I looked pointedly at him.

"Mine isn't a castle," said Colin hastily.

"Uh-huh."

"And I'm not Scottish."

"Of course," I purred.

"And my housekeeper doesn't fancy me."

"Ha!" I said. "You have watched the show."

Colin rapidly changed the subject.

We both agreed that the current craze for reality television was a blight upon civilization.

"Imagine having your private life laid out for public view," I said with a shudder of distaste. "And doing it to yourself like that. Do people have no shame?"

Colin, it turned out, had a guilty passion for American television, especially old Law & Order reruns. I wondered if he secretly fancied himself as a tough New York cop, much the way I secretly fancy myself as a 1920s dowager with a lorgnette, neither of which species really exists anymore. It was really rather cute. Admittedly, at that point I would have found anything Colin said really rather cute.

By the time the check had been proffered and neatly snatched up by Colin (ten points to him on the first-date scale), the entire evening was encased in a warm haze of tannins and flickering candlelight. It felt like we had lived half our lives at the little red-draped table in the corner of the restaurant, rather than a mere two-and-a-half hours.

As we strolled out the door into the drab November night, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for Colin to sling an arm around my shoulders.

"So," he said, with a devilish grin that would have made any maiden's heart go pitter-pat, "when did you decide it wasn't just my archives that interested you?"

"Did I say that? Hey!" I squirmed away as he applied pressure to my waist that felt like it would have been meant to be a tickle if I hadn't been wearing a heavy layer of quilted Barbour jacket over an equally thick sweater. But it was the thought that counted. "All right, all right. I think it was our midnight cocoa."

"Ah," said Colin wisely. "I always knew my culinary skills would win me a woman one of these days."

"Oh yes," I agreed. "The way you stirred that cocoa powder into hot water was entirely irresistible."

We paused just in front of the little Pakistani convenient store, grinning foolishly at each other. It didn't seem possible that this was the same place where I bought my milk and the odd candy bar. The light from the window shone benevolently over the pavement, sprinkling it with a thousand tiny stars.

"You know what it really was?" I said.

"Not my hot chocolate?"

Was that what they were calling it now? Fortunately, I had just enough of an internal filter left not to say that out loud. No point scaring him away before I'd even gotten a first kiss out of him.

"No," I said firmly. "That night was the first time I saw you smile. Before that, you just kept scowling at me. But then you smiled, and — " I shrugged helplessly. "Well, it looked good on you."

Colin reprised the facial expression in question. "I couldn't help it. You looked so delightfully absurd in Aunt Arabella's old nightgown, banging into the walls trying to find the kitchen."

Absurd wasn't quite the reaction I had being hoping for. I would have preferred sexy, stunning, irresistible. Even cute would have done. But the way he looked at me as he said it made the actual adjective irrelevant.

"You called me Jane Eyre," I reminded him.

"Singularly ill-advised on my part, if that makes me Mr. Rochester."

"No wives in the attic?" I asked.

"You can check next time you come down to Sussex, just in case I overlooked one."

The way the conversation was heading reminded me of that day's research. I almost piped up with the news about Lord Vaughn's reappearing wife — but then thought better of it. This was one date where the Pink Carnation wasn't going to be a third party. For once, it was just the two of us. No French spies, no ambitious archivists, no unexpected interruptions.

Besides, having just assured Colin that I liked him for more than his archives, it seemed a little tactless to bring them up again so soon.

"When did you decide that I wasn't an evil interloper?" I asked, snuggling into the crook of his arm and tipping my head back at an improbable angle to look up at him. I achieved an excellent view of the side of his jaw.

"Hmm." Colin considered. "I guess it would have to be seeing you in that ridiculous, oversized nightgown with your toes poking out at the bottom. You looked like a Victorian orphan."

"I thought I looked like Jane Eyre," I said indignantly. After all, if one is going to be likened to literary characters, they should at least be heroines, preferably of the attractive variety.

"Who was a Victorian orphan," Colin pointed out smugly.

"Fine," I grumbled. "So she was. But I draw the line at being governess to your illegitimate ward."

"She'll be so disappointed."

I slapped him companionably on the arm as we crossed the curb towards the row of narrow white houses that took up one side of Craven Hill Gardens. There wasn't much of a garden about it, just a narrow patch of green in the middle, surrounded by an iron fence, against which we put our garbage out to be taken away.

"Well, this is me," I said, as we drew up in front of Number 9, which looked exactly like all the other numbers.

I floundered about for the right thing to say next. Kiss me, you fool! would be to the point, but not exactly subtle. I couldn't invite him to see my etchings because I didn't have any etchings. It didn't seem quite right to invite him downstairs on a first date. Moral considerations aside, there was no need for him to view the bra I had left dangling over the back of a chair, the dirty dishes in my sink, and the big pack of tampons next to the toilet. I hadn't had time to shave, there were undiscovered cultures growing in my hair, and Grandma wouldn't approve.

"Would you like to see the hallway?" I blurted out.

"I can imagine nothing I would enjoy more," Colin said courteously. Too courteously. He was laughing at me. And who wouldn't? I might as well have asked him if he had any interest in inspecting my fuse box. It would have been just as subtle.

My fingers fumbled with the key, and I nearly dropped it before getting it into the lock on the second try.

"Need a hand?"

"Nope, fine," I said, triumphantly shoving open the door, which had a tendency to stick. It gave way with a suddenness that sent me staggering.

"Voilа," I said slightly breathlessly. "Welcome to my humble hallway."

Well, the building's hallway, at any rate. On the radiator, the day's mail had been left out for the residents to sort for themselves. Straight ahead was the staircase that led down into my basement flat, carpeted in a drab blue, mottled with mud and spilled coffees. The bulb in my stairway was out again. If I didn't know better, I'd think goblins ate them. Since grown-up graduate students aren't supposed to believe in goblins, the more likely theory was that the people in the other basement flat purloined the bulbs for their private use. Either way, the dim light somehow made the blue-flowered wallpaper seem even bluer, creating a general impression of Victorian dinginess.

Sticking his hands in the pockets of his Barbour jacket, Colin looked around, from the streaked mirror above the radiator to the cracked and peeling wallpaper. It was a far cry from Selwick Hall.

"It's very…blue," he said.

"So it is," I agreed, nodding furiously. Couldn't fault his color sense there.

His gaze fixed on mine, in a way that made the hallway seem a good deal smaller and warmer than it actually was.

"But not," said Colin softly, "as pretty as you."

And before I could point out that "you" rhymed with "blue," Colin leaned that crucial inch forward and I turned into a great big pot of goo. In fact, I'm sure I would have thought of goo, had I been doing any thinking. As it was, my attention was focused on more important things, like staying upright and not sending us both toppling backwards into the radiator, which would have had the unfortunate corollary of putting an end to the kiss. It wouldn't have done much good to the mail, either.

Don't ask me to recount the mechanics of it. I can't remember them. All I know is that somehow, my head tilted back when it was supposed to tilt, and our lips met the way that lips are supposed to meet, and our noses didn't cause us any trouble at all. His hand fit very nicely in the small of my back, just as if it had always been meant to be there, and it took a full five minutes at least for my hair to work its way into his mouth.

We parted to arm's length, beaming at each other as though one of us had just said something very clever. My lips were tingling and my cheeks were bright red and one of my contact lenses had definitely worked its way up under my eyelid. I felt utterly splendid.

"I like your hallway," said Colin, spitting out a strand of my hair.

I beamed at him. "Me too."

There had never been a lovelier color than blue.

Reluctantly, Colin released my shoulders and took a step back. "Shall we do this again sometime? Like tomorrow?"

Hooking the strap of my shoulder bag with my thumb, I hoisted it back onto my shoulder. "Maybe tomorrow night, I'll even let you see my flat," I said archly.

Colin arched an eyebrow. "Is it blue, too?"

"No." I tagged along after him to the street door, leaning against it as he stepped out onto the stoop. "It's beige. Very exciting."

Colin smiled in a way that made me very glad I was leaning against the door. "I'll look forward to it."