The Dog House (Harding's World of Romance) (18 page)

“I’ll let you analyse that for me,” she replied, slipping the garlic and onion into the oil and starting to boil the water for rice, remaining focused on the food so that she could keep her back turned while he answered. She knew that she was blushing again and her legs felt weak, suddenly afraid of his response and realising how much their time together had come to mean to her.

“You’re the great thinker here, not me,” he said lightly, taking a slight step back. “I’m the shallow one who just lives in the moment, remember?”

“And once the moment is over, it’s over?” she persisted, trying to keep her tone light as she chopped some carrots into smaller pieces just to keep her hands occupied.

“As long as your lovely white teeth aren’t actually dentures, I think those carrots are small enough,” he said, firmly placing his hands on hers to stop her manic activity and gently prying the knife from her hand before
turning her body to face him.

His eyes were fixed on hers, as friendly as ever but now with a searching look as well
, as if he were trying to read her, to decide what she wanted to hear.

Fiona broke away. “I have to fetch the rice,” she mumbled. She didn’t want him to choose the words she wanted to hear, to remain smooth and charming and just playing along with the game. She wanted to know what he really felt and wanted, realising that she had no idea beyond the physical.

He leaned back against a counter and watched her, his arms folded, waiting for her to finish her latest keep-busy task to continue the conversation.

“You need
twice as much water as rice,” she told him, reverting to the safety of the cooking lesson. “Once the water’s boiling, you add the rice and have about twenty minutes to get the rest ready.” She settled on the job of stirring the onions and adding more vegetables, but not completely turning her back on Colin.

He still seemed to be waiting patiently to return to their discussion and suddenly Fiona didn’t want to have it anymore, afraid of discovering that she was expecting too much, reading too much into their time together.

“Tell me something, Fi,” Colin said finally, using the short form of her name for the first time which gave her an unexpected pleasure. “Why were you so set against me at the start, so reluctant to give me a chance?”

She shrugged uncomfortably, wondering if she could get away with hunting down the spices now or if she could manage to stand still through this suddenly painful discussion.
It was the perfect time either to laugh about the dog or to have a serious conversation about their relationships status. Instead the eviction letter came to mind and she found herself skirting both issues.

“I guess I thought you were a cold-blooded feudal landlord type with no compassion or time for the lower classes,” she said carefully. “But perhaps I misjudged you.”

She was glad to hear his easy laugh return and the tension in the room eased slightly. “So now you know that I truly am as inoffensive and simple as I seem?” he asked teasingly. “Nice, happy, uncomplicated. All of which are bad things in my father’s books, but at least far from being some reigning tyrant. So are you recovering from your reluctance?”

She flashed him a smile, grateful this time for his relaxed, no
n-confrontational attitude that helped to restore the fun ambiance which they had been enjoying. They could have their serious discussion after dinner. Hastily she threw in the remaining vegetables and added spices, frying up an egg on the side to mix in.

“You are the happiest man I know, I think,” she told him
when dinner was cooking and she could return to her wine. “And possibly the nicest, most easy-going person I’ve ever met. I’ve really never met anybody like you.”

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Ambiguous adjectives,” he observed.
“Damned by faint praise. Isn’t the word “nice” generally a death toll when a woman uses it for a man?”

She cocked her head and looked at him. “Nice is good when we’re sixteen, and then passes out of fashion around twenty until we’ve had our fill of not-nice men and start to re-evaluate what we like.”

“And?” he prodded. “What do you like now?”

“Dancing in the kitchen with wine in my hand,” she
answered, the sort of response he might have given himself and which earned her an appreciative nod and a raise of his wine glass. She was relieved by the slight reprieve, although his obvious preference for avoiding the subject also gave her a few misgivings. In any case, it was a subject that had been broached and would have to be continued at some point, as it hung unspoken in the air between them.

“Do you know, this is actually quite fun,” he remarked as they dug out plates and cutlery and set a small oak table in one corner of the great living hall. “
I really think that I might sign up for cooking classes this autumn.”

Fiona laughed. “I just had visions of Audrey Hepburn learning to make soufflé in some old movie,” she explained hastily. “I think it’s a great idea.”

“Oh, I’d probably bring the chef here for private lessons,” he said lazily. “Easier to stay motivated. And if you’re eyeing my dining table doubtfully, this is my arrangement when I’m here on my own. There is a formal dining hall but it doesn’t quite match the mood I’m hoping for this evening. I’m sure that we even have candles kicking about somewhere.”

Soon a candle was lit and the table looked inviting, simple and romantic.

“Very nice,” she said approvingly as he nipped out the door and returned to add a vase with a single red rose to complete the table décor. “Do you always have one of those on hand?”

“It comes from my mother’s award-winning rose garden,” he said with an impish grin.
“Naughty and nice.”

It was exactly that naughty edge which saved him from the “nice” epithet, but Fiona didn’t want to tell him that just yet, sure that any step in that direc
tion would end with dinner burning on the stove. She wanted to have time to bring the conversation back to their relationship before she gave in to his seductive charms.

Instead she turned the conversation back to safe, light-hearted subjects for
the length of their dinner, which was accompanied by generous amounts of wine and Colin’s irrepressible spirit of gentle teasing and fun. It wasn’t until they were seated back on the sofa by the fire, with a box of chocolates and a bottle of cognac, that the topic drifted back toward their uncertain status.

“So are you really serious about taking cooking lessons?” she asked, unaware that this would re-launch their earlier discussion
as she curled back in her earlier position.

“Am I really serious about anything?” he threw back at her, smiling at her with cat-like eyes over the rim of his glass
from the far end of the couch.

This had Fiona back on topic in a heartbeat. “Are you?” she demanded,
the alcohol making her tone more emphatic than necessary.

“I wish you would stop equating happy and light-hearted with shallow,” he remarked in his usual offhand manner. “There is no offense in me enjoying my time with you, is there?
Or in me hoping that you enjoy it as much as I do?  I take it this is what you really want to talk about.”

She flushed and put down her glass. “
I just want to know where I stand with you,” she said bluntly, giving up on her attempts to try to find the right words without sounding quite so analytical. If there was a more subtle way to broach this subject, she had missed the moment several glasses ago.

He had gone back to watching her almost warily, pausing for a long moment before he managed a flippant comment and naughty smile. “Right in front of me,
most of the time,” he laughed lightly. “But the question is far less interesting than where you might like to lie with me.”

There was a wicked, challenging gleam in his eye but he made no move toward her, apparently sensitive enough to her mood not to risk any sudden forwardness this time.

Fiona was not in the mood for his evasive answers. “Where is this going?” she asked insistently. “You and me. What do you want?”

“You,” he said simply, but he let out a heavy sigh. “Let me go back to my earlier question, Fiona. Why were you so suspicious of me at the start?”

Fiona gazed moodily at the fire. “I’d heard rumours about you,” she said at last, not liking the direction that his answer was taking.

“And what had you heard?” he persisted, for once his voice not bantering.

She stole a quick look at his face, which was looking fairly serious as he looked at her. “I’m sure you can guess,” she said with a small shrug. “Rich, sticking to your own social set, not much of a mixer with the locals,” she tried.

“And?” he continued mercilessly. “What about my personality?”

“Charming,” she said reluctantly. “A confirmed bachelor who doesn’t get serious. Why are you asking me all this?”

He pursed his lips. “Do you think it was an accurate description?” he asked. “And if so, did you think you would change me?”

Fiona was taken aback. “I wasn’t looking to change you,” she said hotly. “I wasn’t looking for anything at all, let me remind you. You were the one who insisted that we get to know each other. Are you accusing me of something? Do you really think I set out to get you and your idle rich money and fancy clothes and clubs?”

He threw up his hands defensively. “I’m not suggesting that at all,” he said in a conciliatory voice. “I’m just trying to warn you that I’ve never been known for making long-term or committed plans, or for acting particularly grown-up and responsible. As I thought you knew.”

Fiona could feel her anger rising, gaining momentum as his insinuations filtered through her stunned mind and further fuelled by what seemed to be a negative response about their relationship. “Do you for one instant think that this was all a ruse to land the infamous bachelor Colin Parker?” she continued, her voice growing louder and shriller. “This is exactly the sort of arrogant assumption made by overly-protected upper class snobs to justify thumbing your nose at the rest of us, because you think we’re all dying to climb the social ladder to oxygen-starve our intellect in shallow cocktail parties. I just wanted to know if we were some sort of an item. But you can take your fancy castle and charming emptiness and go to hell.”

If she was surprised by the strength of her own outburst, he was
completely floored by it, staring like a deer in headlights as she jumped to her feet and stormed toward the door, her dramatic impact somewhat lost by the fact that it took two different attempts to find the right corridor back toward the entrance hall. By that time he had leapt to his feet and caught up to her, catching her by the arm and using one hand to restrain her from slapping at him.

“Just calm down, Fiona,” he said with a nervous-sounding laugh, obviously unused to raw emotion and unsure of what she might do next. Emotion was probably never shown in polite society, she thought bitterly, trying to snatch her arm back.

“Let me go,” she said stiffly, trying to keep her temper in check and not to burst into tears, an unfortunate side-effect of her rare moments of explosive anger. “I’m ready to go home now.”

“Not in that state, you aren’t,” he told her, gently pulling her back toward the living room. “And
I don’t just mean not fit to drive. We seem to have some sort of misunderstanding.”

She laughed sourly. “
D’you think so?” she asked with sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Whatever would make you say that?”

“I think you are somehow misunderstanding my words,” he clarified, still watching her warily as if he expected her to do something uncontrolled at any minute. “I certainly didn’t mean any offense to you and I apologise if you took my words that way.”

Fiona felt her shoulders sag as her anger drained away, replaced with disappointment at what was, ultimately, a rejection. “I do want to go home,” she repeated, her voice soft and pleading this time.

Colin still had hold of her arm and this
time managed to steer her carefully back down the passageway. “I’ll get you a taxi if you really want to go,” he said, his voice sounding defeated. “But I think this is worth talking about, don’t you? I’d hate to have you leave feeling that I’ve insulted you in some way.”

He led her back to the sofa and pulled her down beside him, where he was perched on the edge as if ready to
chase her down again if necessary. But his eyes were focused on her with concern, truly perplexed by her reaction.

“I have never thought of you as a fortune-hunter,” he tried again awkwardly. “That wasn’t what I meant to suggest at all. But I thought we’d discussed the fact that I’m perhaps not as serious about things as you are, but that I don’t think this is a sign of being shallow, just of being happy and taking things as they come.”

She looked at him, biting on her lower lip which was starting to tremble. “Never mind,” she said tiredly. “It doesn’t matter in the end, I guess. We are very different people with very different outlooks and they just aren’t compatible.” She felt a huge weight settle in her chest, only then admitting to herself just how much she had come to care for Colin and their time together.

He looked more concerned than ever. “But we are having a great time together, aren’t we?” he asked worriedly. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve loved my days with you, how much I look forward to them and think about them afterwards. Haven’t you been having fun?”