sort of young man to take her in hand and show her who was boss, and his father thought she was just the sort of young woman who needed a bit of bossing.
Not if she had anything to say about it.
Never mind that she’d only managed to dredge up the courage to decide that in the spring. She’d been plotting for weeks how her life would change once she was on her own. Planes and trains had only been the beginning of what she was sure would be an adventure she would never forget.
And with any luck, she would be telling her parents all about it via email while she lived happily in a very small house in a coastal fishing village where access to the Internet was limited to satellite cards.
But first she had to get past the test that was awaiting her there on the platform. She closed her eyes briefly, then stepped away from the train and walked over to the man she would ditch as soon as humanly possible. More difficult was to avoid Dory’s questing lips, but she managed that as well.
“Let’s not,” she demurred.
“Oh, you may have a point there,” he said, in an affected British accent that she was sure he thought displayed his blue blood to its best advantage. “When in Jolly Olde England, do as the natives do, eh?”
“Oh, yes,” she agreed quickly. She traded him her suitcase for the sign—which she murmured appreciatively over before rolling it up and stuffing it in the first garbage can she saw—and the flowers, which she didn’t bother to smell. They were carnations, which made her sneeze. She’d been actively avoiding dating Dory Mollineux and his carnations for almost a year. She would be, she had to admit, damned if she was going to find herself saddled with him now that she was so close to freedom.
“We’ll take a taxi,” he announced. “We could have walked if you were a bit less fragile, but your parents made me promise not to let you overtax yourself.”
“My parents?” she echoed.
“The Cookes are wonderful people,” he continued, as if he hadn’t heard her. “I’m sure you’ll get along famously.”
Samantha managed to keep from gritting her teeth because she had a lifetime of practice. She was not fragile; she was frustrated by her current life situation. She was also hardly able to believe that she was listening to Dory talk about her employers. The only way he would have known anything about them was if he had visited them to relate heaven only knew what sort of personal details about her. She imagined he had a list and that her parents had been the authors of it. The only thing she could hope for was that her brother had taken the trouble to tell the Cookes to reserve judgment until they met her. They had been willing to hire her, so perhaps that told her everything she needed to know.
She let Dory carry on the conversation because it was easier that way. Besides, he was very fond of the sound of his own voice, and since he was an expert on every subject and not shy about discussing those subjects, there was much to be fond of.
It was unfortunate, actually. He was extremely handsome, in a Top-Sider, khaki-trousered, blond-highlighted-hair sort of way. She was half surprised he didn’t wear a knitted V-neck vest and carry an old-fashioned cheerleader megaphone. His undergrad degree was in international relations, he had a law degree from Georgetown, and never used either of them. She wasn’t quite sure what he did except attend symposiums on various topics ranging from politics to musicology. He was the youngest son of the dean of the college of humanities at the small, exclusive university where her parents both taught, which she supposed was enough for them.
She had managed to avoid him for most of her life because he’d been sent to boarding school at five and had, she was sure, never looked back. In that, she couldn’t blame his parents. If she’d been his mother, she would have packed his little suitcase for him herself.
She had wondered more than once over the past year if there was perhaps something wrong with her that she wasn’t left giddy by his interest. She was fairly sure that anyone else would have taken one look at Theodore Mollineux and immediately tripped daintily in front of him so he would have had to not only notice her but leap to rescue