily.

  Don’t send me away, he begged her silently. Running an uneasy hand through his hair, he tried to smooth the rain dampened strands.

  “Julianne.” He couldn’t disguise the tremor in his voice. She was staring through him as if he were a ghost.

  Before Gabriel could give voice to that idea, he heard something approach. He turned in the direction of an approaching vehicle. Julia was still standing in the road.

  He shouted to her wildly, “Julia, move!”

  Frozen, she ignored his warning, and the car whipped past, narrowly missing her. Gabriel began walking toward her, arms and hands waving.

  “Julia, get out of the road. Now!”

  Chapter 44

  Julia’s eyes were shut tightly. She could hear noises and the distant hum of his voice, but she couldn’t make out any words. Droplets of rain fell on her bare arms and legs, and a solid chest pressed against her face as a warm, masculine body wrapped around her like a blanket.

  She opened her eyes.

  Gabriel’s handsome face was lined with worry, his eyes shimmering with hope. He placed a hesitant hand against the curve of her cheek, brushing under her eye with the pad of his thumb.

  For a few moments, at least, they said nothing.

  “Are you all right?” he breathed.

  She stared up at him, speechless.

  “I didn’t mean to shock you. I came as soon as I could.”

  His words broke through the haze that froze her. Julia wriggled out of his grasp. “What are you doing here?”

  He frowned. “I would have thought it was obvious.”

  “Not to me.”

  Gabriel huffed in frustration. “It’s July first. I came as soon as I could.”

  Julia shook her head, taking a cautious step back. “What?”

  His voice took on a conciliatory tone. “I wish I could have returned earlier.”

  Her expression said it all—the narrowed, suspicious eyes, the ruby lips pressed tightly together, the clenched jaw.

  “You knew I resigned. Surely you must have known I’d come back.”

  Julia clutched her laptop to her chest. “Why would I think that?”

  His eyes widened. For a moment, he was too stunned to speak.

  “Did you think that I wouldn’t come back, even after I’d resigned?”

  “That’s what a person tends to think when her lover flees the city without so much as a phone call. And sends her an impersonal email saying that it’s over.”

  Gabriel’s expression hardened. “Sarcasm does not become you, Julianne.”

  “Lying does not become you, Professor.” Her eyes flashed.

  He took a step toward her, then stopped. “So we’re back to that, are we? Julianne and the Professor?”

  “According to what you told the hearing officers, we never got past it. You’re the professor, I’m the student. You seduced and dumped me. The hearing officers didn’t tell me if you said that you enjoyed it.”

  He swore under his breath. “I sent you messages. You simply chose not to believe them.”

  “What messages? The telephone calls you never made? The letters you never wrote? Apart from that email, I’ve heard nothing from you since you called me Héloise. Absolutely nothing.

  “And what about the messages I left you? Maybe you deleted them without bothering to listen—just like you left without bothering to tell me. Do you know how humiliating that was? That the man who was supposed to love me fled the city in order to break up with me?”

  Gabriel pressed a hand to his forehead, as if to help his mind focus. “What about the letter from Abelard to Héloise and the photograph of our orchard? I put the book in your mailbox myself.”

  “I didn’t know the textbook was from you. I only looked at it a few minutes ago.”

  “But I told you to read Abelard’s letter! I told you myself,” he sputtered, a horrified expression on his face.

  Julia clutched her laptop more tightly. “No, you said read my sixth letter. I did. You told me to choose a sweater because the weather had turned cold.” She eyed him furiously. “You were right.”

  “I called you Héloise. Wasn’t it obvious?”

  “It was crushingly obvious,” she snapped. “Héloise was seduced and abandoned by her professor. Your message was crystal clear!”

  “But the textbook…” he began. He searched her eyes. “The photograph.”

  “I found it tonight when I was unpacking my books.” Her expression softened. “Before this, I thought you were telling me that you’d tired of me.”

  “Forgive me,” he managed. His words were woefully inadequate, but they came from the heart. “I…Julianne, I need to expl—”

  “We should go inside,” she interrupted, peering up at the windows of her apartment.

  He reached out to take her hand but thought better of it, letting his arm drop to his side.

  The thunder and lightning continued as they climbed the stairs. By the time they entered the studio apartment, the lights had flickered and gone out.

  “I wonder if it’s just this building,” Julia mused. “Or if it’s the whole street.”

  Gabriel murmured his response, watching impotently as she felt her way across the room. She pulled back the blinds to let in as much light as possible. Mount Auburn Street was dark.

  “We could go somewhere with electricity.” His voice sounded at her elbow, and she jumped.

  “Sorry.” He placed a hand on her arm.

  “I’d rather stay here.”

  Gabriel resisted the urge to insist, realizing that he was in no position to demand that Julia do anything. He looked around the room.

  “Do you have a flashlight or some candles?”

  “Both, I think.” She found a flashlight and handed Gabriel a towel while she retreated to the bathroom to change into dry clothes. By the time she’d returned, he was seated on the futon, surrounded by a half-dozen tea lights, which were spread artfully on the furniture and across the floor.

  Julia watched the shadows flicker on the wall behind him. Unearthly shapes seemed to hover around him, as if he were trapped in Dante’s Inferno. The lines on his forehead had deepened, it seemed, and his eyes appeared larger. He hadn’t shaved recently, the scruff of
his beard covering the planes of his face. He’d smoothed his damp hair back with his fingers, but a single curl had rebelled, clinging stubbornly to his forehead.

  Julia had forgotten how attractive he was. How, with just a glance or a word he could make her blood heat. He was as dangerous as he was beautiful.

  Gabriel reached out to pull her to sit next to him, but she curled into the opposite corner.

  “I found a corkscrew and a bottle of wine. I hope you don’t mind.” He handed her a glass that was half-full of an inexpensive Shiraz. She was surprised he’d bothered, for it was the kind of wine he would have disdained in the past.

  She took several long sips, savoring the wine on her tongue. She waited for him to cough, sputter, and complain about the appalling bathwater. But he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t drink at all. Instead, he stared at her, his eyes coming to rest unapologetically on the swell of her breasts.

  “Are you changing schools?” His voice sounded husky.

  “What?”

  He gestured to her sweatshirt.

  She looked down. Boston College.

  “No, Paul gave this to me. He went there for his master’s, remember?”

  Gabriel stiffened. “I gave you a sweatshirt once,” he observed, more to himself than to her.

  Julia took another long sip of wine, wishing there was more of it.

  He watched her drink, his eyes resting on her mouth and throat. “Do you still have my Harvard sweatshirt?”

  “Let’s talk about something else.”

  He shifted uncomfortably but couldn’t drag his gaze away from her. He longed to run his hands up and down her body and press their mouths together. “What do you think about Boston University?”

  She looked over at him warily. In response to her suspicion, the bravado seemed to leak out of his gaze and he chewed at the edge of his mouth.

  “Katherine Picton told me to introduce myself to the Dante specialist in the Department of Romance Studies. But I haven’t gotten around to it. I’ve been busy.”