by Nell Harding
She ignored his barbed comment and walked quickly away from temptation toward the indicated doorway. A short, arched corridor led to a massive kitchen, still in the original medieval kitchen room with its massive hearth and spit, wide counters around the walls and a walk-in larder. In one corner, modern kitchen furnishings had been installed in a more user-friendly manner but it was still equipped to serve dozens.
“You do have a cook,” she said accusingly as she stared around her at the stainless steel counters and the refrigerator large enough to store a red deer.
“We use caterers occasionally,” he conceded. “Or bring in a chef for certain special occasions. But when I’m here on my own, this room isn’t used much.”
“All the more reason to learn to cook,” she said briskly. “Since you love to host and entertain, it’s a useful skill. We’ll start with something basic. Let’s see what’s in this fridge of yours.”
Colin followed her around the vast room like a lost child sticking close to the nearest adult. He seemed as curious as she was to peer into the refrigerator.
“Oh, look, lots of plates of cold cuts,” he said enthusiastically. “That simplifies things.”
“You never even come to look in the fridge?” Fiona asked incredulously. “That’s my favourite place to search for inspiration when I’m writing. Whatever do you do for breakfast?”
“There’s a smaller fridge in the breakfast room,” Colin said, gesturing vaguely. “McTavish keeps it stocked with what I need so I never have to venture this far out of my comfort zone.”
Fiona shot him an unimpressed look, then faced the food in front of her with enthusiasm. “How does a stir-fry sound to you?” she asked, already rummaging for the fresh vegetables and eggs. “It’s the simplest thing and always tasty and if you undercook it, nobody gets sick.”
“You’re the head chef and I’m just the apprentice, remember?” Colin said, accepting the carrots, celery and broccoli she handed him, followed by coloured peppers and mushrooms which he piled in an unceremonious heap on the nearest counter.
“There have to be onions here somewhere,” Fiona said, leaving the fridge to search the large cupboards along one wall.
Colin followed her example, rummaging through cupboards as if he’d never seen them before. “Oh, look, I’ve found music,” he announced happily, pulling a portable stereo from a high shelf. “That might liven things up.”
“That and a glass of wine,” Fiona suggested, glad to see him starting to enjoy the idea as she pulled out a couple of chef’s aprons to add to the sense of cooking classes and to protect her borrowed clothing.
Soon they were side by side chopping vegetables, glasses of red wine at close reach and a radio mix of music that sometimes had them dancing along and sometimes left them laughing at past musical trends.
“I suppose the eighties were as harsh on the rich as the poor when it came to music,” Fiona said with a grin as Colin pushed his hair back from his face and did a good impersonation of Cory Hart along with the music.
“Vintage classics, it all increases in value with age,” he said with a very nineteen-eighties wiggle of his hips. “Rather like us, I hope. And the clothes we now wear and think are classy. Well, some of us.”
He winked at her and she gave him a friendly push, only to be caught up in his arms and forced to dance along.
“You know, I think we should take dancing lessons together,” he mused aloud. “Swing, tango, that sort of thing. What do you think?”
She smiled, dizzy with being spun about and giddy with the wine. “If you come to a ceiligh with me,” she bargained.
“Any time,” he agreed readily. “What is it?”
She rolled her eyes. “Where have you been hiding?” she bemoaned. “It’s traditional Celtic music, reels and the likes, with a live band and somebody who calls the moves, tells you to swing your partner and then to sashay down to the end of the line, that sort of thing.”
“Ah,” he said flatly. “Country dancing.”
“The original and a lot of fun,” she defended it. “And highly Scottish. You must have been at least to a few functions, weddings, that sort of thing here that ended with a ceiligh.”
“Probably,” he said dismissively, “But in those cases they ended for me just before the music began. I never quite saw the appeal of everybody stomping along together and being told what to do next.”
“It’s good craic,” she said indignantly. “And no less ridiculous than dancing to La Macarena or things like that. You can’t judge this without trying at least once.”
“I’ll try if you’re my dance partner,” he said smoothly. “Look how quickly I’m taking to cooking lessons. You have an amazing power to change my opinions.”
He let his hands start to wander from her waist, a suggestive smile playing on his lips.
“The food,” Fiona said, suddenly remembering. “Let’s get it frying and start the rice while we wait for a better tune to come on.”
“I can see why you’re such a success at what you do,” he said, looking pouty as he let her go. “A relentless work ethic that never allows you to forget about it all for a while and just enjoy the moment.”
“I think I let go well enough after our last walk,” she said pointedly, deciding that now was a good time to broach the subject of their current situation as she finished dicing the onion and busied herself with warming the oil in a frying pan. “You can’t say I was too serious there, unable to be frivolous.”
Without turning her head she felt his eyes drilling into her and soon he was standing close behind her by the stove. “And was that frivolous?” he asked softly, his mouth close to her ear, his entire being suddenly feeling very close to Fiona.
“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?”
&nb
sp; 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, non-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 direction 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.