glass. There are radiators, but the room seems to be heated by the fire in the grate behind a fine-mesh safety curtain; the air smells of burning wood and summer camp. There is a portable CD-player on the table, and some CDs, but no TV set. On the walls are more large-sized prints and more photographs of hills and water.
I’d love to take a closer look, but of course I can’t; in fact, I remain exactly where he left me. A more determined woman would already have taken off another two or three layers of clothing and arranged herself in a seductive pose on the couch by the fireside. The thought is exciting, but I know perfectly well that I resemble that woman about as much as I resemble Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
Giles returns, in thick woolen socks and a frayed-looking Norwegian sweater, and I can’t help smiling at him. He looks so handsome and so sweet in his scruffy lakeside clothes. When he sees me smile, his features relax. God, is he nervous, too?
“This is lovely,” I say, idiotically.
“Well, I think so. Mandy hated it. She kept the apartment in town, I burrowed down here. Easily parted.”
Burrow down. The words, the feeling, echo in my mind.
“Will you take your pants off?” he asks.
“W-What?”
“You’re still half covered in plastic. Perhaps that’s unnecessary.”
With some difficulty I scramble out of my rain pants, which for some reason I could pull on over my boots but don’t seem to be able to pull off over them. I wriggle and struggle and eventually have to take off the boots. When I straighten up, Giles is leaning in a doorframe, watching me with unholy amusement.
“Cute. But stick to the stockings, on the whole. Oh, talking of which—”
He disappears into what I take to be the bedroom and returns with something long and shiny in his hands. “You forgot your gloves in my office.”
I’m red in the face anyway, with cold and the effort of undressing, so this flush of embarrassment doesn’t really matter. “You took them…into your bedroom?”
“Oh, yes,” he says, with a silken yet faintly menacing tone in his voice. I’m a little weirded out by that, until I imagine what I would do if he had ever left any piece of clothing in my office.
“Drink? I can offer you beer, wine, but red only, tea, of course, with a shot of whisky, if you like, although it’s a single malt I brought from Scotland, so it’s spoiled if you dilute it. You could have a wee dram…do you want to?”
He is no longer avoiding my eyes. Animated, charming, self-confident, suddenly, but still Giles. Still with that aura of diffident reserve around him, still an Englishman. I find him absolutely irresistible. Of course we are going to have more sex tonight.
“Yes, I’d like that. But can I have a cup of tea, too, please?”
“Sit down. And shove the dogs away if they bother you.”
Toby and Andrew have finished their supper and are very eager to check out the intruder who is usurping quality space.
“They’re not allowed on the sofa—down, Andrew! The kettle’s just heating up.”
I watch him as he gets a bottle of whisky and puts it down onto the low table in front of me, a small pitcher of milk, ditto. He removes the grid from the fireplace and puts two more logs onto the fire. I could sit here forever and simply watch him move around his house, still in socks, so deft and capable. There is this feminine side to him, maternal almost. It’s as if he were looking after me—well, he is looking after me, of course, as I’m his guest. And if I don’t mess it up, these deft and capable hands will hold me, later, and I will be allowed to touch him. His hand, pouring whisky, his thighs and knees, so lean and hard in the jeans as he squats down to stoke the fire. His broad, strong back. The wayward little lock of gray hair that curls behind his left ear. Oy! I will break my heart over this man, and I’ll have nobody to blame but myself.
To my profound relief, he sinks into the armchair at right angles to my sofa.
He lifts his whisky glass. “Slawnchevuh.”
“What was that?”
“Slainte mhath. It’s Scottish and means good health.”
“I see. Well, l’chaim.”
He smiles at me, and we drink. I couldn’t say whether it’s the drink or the smile that starts the glowing in my belly.