by Nell Harding
She stopped a few steps away from him and looked up questioningly to find his eyes watching hers fondly. At once she felt her old misgivings return, her fear that absolutely everything was a joke to him and that none of what had passed between them had left any serious impression. But he took her hands in his and pulled slightly, a new touch of earnest appeal in his eyes.
“Can we step outside and talk?” he asked quietly. “I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your peers. Or myself, if it comes to that.”
She nodded dumbly, also not wanting their confusion to be public domain. It also gave her a moment to recover from her shock while she followed him out of the room, stopping just to pick up her handbag and nod goodbye to her friends at the table.
He said nothing as they crossed the main lobby and walked out into the cold street. They were on a cobbled pedestrian street filled with pubs, cafes and little boutique shops, but nowhere private to have a conversation.
“Should we go for a walk in the park?” Colin suggested doubtfully, looking up at the grey skies. “Unless you have somewhere else in mind where we could speak freely. Preferably not in front of your family.”
“You went by the flat?” Fiona asked uncomfortably as they set off toward Princess Street and the castle park. “How did they treat you?”
He shrugged in his nonchalant way. “Better than my friends treated you,” he said lightly. “One of your brothers seemed to like the idea of my living in a castle. Certainly a more welcoming reception than if my parents had found you soaking wet in your pajamas by the lake.”
Fiona watched him out of the corner of her eye, wondering if he was just going to laugh this all off and feeling her heart sink. But suddenly he took her hands again and dragged her against the lee of a wall to speak more seriously.
“Listen, Fiona,” he began awkwardly. “I know I’m not good at this sort of thing, but I need to apologise about the eviction. I tend to let other people deal with the situations I don’t like, just sort of washing my hands of them without really thinking about the consequences. Obviously I had no idea that it was you, but I’m sure that doesn’t matter in your judgement of me. All I can say is that this had made me think hard about taking my own responsibilities more seriously and that sort of thing won’t happen again under my watch.”
“Under your watch,” Fiona laughed softly, repeating his words. “Just listen to you, the guard still protecting the castle.”
“How about the feudal lord being humbled by the spirited peasant girl?” he replied. “Being shown the error of his ways and being changed to a better person.”
“You don’t want to be changed,” Fiona pointed out guardedly, as memories came back of their heated conversation after dinner in the castle. “You accused me of that.”
“I don’t mind becoming a better person in the way I live my life,” he said patiently. “I was thinking of a much more basic change, more trivial I suppose, but I just didn’t want you waiting for me to become somebody solemn and serious all the time. I’m afraid that flippancy is part of my nature and I can’t help seeing the humour in most things, and I don’t want that to change. Life has got to be more fun when you laugh more, doesn’t it? But I never saw that as mutually exclusive of being passionate about things.”
“You just never had the time to try?” Fiona asked sarcastically, still feeling somehow defensive.
“Maybe you don’t try for passion,” Colin suggested. “Maybe you either have it or you don’t. Or one day you meet somebody and she reminds you what it is.”
Fiona felt her anger softening as she began to feel hope that he was finally going to say what she needed to hear. “I’m sorry too,” she blurted out before her walls came up again. “About Livingstone and me and the damages we caused. It was cowardly and wrong of me not to come forward and confess, and I promise you that I’m normally not like that.”
Her words sounded feeble, even to her own ears, but she didn’t know how to explain her lapse of character. He seemed to understand.
“It felt different because it was against the invading English,” he supplied dryly, not sounding in the least offended. “And you think we deserve a scratch of reality on the leather seats of our lifestyles.”
“You want to get up there and recite poetry by any chance?” Fiona asked teasingly, wondering why it was so hard to remain angry for very long with Colin.
“And get a haggis thrown in my face for my butchering of your art form and for my posh accent?” he asked with a violent shake of his head. “I already feel like I’m risking my life by facing you, after some of the righteous rage I’ve seen in you.”
Fiona opened her mouth to try to explain her outbursts, but suddenly found her thoughts and words a jumbled mess. The fact that he had come down to Edinburgh to find her meant something and she didn’t want to chase him away before he had tried to express what she was hoping he would say.
“Passion,” she said simply. “It can make a person explode at times.”
“It also exists in people who don’t wear their heart on their sleeves,” he said gently, cautiously moving his hands from her wrists to place them on her shoulders and draw her closer to him. “We aren’t all experts at expressing our passion in words, but there are other ways to show it.”
He leaned down to kiss her and she felt again the magnetic draw of the man in front of her, but she forced herself to push him back.
“I can’t tell if that’s passion or just hormones,” she said gently, regretfully. “You probably think I’m being too square because I need definitions, but that’s how I am. I’m a word person in the end, Colin, much as I’ve enjoyed the physical passion. But I can’t just be somebody you sleep with. I want more.”
He continued to lean over her as if he knew the power of temptation at that distance. Then he sighed and stood straight again.
“I was afraid you’d say that,” he said, squaring his shoulders resolutely. “Which is why I thought I’d try to speak to you in your language. Not in your accent, don’t worry about that. I know that poetry is what speaks to you the best, so I thought I’d write you an ode.”
“Oh no,” said Fiona.
“Just you wait,” he said undaunted as he fished in his jacket pocket for a slip of paper. “I’m no Campbell or Tennyson, but a Parker always rises to a challenge. I did shy away from a sonnet, though.”
Fiona covered her face with her hands, listening to the sound of paper being unfolded with embarrassment, dread and delight.
“I may have paraphrased a bit,” he admitted before clearing his throat theatrically and launching into verse.
“Fiona, Fiona, and something furry, by the night shores of Loch Murray
Soaked and swearing but still sweet in wet pajamas and bare feet,
My heart still harbours words you spoke, like “Go to hell, you spoilt rich bloke.”
You lured me in with history talk and forced me on that culture walk
It took two bottles to convince you just to let me briefly kiss you
And what but your delightful lips could make me yearn for fish ‘n chips?
Your beauty brought me to my knees, quite literally beneath the trees,
Before that day of country-clubbing when you gave my friends a drubbing.
I knew I’d never be the same when I laughed as you destroyed the game
And made me miss the cocktail jammin’ and a chance for Cook’s exquisite salmon
To drag me home despite my wishes to make me cook and wash the dishes.
I’d do it all again with conviction if you’d forgive that silly eviction
And smile at me like you did before you cursed me and stomped out of my door.
So what could make a man like me, who had no time for matrimony
Suddenly want to spend my days beneath the critical power of your gaze?
I guess I just needed this shove to make me say “I am in love.”
I don’t want to lose this love we’ve found, so stay with me and
bring that hound,
You may be quite angry still, but I love you, Fi, and always will.”
Fiona opened her eyes cautiously to make sure that it was over, and then removed her hands from her face, unable to prevent a wide smile from spreading ear to ear as she looked at Colin. He was right. He was never going to become serious in his demeanour or passionate in the way that she was used to, with flaming tempers and volatile emotions, but underneath his easy-going manner and affability was a human heart, capable of all the same feelings that she showed so much more easily. Even now, when he finally said the words she’d been waiting for, it was in doggerel rhyme, but it was so much his style, funny but sweet, that it made the words all the more genuine.
He stood looking at her expectantly, waiting for some sort of reaction. “I was actually going to mention heather in there as well somewhere, but the only rhyme I could find was weather, which seemed a bit cliché. By the way, I really did like your poem in there. Would I be presumptuous in hoping that you were referring to your feelings for me?”
Fiona smirked. “That was Campbell I was reading, not my own. Mine was pure vitriol.”
Colin looked crestfallen but he perked up again valiantly. “But you chose it for a reason. Hope, at least.”
Fiona smiled up at him. “I’m a romantic,” she shrugged. “I believe in love and the power of poetry to suggest potentials. Yours was very sweet, you know. Painful but lovely. So did you mean what you said about the dog being welcome?”
“Of course,” he scoffed. “He just needs a week of good dog-training, which my mother could happily provide. She’s itching for some grandpuppies to take under her wing. Is his name really Livingstone?”
“I didn’t name him,” Fiona said defensively.
“Another friend with fierce Scottish pride, then?” he asked with a twinkle.
“Could have been worse. There are all the inventors, for starters,” Fiona reminded him.
“I’d have chosen a whiskey, myself. How about Islay?” He seemed to be relaxing, finally more sure of his welcome.
Fiona didn’t want to let the conversation get side-tracked into flippancy just yet. “Do you really think I should head back to Glen Murray just yet?” she asked seriously. “Don’t you think we should give this some time, see how we do?”
He shook his head firmly. “That’s what I was suggesting when you nearly bit my head off,” he reminded her. “If you want to see passion and conviction, let’s jump in with both feet. You’re the first face that I want to see in the morning and the one I want to kiss just before falling asleep. Just give me a try. I’ve never lived with somebody before, but I don’t think I’d be the hardest to get along with. And if it doesn’t work, there are lots of rooms where you could stash my body before anybody found it.”
Fiona was smiling broadly now. It was a step further than she had been thinking of, but suddenly it was all that she wanted. “I think I’m ready for you to convince me of your passion in your own way,” she told him shyly, and the kiss that he gave her conveyed more love and conviction than any of the poets could ever express.
“I’ve got a lifetime of convincing you to do,” he eventually mumbled in her ear. “Let’s go home.”
Harding’s World of Romance
Harding’s World of Romance is a new series of love stories that take you around the globe in the footsteps of spirited heroines and sexy heroes on the trail of a happy ending. While love remains at the heart of each story, the setting is also brought to life as you are plunged into new places and lifestyles, adding the pleasure of discovery to the thrill of romance. Follow your heart to a new destination and let yourself be carried away for a memorable romantic adventure into Harding’s World of Romance.
Titles in the series already available on Amazon (and in the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library):
Fire and Ice
Kate Finnigan has what it takes to be a good chalet hostess: charm, warmth and a false identity. Her contagious spirit manages to thaw even her icy Swiss boss, the handsome watch-maker Sebastien Pichard, but just as the flames ignite, he discovers the truth about her identity.
One Short Harvest
Alex Larousse and Nadia Fischer are complete opposites. She is a free-spirited and unconventional young woman looking for adventure, and he is a traditional, strong and arrogant vineyard owner, used to getting his way. When she comes to pick grapes on his Burgundian estate, he asks her to pose as his fiancée with no idea of how this will wreak havoc on his ordered life, or on his heart. Will they be able to overcome their explosive animosity or to resist their equally explosive attraction in the space of one short harvest?
North of Superior
Naomi Miller has just returned to Thunder Bay with her ten-year old daughter, Cody, to help her ailing grandfather and to make a fresh start when her life becomes entangled again with the sexy NHL player, Erik Landsverk. After he becomes Cody’s coach and renews his interest in Naomi, she learns the price of the secret she has been carrying, because he has no idea that he is the father of her child.
Love for Water (Harding’s World of Romance, available soon on Amazon)
Michael Wilmshurst is a recently-appointed diplomat in drought-ravaged Sudan. Ill-suited to life in diplomatic circles, he is grateful for a chance to return to the field on a visit, where his life is turned upside down by a meeting with the passionate humanitarian worker, Carla Fernandez. She is prepared to do anything to bring water to the village where she works, even to play the dangerous seduction game, trading love for water. But her plan backfires when the game turns real as she discovers the rugged field worker that Michael actually is. He is caught in a position where he cannot be her lover and still help her project for fear of corruption charges. Now Carla may have to choose between her fight for water and the man she loves…
Look for the following upcoming titles by Nell Harding:
Sunsets at Simba Hill
Wildlife biologist Megan Hall thinks that she has landed her dream job when she is asked to remain in the Serengeti to run a luxury safari camp, until she discovers that she will be sharing the job with Jack Hamilton, the dangerously charming rogue who broke her heart two years ago. When neither will back down from this unique opportunity, the serious scientist and the irresponsible playboy find themselves battling their differences and their growing attraction in the heart of Africa.
Riding the Wave (Harding’s World of Romance)
Freelance photo-journalist Isla McGinnis is in Costa Rica on an assignment, writing an article to try to save a stretch of wild coast which is about to lose its protected status. When she takes a few days off to learn to surf, she finds herself swept away, quite literally, by ocean and emotion, becoming entangled with sexy surfer Scott Ford. It feels like the perfect tropical romance until she discovers that he is one of the developers bidding for this land, the enemy which she has come here to stop.
About the Author
Nell has always loved travel, and has lived and worked in exotic locations throughout Africa, Europe, Asia and Canada. Her passion for exploration is reflected in the settings of her novels which help you to discover fascinating corners of the world while following the adventures of her memorable heroines.
To find out more about Nell Harding and her works, please visit her website at Nell Harding Books:
https://sites.google.com/site/nellhardingbooks
Contact
Nell is always happy to hear from her readers. Please feel free to send any comments or suggestions to [email protected]
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