A Will and a Way

going to make it permanent all around.”
    He heard a trace of nervousness in her voice. “Because of Charles and Sweeney?”
    “Only partly.” She drank more tea, set the cup down and toyed with her cobbler again. She wasn’t accustomed to discussing her decisions with anyone. Though she found it difficult, Pandora had already resolved that she had an obligation to do so. More, she’d realized she needed to talk to him, to be, as she couldn’t be on other levels, honest. “I always felt the Folley was home, but I didn’t realize just how much of a home. I need it, for myself. You see, I never had one.” She lifted her gaze and met his. “Only here.”
    To say her words surprised him was to say too little. All hislife he’d seen her as the pampered pet, the golden girl with every advantage. “But your parents—”
    “Are wonderful,” Pandora said quickly. “I adore them. There’s nothing about them I’d change. But…” How could she explain? How could she not? “We never had a kitchen like this—a place you could come back to day after day and know it’d be the same. Even if you changed the wallpaper and the paint, it would be the same. It sounds silly.” She shifted restlessly. “You wouldn’t understand.”
    “Maybe I would.” He caught her hand before she could rise. “Maybe I’d like to.”
    “I want a home,” she said simply. “The Folley’s been that to me. I want to stay here after the term’s up.”
    He kept her hand in his, palm to palm. “Why are you telling me this, Pandora?”
    Reasons. Too many reasons. She chose the only one she could give him safely. “In two months, the house belongs to you as much as to me. According to the terms of the will—”
    He swore and released her hand. Rising, he stuck his hands in his back pockets and strode to the window. He’d thought for a moment, just for a moment, she’d been ready to give him more. By God, he’d waited long enough for only a few drops more. There’d been something in her voice, something soft and giving. Perhap she’d just imagined it because he’d wanted to hear it. Terms of the will, he thought. It was so like her to see nothing else.
    “What do you want, my permission?”
    Disturbed, Pandora stayed at the table. “I suppose I wanted you to understand and agree.”
    “Fine.”
    “You needn’t be so curt about it. After all, you haven’t any plans to use the house on a regular basis.”
    “I haven’t made any plans,” he murmured. “Perhaps it’s time I did.”
    “I didn’t mean to annoy you.”
    He turned slowly, then just as slowly smiled. “No, I’m sure you didn’t. There’s never any doubt when you annoy me intentionally.”
    There was something wrong here, something she couldn’t quite pinpoint. So she groped. “Would you mind so much if I were to live here?”
    It surprised him when she rose to come to him, offering a hand. She didn’t make such gestures often or casually. “No, why should it?”
    “It would be half yours.”
    “We could draw a line down the middle.”
    “That might be awkward. I could buy you out.”
    “No.”
    He said it so fiercely, her brows shot up. “It was only an offer.”
    “Forget it.” He turned to look for soup.
    Pandora stood back a moment, watching his back, the tension in the muscles. “Michael…” With a sigh, she wrapped her arms around his waist. She felt him stiffen, but didn’t realize it was from surprise. “I seem to be saying all the wrong things. Maybe I have an easier time when we snap at each other than when I try to be considerate.”
    “Maybe we both do.” He turned to frame her face with his hands. For a moment they looked like friends, like lovers. “Pandora….” Could he tell her he found it impossible to thinkabout leaving her or her leaving him? Would she understand if he told her he wanted to go on living with her, being with her? How could she possibly take in the fact that he’d been in love with her for years when he was just becoming able to accept it himself? Instead he kissed her forehead. “Let’s make soup.”
     
    They couldn’t work together without friction, but they discovered over the next few days that they could work together. They cooked meals, washed up, dusted furniture while the servants stayed in bed or sat, bundled up, on sofas drinking tea. True, there were times when Sweeney itched to get up and be about her business, or when Charles suffered pangs of conscience, but they were