His reaction to her brought all her earlier guilt and discomfort flooding back. Before, when she had so rudely ignored the brief moment of shared amusement he had offered her, she had comforted herself with the knowledge that they were not likely to meet again and that his awareness of her bad temper and unpleasantness was something that was unlikely to be reinforced by another encounter. But she had been wrong and, as she felt her skin flushing as the coolness in his eyes reminded her of just how unpleasant she had been, she had to subdue an extremely childish impulse to close the door between them and shut him out so that she wouldn’t have to face that extremely uncomfortable scrutiny.
It seemed that he was waiting for her to speak and, since he had now stepped into her hall, she had no option but to at least go through the motions of pretending that this morning simply had not happened, and that neither of them had already made up their minds that there was simply no way they could ever share a roof...
‘Yes, Louise has explained the situation to me,’ Georgia agreed. ‘If you’d like to come into the kitchen we can discuss everything.’
She had deliberately asked Louise not to mention her aunt or the latter’s illness to Mitch Fletcher, not wanting it to seem as though she was inviting his pity.
Late afternoon sunshine flooded the comfortable kitchen. It was her aunt’s favourite room, reminiscent, so she had told Georgia the first time they viewed the cottage, of the home she had known as a girl. On hearing that, Georgia had ruthlessly changed her mind about replacing the kitchen’s ancient Aga with something more modern and getting rid of its heavy free-standing kitchen cupboards and dresser. Instead, she had done everything she could to reinforce Aunt May’s pleasure in the room’s homeliness—even if she did sometimes find that scouring the porous stone sink had a disastrous effect on her nails, and that the Aga, while giving off a delicious warmth, was not always as efficient as the modern electric oven she had had in her London flat. Maybe it was just that she was not accustomed to using it... Whatever, there had been several expensive mistakes before she had begun to appreciate its charms.
Once inside the kitchen, she waited, expecting to see distaste and scorn darkening Mitchell Fletcher’s astonishingly masculine golden eyes as he compared the kitchen to the marvels of modern technology to which he was no doubt accustomed. To her surprise he seemed to approve of the room, stroking the surface of the dresser and commenting, ‘Mid-nineteenth century, isn’t it? A very nice piece too... Solid and well made. A good, plain, unpretentious piece of furniture without any unnecessary frills and fuss about it. Good design is one of my hobby horses,’ he enlightened her. ‘That’s why—’ He broke off. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sure you don’t want to hear my views on modern furniture,’ he told her drily, adding in a more ironic tone, ‘And I know you won’t want me to waste too much of your time.’
She thought he was referring to her behaviour earlier in the day and could feel her face growing warm until he added, ‘Louise did warn me that you would want to keep this interview short. In fact she stressed that you were looking for a lodger who made as few demands on your time as possible.’ He was eyeing her in an odd way, with a mingling of cynicism and curiosity, as he asked her, ‘If it isn’t too personal a question, why exactly do you want a lodger?’
Georgia was too tired to lie and, besides, what did it matter what he thought? They both knew that he was not going to want to stay here. ‘I need the money,’ she told him shortly.
There was a brief pause and then he said wryly, ‘Well, that’s honest at least. You need the money, but I suspect that you most certainly do not want the company...’
For some reason his perception made her shift uncomfortably, almost as though a burr had physically attached itself to her skin and was irritating her, making her want to shrug off his allegation. ‘As Louise told you, I don’t have time to waste, Mr Fletcher. I’m sorry you’ve had an unnecessary journey out here, but in the circumstances I don’t think—’
‘Hang on a minute!’ he interrupted her. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you’ve changed your mind, that you don’t now want a lodger?’
Georgia stared at him. ‘Well, you can hardly want to lodge here...’
‘Why not?’ he demanded, watching her piercingly.
Georgia didn’t know what to say. She could feel the heat scorching her skin, turning her face poppy-red. ‘Well, the cottage is out of the way...and very small, and I expect...at least I assume—’
‘It never does to make assumptions,’ he interrupted her smoothly. Too smoothly, Georgia recognised uncomfortably. ‘And if you think that I’m the kind of man to be deterred by what happened this morning... You don’t have to like me, Miss Barnes—in fact to be honest with you the one thing that did tend to put me off was the fact that you are a young, single woman.’ He ignored her outraged gasp, continuing silkily, ‘I don’t mean to condemn your whole sex for the silliness of a very small minority, but I’m sure you’ll appreciate that, until meeting you, I was concerned that you might well be a member of that small minority—’
Georgia couldn’t listen to any more. ‘If you think that I’m looking for a lodger for any reason other than the fact that I need the money—’ she began.
Without seeming to raise his voice, he cut through her angry demand to say coolly, ‘Certainly not—now that I’ve met you. I’d like to see the room if I may, please...’
He wanted to see the room! Georgia stared at him. She had been so sure that he would not want to stay. She was still so sure that he wouldn’t want to stay!
Angrily she led the way upstairs, opening the door into the spare bedroom. ‘The cottage only has one bathroom,’ she warned him curtly.
He had been looking out of the window at the garden. Now he turned round, looking very tall against the low slope of the dormer windows. He had been looking out at the garden and now, as he studied her, Georgia felt an uncomfortable frisson of sensation prickle warningly over her skin. This man would, she recognised with a small shock of unease, make a very formidable adversary.
An adversary? Why should she think of him in those terms? All she had to say was that she had changed her mind and that the room was no longer available, and he would be gone—safely out of her life.
‘That’s all right. I’m an early riser and likely to be gone by seven-thirty most mornings. Louise tells me you work from home?’
The question, so neatly slipped in under her guard, had her focusing on his face in surprised bewilderment, as though she were not quite sure where it had come from or why.
‘Rather unusual in this day and age, to find a woman of your age and skills, living in such a remote spot and working from home...’
Something about the cynical way his mouth twisted while he spoke made her reply defensively, almost aggressively, ‘I have my reasons.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you do,’ he agreed suavely.
Another shock skittered down her spine. He knew about her aunt, but how? Why? Surely—
‘He’s married, of course.’
Above her shock she was aware of the disgust, the anger almost in his voice, the condemnation held in the short flat statement that fell so shockingly against her ears.
‘What?’ Georgia focused disbelievingly on him.
‘He’s married. Your lover,’ Mitch Fletcher repeated grimly, apparently misreading her reaction. ‘It isn’t so hard to work it out, you know: you live alone, you’re obviously tense, anxious, on edge. You’re out most evenings, so Louise tells me.’
He thought she was having an affair with a married man! Georgia was stunned. How on earth...?
‘He