Man Who Loved Pride and Prejudice (32 page)

   The most mundane things could remind him how much he wanted her. After dinner on Sunday, as Cassie filled the sink with warm water to do the dishes, he said, "Maybe I should start looking for that house with a hot tub."

   Cassie's hands, buried deep in soap suds, stilled on the dishes. "Isn't it a little early to be thinking about that kind of thing?"

   "I'm sorry. I shouldn't make assumptions." Some of Calder's exuberance slipped away at the reminder that Cassie still might have reservations about their relationship, even without the complication of her past. "I understand if you don't want to live together right away, but I'd still rather have a place you'd be comfortable with in the long term."

   "Calder, we've just decided to give this relationship a try. We're not ready to move in together. Besides, how can we live together if you can't mention me to your family?"

   "I'm fine with telling my family about you. I'd just rather wait, say, 'til after our first child is born." He said it as if it were a joke, but he didn't want to let Cassie meet his parents before he was sure of her commitment to him. He couldn't take the chance of them scaring her off.

   Cassie scrubbed fiercely at a stain on the pan. "That's okay. I don't want you to meet my sister, either. She isn't pleasant. And of course you won't be meeting Ryan. He won't be out for at least twelve years."

   So she didn't expect him to be around in twelve years. "What about your parents?"

   "I suppose you could meet them if you wanted. You wouldn't have anything to talk to them about, but they're okay."

   "I could talk to them about you." He slid his arms around her, letting his hand creep under her sweater to lie against her skin.

   She raised her eyebrow. "Why do I get the feeling your mind is not on the conversation?"

   "No, it is. Sometimes I feel better when I touch you." It reduced his anxiety about losing her, but he wasn't about to say so.

   "So I'm sort of a big teddy bear, am I?"

   "A sexy teddy bear." He kissed her neck. "But I wasn't trying to distract you. And I bet your family is very nice."

   "Calder, my mother is a cashier at K-Mart. My father works construction when he can get a job, and when he can't, he sits in front of the TV and drinks beer. Sometimes he'd go off for months and we never knew if he was coming back. My sister—well, you know what she does. The only person in my family you could have a real conversation with is Ryan."

   "Ryan is different?"

   She inspected the pan for invisible stains. "Ryan's a lot like me. He's smart and he wanted more from life than the South Side. I taught him to read when he was four, and he was stealing my books by the time he was in second grade. He dropped out of high school, but he's taught himself a lot."

   "He's younger than you are?" For some reason, Calder had pictured a much older brother.

   "Almost ten years. I left home when he was nine. I didn't go back much, so I never realized he was getting beaten up regularly by other boys because his grades were too good. So he learned to do badly at school. When he was fifteen, he wrote to me, asking if he could come to live with me. I was twenty-four, in my second year of grad school. I could have taken him. It wouldn't have been easy, but I could have done it. But I was finally doing what I had dreamed of after all those years of fighting to get there, and I didn't want a teenage brother to take care of." She rinsed the pan and handed it to Calder. "So I said no, and I never asked him why he wanted to leave. If I'd said yes, he'd be graduating from college instead of being in prison."

   "You can't hold yourself responsible for that."

   "I
raised
him, Calder. My mother worked two jobs to meet the mortgage, and we never knew when Dad would be working, so I took care of Ryan. Don't tell me what I can hold myself responsible for."

"But you were only ten."

   "That's practically a grown-up where I come from." Her voice held forced cheerfulness as she changed the subject. "My mother named me after a soap opera character. That should tell you something about her."

   He hated seeing the tension in her and the knowledge that some parts of her were still off limits. "She picked a character with a nice name."

   "I was lucky. She almost named me after her second favorite, because she liked the name so much. Then I would have been Brandi—Brandi Boulton. I think I'd rather have died."

   He pulled her back against him. "No, I can't see you as a Brandi. She was right to choose Cassandra instead."

   "That's easy for you to say. You don't know what my middle name is."

   "What's your middle name?"

   She leaned her head back to kiss him. "That secret will go to the grave with me."

   She seemed to freeze. "Nothing," she said, her voice carefully steady.

   "It's not nothing. I may be inarticulate, but I'm not stupid."

   "No," she said into his chest. "You're not stupid."

   "So tell me about it, then."

   She was silent for a moment. "There's nothing really to tell. Just a lot of feelings, nothing sensible."

   He held her close, stroking her hair. "If I've done something wrong, if I've pushed you too hard, please tell me. I don't want to frighten you away again."

   "You didn't do anything," she said, her voice muffled. "I'm just scared, that's all."

   "Scared of what?" He held his breath, waiting for her answer.

   "That it will end badly—that you'll find out I'm not who you think I am, or that you'll get tired of living in my world, and I can't fit into yours."

   "Surely you know I'm not that easy to get rid of by now." He could hardly stand the anxiety. It would be unbearable if she backed away from him again now. "What's this 'my world and your world' business?"

   "We can do fine when our worlds intersect, but there's another part of your life. The charity balls, the high society, even the politics. I can carry off a fancy party every now and then, but I just couldn't breathe if I always had to worry about who knew what about whom. I'm not from that world, and it would show, and I'd embarrass you."

   "Don't worry about that. I agree. I think you'd be unhappy in that world. But so am I, and I have been for years, and I'm not going back to it. I hate being in crowds of people, I hate having to say the right thing, I hate all the predatory behavior. The only reason I've put up with it is because I felt I had to uphold the family name, but I don't care about that anymore. If my family can't cope with the fact that I hate big parties, that's their problem."

   "But what about your friends, like Scott? He'd expect you to do things like that, too."

   "My friends know better than to ask that of me. Why is it so hard to believe me on this?"

   "Because men leave. That's what they do."

   Like her father had left her. He would have to be careful here. "I'm not going to leave."

   "That's easy to say, but I'm still afraid of losing you."

   He tipped up her face so she could see him. "Do you think
I'm
not frightened of losing
you?
I'm bloody terrified of it, I can tell you. You have nothing to worry about. After all, you're the one who wants to take this slowly, while I'm talking about marriage, a house here and probably one on the Cape, and if I knew whether you wanted them or not, I'd be talking about the kids, the station wagon, and the dog as well."

   "You haven't been talking about marriage," she said in a small voice. "And please don't start. I'm scared enough as it is."

   "I won't talk about it now, at least. But I have a confession to make."

   "What's that?"

   "I really
would
like to get a dog. I've always wanted one."

   She laughed. "You can have a dog, that's fine. As long as it's not one of those tiny ones. I don't like dogs I can step on."

   He pretended to be offended. "Of course not. I want a big dog, one that can go on walks along the beach with us. Don't be surprised if you come home from work some day to find a puppy. I've wanted a dog for a
really
long time."

   She nibbled his shoulder affectionately. "I think I'm safe. My landlord doesn't allow dogs."

   "See, I told you we needed a house," he said with a glint in his eye.

   "You certainly like having your own way!"

   "Yes," he said, rolling on top of her and neatly pinning her to the bed. "I like having my own way very, very much, and I especially like having my way with you." His lips came down on hers in a manner that left little doubt as to his meaning.

THE NEXT DAY CASSIE asked, "Have you thought through the implications of taking this job at Haverford? Presumably the faculty can be trusted not to go around telling people who you are, but once students are involved, it's a different question. What if one of them recognizes you? Then everyone would know."

   Calder found there was something reassuring about Cassie worrying over him. "It doesn't matter. I've decided to stop keeping it secret anyway. I may just tell the students flat out the first day, and let the chips fall where they may."

   "But what about your family? Won't they be upset?"

   "Probably." He wasn't displeased with the idea. Now that he'd made this much of a break, he was starting to enjoy it. "It's their problem, though, not mine."

   "That's brave of you."

   He shrugged. "I should have done it a long time ago. It's just a habit to do things their way."

   "Whatever you think is best. But if you're going to do it anyway, you might consider telling people sooner. That could be a disruptive way to start your first class."

   When he had Cassie at his side, it was easy to believe his family was unimportant. Unfortunately, he knew that sooner or later he would pay for the illusion. It wasn't something he wanted to think about. "Tell you what. I'll announce it right away if you'll tell me what your middle name is."

Cassie laughed, as he had intended. "No deal."

Cassie gathered the dirty laundry into the hamper and put the bottle of detergent on top of it. Calder had done the laundry the last time, just to prove he knew how. The various household tasks that were a mystery to him were one of her favorite things to tease him about.

   She picked up the basket to take it to the basement, but Calder came in the door carrying a newspaper before she had a chance. He didn't return the smile she gave him. Instead he threw the paper on the table in front of her. "It's started. My father's secretary called to point it out to me."

   It was a tabloid, the kind she saw at the grocery store check-out. The teaser strip at the top of the front page read, "Calder's Love Nest?" next to a small photo of the two of them.

   Cassie leaned over to take a closer look. "That's a fake, isn't it? I don't remember anyone taking pictures of us together."

   "They don't bother themselves with facts. Wait 'til you see the story."

   She flipped through the paper until she found the article. "Calder Westing in Love Nest with Sexy Scientist." A disbelieving laugh escaped her. According to it, she and Calder met for the first time at a party a few weeks earlier and had been inseparable since. It listed her as a professor at Haverford but said nothing about her background. That was something to be grateful for.