Scout kicked her loafers off and tucked her feet up under her, reminding herself not to put her feet down on Jess or Bandit, who were jockeying for position directly under her chair. It was a beautiful room with French doors that opened directly onto a flagstone terrace that faced the sea. Narrow stairs had been cut into the cliffs and led directly from the terrace down to the rocky beach below.

The room was large without feeling cavernous, filled with bulky, dark furniture. A gorgeous, mahogany grand piano anchored everything in place, filling the corner, shiny and permanent. And, even though it was June, Scout could tell that the sunlight was illusory, and she'd be glad for the fire that crackled in the fireplace before the afternoon was over.

George sat, eyes hooded, staring broodingly into the fire. He didn't look like he wanted to talk. In fact, if Scout hadn't seen the lighter, more human side of him when she'd been in the kitchen with him and the dogs, she'd be seriously rethinking even remaining here. Even for the amount of money the job paid, the discomfort of being in his surly presence wouldn't have been worth it.

However, he had smiled and been kind of human, it was a pretty place, far from the eastern seaboard and a certain Dr. Frye, and his dogs were lovely. She could do this. She took a sip of the coffee, which was delicious.

"So," George said suddenly, startling her, "what do you think of the place?"

"Oh, um, it's really beautiful," Scout replied, nodding. "I'm from New England, so I'm used to this kind of architecture, but this is the real thing, you know? Authentic?"

"Yeah," he said musingly. "When I bought it I wanted something exactly as you're describing, beautiful and authentic. My friends were all buying places in London and New York and Paris? But I wanted an English estate on the coast. Nothing too ostentatious, but something with history and character, you know? And a little charm?" He stared into the fire. "The library and the piano really did it for me, though. Man, the smell of the old books, I'll never forget it. And all the wood in this house is original, brought over by boat from Indonesia by the man who built it."

Scout found the enthusiasm in his voice and on his face charming. She smiled at him, and he returned her smile for a very brief moment before carefully tucking the escaping ends of his personality back in.

George regarded the woman who sat in front of him, a woman unlike any he'd ever encountered before. He was pretty sure he'd never be forgiven for mistaking her for a man, ever. Even lesbians didn't like people getting their gender wrong, did they? He got the feeling she was one of those very capable women who didn't need a man for anything, especially sex. She probably had a really successful girlfriend back in America named Annabelle or Gertrude or whatever, who was a high-powered human rights lawyer or something. Which was really too bad, because she looked like she had a really cute, athletic figure under her shapeless, ill-fitting clothes.

He looked away before she noticed he was staring at her, looking outside, where the mist was starting to rise.

"Now you'll see where the house gets its name," he said.

"Oh?" Scout said curiously.

"Most days, even in high summer, even if it's started sunny, by late afternoon, the clouds and mist will start to roll in and things will get quite wet," he commented. "Visibility can get pretty bad, so you'll want to be very careful, especially if you're walking along the cliffs, all right?" He gave her a sober look. "The man who built this place was named Farraway, and the word 'Mist' got added on after because of how the fog and mist always rose at this particular point on the coast, where the cliffs jut out into the sea. A couple of people have fallen to their deaths, just out there, on the rocks, in the late afternoon and evening. It can be quite treacherous. Please, please, be careful. I can't stress this enough."

Scout nodded and gave an involuntary shiver at the morbid turn the conversation had taken. She lowered her feet, remembering the dogs just in time. She rubbed her feet on them, causing them to roll around and smile, eyes closed. Their master smiled too as he watched, his first smile since he'd entered the room, Scout noticed.

"I don't think I've ever seen them take to someone so well, so quickly," he commented.

"Really?" Scout replied, continuing to rub the dogs, warming her feet on them at the same time. "They're dogs, though, they're predisposed to love everyone, aren't they? I mean, it's not like they're cats, you know? Cats are like, 'prove I should relate to you, buddy', you know?" She looked at George, who nodded.

She rubbed the dogs some more, who were now in paroxysms of bliss from Scout's feet, twisting to and fro on the floor in front of her, causing the two humans in the room to laugh.

Again, Scout felt an errant draft blow by. It caused the fire to gutter and flicker a little. Weird. These old houses were so persnickety. She remembered her nana's house in Maine used to make a sound like a dog howling whenever it rained. She pulled her sweater closer.

"Are you chilly?" George asked. He didn't sound particularly concerned, merely annoyed.

Scout shook her head, but George rose and put another log on the fire anyway. Scout wondered whether or not she was supposed to say thank you in that situation? Had he done it for her? Or in spite of her?

Awkward.

Scout noticed that while they'd been talking it had indeed gotten progressively wetter outside, with drops of moisture clinging to the windows. The visibility had slowly gotten worse, too; when they'd come in, they'd been able to see a couple of miles out to the blue sea, but now they couldn't see past the flagstoned terrace, and the window panes rattled with the occasional gust of wind.

"How are you feeling?" George asked, and Scout realized he was referring to her forehead.

"I'm fine," she said, nodding reassuringly.

"No headache? No blurry vision?" He prodded.

She shook her head.

George rose abruptly and went to a glass cabinet, returning within moments and setting something down on the table between them.

"Scrabble?" Scout said.

"Yeah," George responded. "It'll pass the time, and keep you thinking as well, I thought. Unless you don't care for it? Or are you bad at it?" He looked at her carefully.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Scout cocked her eyebrow at him. "My family plays Scrabble for blood, George, and I'm the youngest, and the best. No offense, but I'm going to kick your English ass all over this well-appointed room."

George cocked his eyebrow back. "That's the problem with you Americans. You lack confidence," he commented drily.

Unfortunately for George, Scout's confidence in herself wasn't misplaced, and he was no match for her graduate level, Ivy League education.

"Ablution? That's not a word!" he declared. "Ab-so-lution, that one I've heard of."

"Ablution: the act of washing ones self, usually in a ceremonial context," Scout recited. "You're just lucky we're not playing tournament rules, because challenging a word that actually exists would cost you your turn."

George quickly pulled out his phone and began typing.

"Are you looking up 'ablution'?" Scout asked. "Seriously? You're questioning me? Dude, do you know how much money you're paying me to fix up your shit in there?"

George grinned at her. "Well, considering how much I'm paying you, you'd think you could come with a better word than 'shit', wouldn't you? Hm?" He put his phone away. "Doesn't matter, can't get a signal anyway." He rose, going to one of the shelves. "That's another thing you should know. Service is notoriously dodgy out here, so don't count on being able to use your mobile, ever."

He sat down, holding a fat book.

"Wow, that's a mother of a dictionary," Scout said admiringly.

George didn't answer, flipping through, finally running his finger down a densely printed page, stopping and reading before raising narrowed eyes to Scout's smug face.

"Find it?" she asked with a smirk.

George shut the book and set it aside, giving her another look. "Smart ass," he said.

Two moves later he pulled the dictionary over again, this time to look up "hirsute".

Scout waited patiently, making a show of looking around the room, scratching the dogs' heads, getting up to noodle around on the piano. It was a beautiful instrument, a concert length grand in dark African wood, impeccably maintained. Scout imagined it must sound amazing lifted, with the French doors open to let the sound out.

George looked over when the strains of Chopin filled the room.

Scout raised her eyebrows, and George nodded in response.

"I didn't know you played."

Scout nodded and continued until he put the dictionary back.

She returned and sat across from him.

"Hirsute: shaggy or covered in hair, right?" she asked with a smile.

He blinked at her. "Right," he responded.

"Where did you learn to play?" he asked, after contemplating the board for a while.

"What do you mean?" She stared at him. "We have piano teachers in America, you know."

He raised his hands in a placatory way. "Whoa! That's not what I meant! I know you have piano teachers in America, Jesus. What I just heard, though, that's not just lessons once a week. I'm a musician, believe me I can tell." He pulled his hair tie out of his hair and re-tied it, higher and tighter. "I had those, trotted off to Mrs. Bellamy every Wednesday after school and tortured the entire neighborhood." He gestured toward the beautiful Steinway. "What you just did was real music." He stopped, and Scout realized he was waiting for her to say something.

She finally shrugged. "My grandma was a classical pianist. She gave it up when she got early onset arthritis in her forties, but she was really something, and she taught all us grandkids. I remember seeing her perform when I was really young, in New York City," Scout continued, surprising herself. She didn't usually share herself with people. "Anyway, we all got pretty good."

George was giving her an inscrutable look.

"Well, please feel free to play, any time. As I said, I play, but very poorly, and it's a gorgeous instrument, it deserves someone like you," he said.

She nodded, pleased.

They finished their game of Scrabble, with Scout beating him soundly, and George finally allowed her to retire, exhausted, to bed. She noticed as she crawled into bed that the fog and wet weather had completely surrounded the house, and the wind made the panes rattle in their frames.