The Way to a Man's Heart Read online

  Grey nodded.

  From all the smiles and raised hands directed toward Grey, Meghan guessed he was a popular professor. Heaven knew she liked him! Now, that was an understatement if there ever was one. But at the same time she’d be a fool to hope that a man like Grey Carlyle would ever be romantically interested in her—and Meghan was rarely foolish. Obtuse, yes; foolish, no! She might amuse him now, but that wasn’t likely to last.

  Gavin Hall was only a short distance from the lot where Grey had parked his car. The auditorium was huge, and by the time they were seated near the back of the hall, it was more than a third filled.

  Two men sat near the lectern. The first Meghan recognized from the newspaper as Friends’s president, Dr. Browning. The other man was obviously the speaker. To Meghan’s way of thinking, he resembled a prune, though she chided herself for the uncharitable thought. The lecturer seemed to wear a perpetual frown, as though everything he saw displeased him. Either that or he’d recently been sucking lemons.

  “There seems to be a nice turnout,” Meghan commented, impressed by the number of students who appeared to have such a keen interest in Keats and Shelley.

  Grey straightened the knot of his tie and cleared his throat. “Actually,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “I bribed my class.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Grey didn’t look particularly proud of himself. “Dr. Fulton Essary is a colleague of mine and a distinguished poet in his own right. We’ve had our differences over the years, but basically I value his opinions. I wanted a good showing tonight, so I told my classes that every one of my students who showed up would automatically receive an extra fifty credits toward his overall grade.”

  “Ah,” Meghan said softly. “That was why the blond girl made a point of letting you know she was here.”

  “Exactly.” Grey withdrew a piece of paper from the inside of his suit jacket and unfolded it as quietly as possible. As he scanned the auditorium, he started checking off names.

  Within five minutes the lights dimmed and Dr. Browning approached the lectern to make his introduction. Shortly afterward, Dr. Fulton Essary stepped up to the front of his audience and delivered his speech—in a dead monotone.

  For one hour and five minutes Dr. Essary summarized the life and works of Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. Although Meghan admired the talents of both nineteenth-century poets and was familiar with their styles and literary accomplishments, she was eager to learn something new.

  Unfortunately, nothing she could do kept her thoughts from wandering. Dr. Essary was terribly boring.

  After the first half hour, Meghan started shifting in her seat, crossing and uncrossing her long legs. At forty-five minutes, she was picking imaginary lint from the lap of her skirt.

  The only thing she found riveting was the fact that someone who planned to talk for this amount of time could reveal so little emotion concerning his subjects. He might as well have been lecturing about the Walt Disney characters Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

  If anything in Keats’s and Shelley’s lives had personally touched him, Meghan would have never known it.

  Once he finished there was a round of polite, restrained applause followed by what Meghan felt was a sigh of relief that rolled over the audience. The floor was opened for questions, and after an awkward beginning, one brave student stood and asked something that Meghan couldn’t fully hear or understand.

  Slowly Grey moved his head toward Meghan’s and whispered, “What do you think?”

  It was in her mind to lie to him, to tell him what he wanted to hear, but he’d claimed he admired her honesty, and she wouldn’t give him anything less now. “The man’s a bore.”

  Grey’s eyes widened at the bluntness of her remark.

  Meghan saw his reaction and immediately felt guilty. “I shouldn’t have said that,” she told him, “but I couldn’t help it. I’m disappointed.”

  “I understand you may have found his delivery lacking, but what about the content?”

  Apparently the question-and-answer session was over with the one question, because just as Meghan was about to whisper her response, everyone started to stand. Happily leaping to their feet more adequately described what transpired, Meghan mused.

  She supposed she wasn’t the only one to notice, but it seemed to her that the hall emptied as quickly as if someone had screamed “Fire! Run for your lives!” Grey’s students couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Personally, she shared their enthusiasm.

  ***

  Once they were outside, Grey helped her on with her coat, slipping it over her blazer, his hands lingering on her shoulders. “You were about to say something,” he coaxed.

  Meghan stared up at him blankly while putting on her gloves.

  Burying his hands in the pockets of his thick overcoat, Grey matched his long strides to her shorter ones. “You didn’t like the lecture?”

  “I … I wouldn’t exactly say that.”

  “You called the speaker a bore,” he reminded her, frowning.

  “Yes, well …”

  “Is this another one of those times when your tongue got away with you?” he teased, but the amusement didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  Meghan slipped her hands inside her coat pockets, forming tight fists, uncertain how she should respond. She probably wouldn’t be seeing Grey after tonight, so there wasn’t any reason to pad her answer. She wasn’t sure she could, anyway. After an hour and five minutes of such insipid drivel, she was having trouble holding her tongue.

  “Perhaps referring to him as a bore was a bit of an exaggeration,” she started, hoping to take the bite out of her blunt remark.

  “So you’ve changed your mind.” That seemed to please Grey.

  “Not entirely.”

  His face fell. “You can’t fault Dr. Essary. Honestly, Meghan, the man’s a recognized genius. He published his doctorate on Shelley and Keats. Mention the name Dr. Fulton Essary and the literary world automatically associates him with the two poets. His own published works have been compared to theirs. He’s known all across America.”

  Meghan had never heard of him, but that wasn’t saying much. Unfortunately, as far as she was concerned, if someone were to mention the name Dr. Fulton Essary, her response would be a drawn-out yawn.

  “I won’t argue with you,” she said, carefully choosing her words, “but there’s no passion in the man.”

  “No passion? Are you saying he should have ranted and raved and pounded his fists against the lectern? Is this how you think he should have delivered his lecture?”

  “No—”

  “Then just exactly what do you mean by passion?” Grey asked, clearly frustrated by her lack of appreciation for his colleague.

  “Essary compared Keats to Shakespeare for the richness and confidence of his language, and I couldn’t agree with him more, but—”

  “Then what’s the point?”

  “The point is that for all the feeling your associate relayed, Keats could have written ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’ If what he was saying was so profound—and I think it could have been—then it should have come from his heart. I didn’t feel anything from this friend of yours except disdain, as though he were lowering himself to share his insights with a group of students who are constitutionally incapable of understanding Keats’s and Shelley’s genius. Nothing he said gripped me, because it hadn’t touched him.”

  Grey was silent for a minute. “Don’t you think you’re being unnecessarily harsh?”

  “Perhaps, but I don’t think so,” she murmured. “Ask your students what they think. I’m sure one of them will have courage enough to be honest.”

  “It was a mistake to have brought you here,” Grey said when they reached his car, his mouth a thin line of impatience.

  He was angry but doing a remarkable job of restraining himself, Meghan noted. For that matter, she wasn’t particularly pleased with him, either. He’d asked her what she thought and she’d told him. It w
as as if he expected her to say whatever it suited him to hear. Nor was she pleased with what he seemed to be implying. He made it sound as though she couldn’t possibly know enough to make an intelligent evaluation of a man as brilliant as Dr. Essary. Good heavens! Even his name was pompous-sounding! All this evening did was reinforce the fact that she would never make it as a college student. If her supposed friend thought her stupid, what would strangers think?

  Ever the gentleman, Grey helped Meghan into his car, firmly closing the passenger door and walking around to the driver’s side.

  The ride back to Rose’s was an uncomfortable one. Grey didn’t say a word and neither did Meghan. The silence was so loud she could barely hear anything else. It was in her mind to say something to ease the tension, but one look at Grey told her he wasn’t in the mood to talk. Now that she thought about it, neither was she. She did feel bad, however. Grey had invited her to the lecture and she’d gone with an open mind, eager to learn; instead, she’d come away feeling depressed and sorry.

  He eased his car into the restaurant parking lot and moved to turn off the engine.

  “Don’t,” she said quickly, sadly. “There’s no need for you to get out. I apologize for ruining your evening. Despite everything, I’m grateful you invited me to the lecture—I’ve learned some valuable lessons. But I feel bad that I’ve disappointed you. I wish you well, Professor Carlyle. Good evening.” With that, she opened the car door and climbed out.

  As she was walking away, Meghan thought she heard him call after her, but she didn’t turn around—and he didn’t follow her.

  It was just as well.

  Three

  Grey couldn’t remember a time when a woman had upset him more. Streetlights whizzed past him as he hurried back to Friends University, and he realized he was traveling well above the speed limit. With a sigh of impatience, he eased his foot off the gas pedal and reluctantly slowed his pace.

  Grey had asked Meghan to Dr. Essary’s lecture believing she would be stimulated and challenged by the talk as well as the man. He’d liked Meghan, been attracted to her warmth and her wit, but now the taste of disillusionment filled him. In the space of only a few hours, he’d discovered that although she appeared intellectually curious, she wasn’t willing to listen and learn from those who clearly had more literary knowledge than she. Being a professor himself, he felt it was like a slap in the face.

  His invitation had been impulsive, and every time he acted spontaneously, Grey lived to regret it. This evening was an excellent example.

  Meghan was a mere twenty-four-year-old with nothing more than a high-school education. She had no right to make such thoughtless statements about a man as eminent as Dr. Essary—a man who’d made a significant contribution to the world of literature. Just thinking about Meghan’s comments infuriated Grey. Dr. Essary was brilliant, and she’d had the audacity to call him a bore. To worsen matters, she’d gone on to claim that Dr. Essary had revealed little emotion for his subject. Why, anyone looking at him would know differently. All right, Grey admitted, his esteemed colleague could use a few pointers on the proper method of delivering a speech of that length, but the audience wasn’t a group of preschoolers with short attention spans. These were college students—adults.

  What had upset Grey most, he decided, was Meghan’s claim that Dr. Essary had displayed no passion. Of all the silly comments. Good grief, just exactly what did she expect—tears, dramatic gestures, or throwing himself down in front of the audience?

  Grey had delivered plenty of lectures in his career, and his style wasn’t all that different from that of his associate. No one had ever faulted Grey. No one had claimed he was a bore—no one would dare!

  Back at Friends University, Grey sat inside his car for several minutes while the disillusionment worked its way through him. Rarely had he been more disappointed. Indignity burned through him like a fiery blade, hotter than what Meghan’s comments warranted.

  After a moment he slammed his hand against the steering wheel in a rare burst of emotion.

  As he climbed out of the car, the lights from a coffeehouse across the street called Second Life attracted his attention. A number of Friends students were known to hang out there. Grey started walking in the opposite direction, to the faculty reception in honor of Dr. Essary, but stopped after only a few feet. Frowning, he abruptly turned around and headed toward the café.

  ***

  Meghan secured the tie of her bright yellow housecoat around her waist and set the teakettle on top of the burner. Her apartment near Marina Lake was small and homey, but Meghan felt little of its welcome after this evening’s disaster.

  To prove exactly what kind of mood she was in, she’d walked in the door and gone directly to her bedroom to reach for her yellow robe. In fact, she hadn’t even bothered to undress first.

  Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.

  That was the way she felt—like a loser in a board game.

  She’d blown her date with Grey. It was another one of those “open mouth and insert foot” incidents. He’d asked for her honesty, and she’d told him exactly what she thought of his friend. From there, the evening had quickly disintegrated. She should have known he wanted her to lie, and gone on and on about how wonderful the lecture had been.

  Meghan didn’t know if she was that good a liar. But it was clearly what he’d wanted to hear, and she should have given it to him and saved herself some grief.

  So this was to be the end of her short-but-sweet relationship with Grey Carlyle. Unfortunately, it would take a while to work through the regret. Knowing the way she did things, it would take her a few days to pull herself together, to dissect the evening and put the incident into perspective so she could learn from what had happened. At the end of this blue funk she should walk away a little wiser.

  The kettle let loose with a high-pitched whistle that broke the silence of the tiny kitchen. Meghan poured the boiling water into the teapot, added the herbal leaves, and left them to steep for several minutes. She was just about to pour herself a cup when there was a knock at the door.

  She glanced across the living room as though she expected there was some mistake. No one could possibly be coming to visit at this hour—unless, of course, it was one of her teenage brothers; but even that was unlikely this late in the evening.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  “It’s Grey. Could we talk a minute?”

  Grey! Meghan’s hands were trembling so badly she could hardly manage to twist the lock and pull open her front door. In that short time span, she didn’t have a chance to school her thoughts or her reaction. The only thing she felt was an instant surge of jubilation. The smile that spread across her face came from deep within her heart. Meghan knew without even trying there was no way to restrain the look of sheer joy that dominated her features.

  “Grey,” she said, stepping aside so he could enter her apartment.

  He did so, standing awkwardly just inside the door. His gaze seemed to rest somewhere behind her and refused to meet her own. His expression was brooding and serious. The smile that had sprung so readily to her face quickly faded.

  “I can see this is a bad time,” Grey commented, once he looked directly at her and her yellow housecoat.

  “No … this is fine,” she replied hurriedly. “Would you like to sit down?” Embarrassed by the load of laundry that was piled on one corner of the sofa, she rushed over and scooped it up with both hands, smiled apologetically, and deposited the clean clothes on the seat of the recliner.

  “You look as if you were ready for bed,” Grey observed, remaining standing. “Perhaps it would be better if I returned at a more convenient time.”

  “No, please stay.” She removed the housecoat and draped it over the back of the chair that contained her laundry. “I bought this robe several years ago when my family was on vacation in Texas,” she felt obliged to explain. “Whenever I’m feeling depressed or unhappy about something, I put it on and pout
for a while. My mother calls it the Yellow Robe of Texas.”

  Grey cracked a smile at that. “You’re pouting now?”

  “I was, but I’m not anymore.” Meghan was delighted to see him, if only to let him know how much she regretted the way their evening had gone. She wanted to tell him how she’d felt when he’d lashed out at her, which had only driven home her own point that she wasn’t cut out for college-level literature courses.

  “I just put on a pot of tea. Would you like some?” she offered.

  “Please.”

  Meghan moved into the kitchen and brought down her two best china cups, along with sugar and milk, and set them on a tray. When she turned around, she discovered Grey standing behind her, looking chagrined, his hands in his pockets.

  “Aren’t you the least bit curious why I’m here?”

  With her heart in her throat, she nodded. The last person she had ever expected to see on the other side of her door was Grey Carlyle—Professor Grey Carlyle. “I’m equally curious to know how you knew where I live.”

  “When I went back to Rose’s—I hoped you’d still be there—anyway, another waitress, I think her name was Sherry, gave me your address.”

  Meghan should have known the assistant manager would be willing to go against company policy for Grey. Normally the information would have had to be tortured out of her coworker.

  Grey freed one hand from inside his coat pocket and jerked his splayed fingers through his hair as though he wasn’t particularly pleased about something. “I told her you’d left something in my car that I thought you might need. I don’t usually lie, but I felt it was important we talk.”

  Meghan’s fingers tightened around the serving tray. “I understand.”

  Grey took the tray from her hand and set it on the round oak table that dominated what little space there was in her cramped kitchen. With him standing so close, the area seemed all the more limited. Despite herself, Meghan lifted her gaze to his.

  Grey raised his hands to the rounded curves of her shoulders and his eyes caressed hers. “I owe you an apology.”