It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go back ever. My life was there, I knew that. I just wasn’t ready yet.

I’d successfully avoided thinking about it or talking about it. I had dodged questions from my parents about summer plans and from my colleagues about finishing fellowships and fall teaching. Colin and I had never discussed the fact that my fellowship was finite. We had never talked about the future at all. Most of the time I was too busy living in the past—his past.

If I didn’t want the head TF job, it was only fair to give Blackburn time to offer it to someone else.

What was I thinking? If I told my friends or my parents that I was planning to stay in England and that I was planning to stay not for professional reasons but because of a guy…

I could already hear the howls of outrage coming down the transatlantic pipeline. Changing my plans for a man went against everything I had been raised to believe. Professional women weren’t supposed to do that sort of thing. We were supposed to be strong and independent and make our own decisions without reference to the opposite sex. I could come up with a plausible excuse to stay in England through August, especially if I were able to give up my flat and live rent-free with Colin. I could make noises about needing the extra time to tie up loose ends and follow up on crucial research. But August was as far as I could push it.

Besides, Colin hadn’t invited me to stay.

There was a squeak of old hinges and the brush of swollen wood against wool as the door pushed against the stained carpet.

I looked up to see the man in question standing in the doorframe. It was warm outside, so he had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, revealing a pair of arms already sun-browned from outdoor activity. His dark blond hair was wind tousled, and he brought with him the scent of the outdoors, garden loam and fresh-cut grass and rich new soil. It was his study, but he paused in the doorway as though waiting for me to give the okay for him to come in.

“Hey,” he said, that universal male greeting that can mean anything from “hi” to “didn’t see you there” to “thank you for last night.” This was a decidedly dispirited “hey.”

Which was a shame, because last night really had been pretty good.

“Hey,” I responded in kind, trying to infuse as much sympathy as possible into the one syllable. I pushed aside my own worries about next year. We could deal with that later. Colin had enough on his plate right now. “So, um, how are things going down there?”

Colin pulled a face and jerked two thumbs downward.

“That good, huh?” Let’s pretend I hadn’t been listening at the window.

“The idiots wanted to cut down a three-hundred-year-old oak because it was in the way of their shot.” His voice dripped with disgust. “Then they wanted to know if we could move the folly. It’s only been there since 1732.”

“Two days down!” I said with forced cheerfulness. If I smiled any wider, my face would probably crack in two.

Colin grimaced. “How many more does that leave?”

I tucked my legs up under me in the chair, making the ancient springs creak. “Don’t make me do math.”

“That’s because you know I won’t like the number.”

Too true. The director—via Jeremy—had estimated two weeks on location. I wouldn’t have put money on Colin making it through one. It was a good thing he lived a healthy, outdoor life, because his arteries were doing overtime.

I peered at him over the computer screen. “Would you—I don’t know—like to go somewhere? Away? We could stay at my flat for a couple of days.”

True, my basement flat was small even by London standards and Colin banged his head on the sloping bathroom ceiling every time he washed his hands, but even a week’s worth of lumps on the noggin was preferable to his going into cardiac arrest every time one of the film crew wandered through the wrong door. Forget his nerves; I wasn’t sure mine could stand another week of this.

Colin’s hand rose reflexively to the back of his head. “Not your flat.”

“Your aunt Arabella’s, then. Or we could take a mini-break somewhere.” It would have to be somewhere cheap, since neither of us was exactly flush with funds, but there had to be some moldering seaside resort that had seen better days and would be willing to take us in for the price of a large London dinner. Or we could go to one of the old Regency watering holes and I could drag Colin to Jane Austen re-enactments. “It could be fun.”

A loud crash and a curse resonated from the flagstone path below. At least, I was assuming there was still a flagstone path below.

Our eyes met over the computer monitor.

I sighed. “Or we could stay here and keep an eye on the film crew.”

One side of Colin’s mouth pulled up in something that wanted to be a smile but didn’t quite make it. “Thanks. You’re a brick.”

I would have preferred to be something more decorative, but I appreciated the sentiment. “Look, it will all be fine. It’s only two weeks and you can charge them double for every shrub they squish.”

Colin didn’t look convinced. He nodded towards the computer. “Anything interesting?” he asked, with forced heartiness.

I hastily moved the monitor. “Oh, just this and that.”

“What is it?” Colin was way too sharp sometimes.

“Nothing!” I staggered clumsily to my feet. My legs had gone numb from sitting on them. “But I probably should get back to work if I don’t want to be one of those five-thousand-year-old grad students.”

Colin smoothed my hair back, turning my face this way and that as he examined it for lines and wrinkles. “You still have a ways to go yet.”

Another crash. I could feel the muscles in Colin’s arm stiffen under my hand. “I’m aging rapidly,” I said.

Colin raised an eyebrow. “Best gather your rosebuds while you may, then.”

“Smooth,” I managed to say, and then his lips touched mine, and speech became a decidedly uninteresting commodity. Rosebuds, on the other hand…They weren’t in bloom yet, and yet I could have sworn I smelled their heady scent wafting up from the garden, as much of a cliché as the stereotypical violins.

“Oh, sorry,” someone said, and I realized that I did smell rosebuds, preserved in alcohol and condensed into perfume. One of the film crew was standing in the doorway, younger than me at a guess and inappropriately attired for an English spring, in tight jeans and tighter shirt. “I was just looking for the computer. It’s in here, right?”

I came down to earth with a crash. Literally. Colin is a fair bit taller than I am. My heels hit carpet with a jarring thump.

“This computer is off-limits,” I said, since Colin seemed incapable of saying anything at all. “This whole wing is off-limits.”

“But the computer…”

Why does whining sound worse in an American accent?

“Is not available,” I said. “Please close the door on your way out.”

I’ll say this for her, she did take direction. She pulled the door smartly shut behind her.

I leaned back against Colin. “We’re going to hear about this from Jeremy, aren’t we?”

“Bugger that,” said Colin elegantly. “They’re supposed to have their own Internet connection set up. Since when does Private mean ‘Hey! Come on in!’?” Colin’s voice shifted on the last words into a parody of the film people.

His fake American accent was truly atrocious. I wondered if my fake English accent sounded as awful to him. Probably. Huh.

Colin glowered at the door, as if it had personally offended him by allowing itself to be opened. “What do we have to do, put up an electric fence?”

I decided that this was not a good time to tell Colin that amusing story about the guy who had blundered into our bathroom while I was showering. Picture Psycho, only without the axe and with more Herbal Essences.

“I was thinking buckets of water on the doorjamb,” I said. “If I could figure out how to rig it without getting soaked.”

“Pots and pans,” contributed Colin. “For them to trip over.”

We exchanged rueful smiles.

I stood on my tiptoes to press a quick kiss to his cheek. “Are you going to be okay in here?”

Colin’s eyes drifted to the window. “I’ll put my headphones on,” he promised. “If I can’t hear it, it’s not happening.”

“That’s the spirit!” I cheered. I paused with one hand on the doorknob. “If you get to the point where you can’t take it anymore, you know where to find me. We can drop water balloons on the film crew from the library windows. Or not.”

“Hmph,” said Colin, and pulled his headphones firmly down over his ears. They made him look a bit like Princess Leia.

I decided not to share that observation.

I grinned and waved and drew the door shut behind me, making my way back down the corridor, past the door to the master bedroom, over to the center of the house and the wing that housed the library. We’d taped signs that said “Private” on the door of the master bedroom, the bathroom, Colin’s study, and the library, but, so far, those signs had been just about as effective as the paper they were printed on, when it came to keeping people out.

It was going to be even worse starting this evening.

The high mucky-mucks were first showing up tonight and we were all going to have a great big get-to-know-one-another shindig in the dining room, catered courtesy of DreamStone. With big names to be found, Jeremy had condescended to come out to the wilds of Sussex for it.

Lucky us.

I only hoped that whoever did the seating chart had the sense to place Jeremy and Colin at opposite ends of the table. Not that I really thought Colin was going to go after Jeremy with his fish knife…but, hey, why take unnecessary risks? I’d been tempted to go after Jeremy with something sharp a time or two myself.