Durham Scholar
"In the ancient university city, rare books librarian Margaret discovers that the visiting American professor wants more than access to manuscripts."
Durham's Cathedral Library held treasures that most scholars never saw—manuscripts older than America, texts that had survived Vikings and reformations, knowledge preserved by monks who'd never imagined the world we'd build.
"I'm looking for the Bede fragments."
The American in my reading room had done his research—most visitors asked for famous things, but the Bede fragments were obscure, significant only to specialists in early medieval theology.
"You're Professor Morrison."
"You've heard of me?"
"I read the application. Your book on Anglo-Saxon literacy is required reading for my cataloguing." I extended a hand. "Margaret Ashworth. Head of Special Collections."
The fragments were genuine treasures—seventh-century ink on eighth-century vellum, the handwriting of monks who'd known Bede himself. James Morrison handled them with the reverence they deserved.
"This is incredible," he said. "The provenance alone—"
"Unbroken chain of custody since 731. The monks who fled the Vikings brought them here. The monks who dissolved during the Reformation hid them in walls. The Victorian librarians who found them kept meticulous records."
"And now you guard them."
"I preserve them. Guard sounds too military."
He returned daily for three weeks. We discussed manuscripts, compared interpretations, argued about translation choices. Somewhere in the process, the academic exchanges became personal.
"Why Durham?" he asked one evening. We'd moved from the library to a pub nearby, both of us reluctant to end the conversation. "You could work anywhere."
"I could work anywhere English. Here, I work in history." I sipped my wine. "Every morning I walk through streets monks walked. Every day I handle texts Bede might have touched. Where else would I want to be?"
"You're a romantic."
"I'm a medievalist. We have to be."
"I'm beginning to understand why." His hand found mine on the table. "Margaret. I've visited dozens of libraries in my career. I've never met a curator who made me want to stay past closing time."
"We do close eventually."
"I know. I've been watching the clock." His thumb traced my palm. "What happens when the library closes?"
"Traditionally, the scholar goes back to his hotel."
"And non-traditionally?"
I kissed him in the pub, surrounded by students who had no idea what we'd been discussing. His mouth was eager, intellectual intensity translating to physical attention. When we broke apart, both of us were breathing hard.
"My cottage is closer than your hotel," I said.
"Then let's go to your cottage."
The cottage was my sanctuary—books on every surface, manuscripts in progress, the evidence of a life devoted to preservation. James looked around with obvious delight.
"This is perfect."
"It's chaotic."
"It's you. A working library, not a museum." He pulled me close. "I've spent three weeks falling for your mind. Can I spend tonight falling for the rest of you?"
We made love surrounded by centuries of scholarship, his academic hands finding subjects I hadn't realized I'd been neglecting. He touched me with the same attention he'd brought to the Bede fragments—careful, appreciative, aware that some things were irreplaceable.
"You're beautiful," he said.
"I'm fifty-five and covered in manuscript dust."
"You're custodian of impossible treasures and you have no idea how rare that makes you." He moved inside me with scholarly patience. "Let me spend the night showing you."
He showed me thoroughly. The medieval metaphors came unbidden—union, completion, the way separate texts could become one tradition. When I finally cried out, it was with the voice I reserved for discovering something precious.
"Stay," I said afterward.
"In Durham?"
"In my life. However that works."
The sabbatical he'd planned became permanent. Harvard released him; Durham hired him. Now he lives in my cottage, works beside me in the library, and spends his evenings translating monks while I preserve their words.
"We're both custodians," he said one night, looking at our intertwined lives.
"Of different things."
"Of the same thing, really. Knowledge that deserves to survive." He kissed my forehead. "You taught me that. The survival matters more than the individual."
"And the individual?"
"The individual finds someone who understands." He pulled me closer. "That's the reward for all the preservation. Someone who sees what you're protecting and wants to protect it too."
The Bede fragments still wait in their climate-controlled cases. The monks who wrote them never imagined us—the woman who guards their work, the man who studies it, the love that grew from shared devotion to words older than memory.
But maybe they did imagine it. Maybe that's why they wrote it down. Because they knew someone would come, eventually, who would understand—and would find in understanding something like grace.