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seasoned Shakespearean actor. I was too
startled to answer, and we looked each other up and down in silence for a
moment.
    His appearance matched his tone, I
decided. He looked like a fussy sort of a man, one accustomed to a certain high
manner of living without the income to maintain it.
    The most striking thing about him was the color
of his shirt - a dark, almost jewel-toned orange that set off his hair and dark
eyes. While the rest of his outfit was the typical stuffy-professor look you’d
expect in a movie or play, the shirt played against type. I wonder what it said
about the stranger’s character.
    He held the coffee table copy of Uncle
Michael’s self-published book, A Short History of the Chase Family, and
if his finger positioning was anything to go by, he was halfway through it. His
face was young, probably younger than he actually was. The result, I thought,
of a life of relative ease.
    Oh, Lord, just what I need. A male version
of Louisa Fontaine in my life.
    The thought relaxed me a little. Whatever
this man was doing here, it was not to cause me physical harm.
    What he thought of me, I couldn’t really
say. I hadn’t changed out of my work clothes, except for taking off my boots,
so I must have presented a bedraggled appearance: dirty jeans and a
sweat-stained plaid shirt thrown over a tank top. My mismatched stockings (I’d
been putting off laundry, too) were hardly sophisticated, my hair was pulling
loose out of my pony tail, and I still clutched a piece of wadded up week-old
bread in my hand.
    I looked a sight and I knew it, but when
his expression changed ever so slightly to one that I took as distaste, my
temper flared.
    “ What are you doing in here?” I
demanded.
    He didn’t answer right away. He looked me
up and down again, and then in the face.
    “Madeleine Warwick?” he inquired, and I
got the distinct impression that he was hoping I’d say no.
    It pleased me to disappoint him. I folded
my arms across my chest. “That’s me,” I said. “And who are you?”
    He eyed me with more interest then, but he
didn’t answer. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. He took
a step over to hand it to me, and I noted that he was a few inches taller than
me. The scent of cologne, earthy and light, clung about him.
    “You don’t answer your emails,” he said
lightly.
    I snatched the card from his grasp. “I
answer the important ones.”
    I didn’t wait for his response. I studied
the card, frowning to focus. I was so upset that my hands were shaking, and my
annoyance at my overreaction only made it worse. It took me a little time
before I made out what I was supposed to be reading.
    “Professor Gregory Randall?” I asked, and
looked up.
    He’d put his over-sized glasses back on
and was pouring over the pages of Uncle Michael’s book, but he glanced at me.
    “Pleased to meet you,” he said, before
looking back down again.
    Irritated, I looked at the card again and
said, “Hadley University? Where’s that? I’ve never heard of a Hadley University.”
    That got him to look up from the book.
    “It’s in Holbein,” he said, with a wounded
look - as though I ought to have recognized it right off the bat. “In the heart
of beautiful western Massachusetts.”
    “Sorry.” I handed the card back. “Doesn’t
ring a bell. Is it one of those new, online universities?”
    “Certainly not!” he said, accepting the
card and looking at the face of it, as though to make sure I hadn’t changed
anything. “Hadley University was established in 1914, and boasts an illustrious
alumni and a sterling academic reputation.” Then he shrugged as he put the card
back in his pocket. “Don’t feel too badly, though. We are a small, but growing
community.”
    “How lovely,” I said dryly, and one of his
eyebrows raised in acknowledgement. “And may I be so bold as to inquire what
brought one of the faculty from such an … an august establishment to trespass on my property?”
    Even