British Bad Boys

by Nancy Warren

  Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die…

  “Are you all right?” A deep voice pulled her back to the present. Meg realized that the gorgeous bartender was speaking to her, and the way he spoke made her realize he’d addressed her several times before wresting her attention.

  “Sorry,” she said, the vision still so strong her fingers itched for a keyboard. “It was the blood.”

  His slightly irritated expression vanished. He blinked. Looked past her to where she’d been staring, then back again. “Blood?”

  “That table there in the corner. A patron sitting, dead, but no one notices in the din of a Friday night at the pub, not until blood drips.” She nodded. “Yes, that’s it exactly. Not a bullet wound, of course, too noisy. A knife. It must have been a knife.” She raised her hand, mimicking the motion of the murderer’s fisted hand wrapped around the knife hilt, up and under the ribs and then a sudden twist to make sure death was quick and silent enough that no one would notice in a busy pub. The flash of red on her own fingers distracted her for a second until she remembered she’d treated herself to a mani and pedi before setting out on her adventure.

  Every writer had her superstitions, her tricks for kick-starting a recalcitrant muse. One of Meg’s-and she’d tried them all recently-was a manicure. There was something about perfectly manicured fingernails dancing across a keyboard that appealed to her. She loved doing a job properly, believed in keeping her tools in good working order. Her brain she fed with good food, books, and poetry. Her writing computer was not hooked up to the Internet, keeping it virus free and unpolluted by promises of a larger penis or a lottery win in Nigeria.

  And her hands she pampered because they did the yeoman’s work of writing. She had a special set of exercises to keep them supple and ward off the dreaded carpal tunnel syndrome, she bought wonderful almond-scented hand lotion to keep the skin soft, and she kept her nails polished and buffed, the way a race car driver might polish his car. Her brain was the engine, but it was her hands doing the work.

  The pedicure she’d had simply for indulgence. Meg believed in small indulgences. She worked hard, and in the last few years she’d been able to enjoy quite a few of the fruits of her labors, so she could afford a little pampering.

  Maybe a lot of pampering.

  The dark-haired man behind the bar had given the table she motioned to a quick glance and then transferred his gaze back to her face. He didn’t look at her as though she were a lunatic. He seemed more…intrigued. Up close she noticed the shadow of beard stubble and a single chicken pox scar at the corner of his right eye. Black eyelashes a woman would kill for, eyes that were keen, intelligent.

  “What does he look like, the man?”

  Meg glanced at the gorgeous bartender-no, she thought they called them publicans here-with approval. Excellent question. She closed her eyes for a moment and then saw him. The victim. “Salt and pepper hair, close cropped. A tiny moustache, kept well-trimmed, discreet. He’s vain, but tidy with it. His clothing is somber but expensive. Yes, expensive.”

  “You’ve got the sight then, have you?”

  No, she realized now, his accent wasn’t from the north of England but from Ireland. Softened to a slight lilt, she guessed, by years in this country. And that’s where he’d come by the extraordinary combination of that black hair with the blue eyes, for she was close enough now to see that they were a wonderful cross between bright blue and slate gray.

  “I have a kind of sight,” she admitted.

  “I’m sure there’s many a ghost around here. The pub’s been here half a millennium.”

  He could have said five hundred years. But half a millennium sounded so poetic. Especially the way he rolled the words with that soft, deep voice. He was so perfect she wanted to kiss him. She dug into her bag for the paper and pen she carried everywhere. Her hands were tingling with the need to get this down while it was fresh.

  “Do you mind if I sit down and take a few notes?”

  “Not at all.”

  She walked to the table where the murder had happened, sat across from where the victim had enjoyed his last pint. Yes, she thought, a pint of Guinness. No, he was too fussy for that. She suspected he watched his weight.

  “What do you call the half-pints of Guinness?” she asked the barman.

  “A glass? Do you fancy one?”

  “Hmmm?” She glanced at him vaguely, his question intruding on the words she needed to set down. “Oh, no, thank you.” But she couldn’t sit here and have nothing. “But I’d like a pot of tea, please.”

  Then she began to write.

  And write. When she had the scene down and the heat of inspiration had cooled, she found she’d filled half a dozen pages of her notebook and her hand was pleasantly tired. She flexed her fingers.

  She glanced around, realizing that time had passed. The lunch couple were gone, and a few more patrons had arrived. She was aware of a couple of curious glances, but whether they were due to the fact that she was a stranger or because she’d been scribbling madly, she had no idea.

  The bartender caught her gaze and walked over.

  “You’ve not touched your tea. I’ll fetch you a fresh pot.”

  “Oh, thank you,” she said, lifting her head and smiling at him. She hadn’t even noticed the tea. She’d been in her own world, or at least that of the story. She felt dizzy with delight. Six handwritten pages wasn’t much, but it was the first six decent pages she’d managed in months. She wasn’t one to tempt fate, but she began to feel hopeful that her unexpected drought was over.

  She was reading over what she’d written, scratching out a line here, adding a sharper adjective there, when he returned with a fresh pot of tea.

  “Thanks,” she said, adding milk and sugar and then pouring.

  “When do you think he lived, the poor murdered man?” he asked her, nodding his head toward the chair where Manfred Waxman had breathed his last.

  “Oh, he’s contemporary,” she said.

  The dark brows rose. “How contemporary?”

  She laughed suddenly. “I am so sorry. You must think I’m nuts. I’m not psychic.” She paused. “At least, not very. I’m a writer. Fiction. I made him up. I saw him sitting there, and the blood, and I knew I had the victim for my next novel.”

  “Ah,” he said, seeming a little disappointed. “I was hoping for a ghost.”

  “You like ghosts?”

  “Well, it would make the quiet times more interesting.”

  She looked at him and found him even more attractive than the last time she’d seen his face. The angles were so strong. His skin was swarthy; she bet it would be tough and leathery to the touch. He wasn’t even handsome in the acknowledged movie star way. What he had was magnetism. Amazing animal magnetism, the kind that would lead a woman to do very foolish things.

  “You write murder mysteries, then?”

  “Yes.” She sighed with pure bliss and sipped her tea, strong and hot as only the English could make it. “I can’t tell you what a relief it was to find my victim.”

  “Is that the hardest part? The victim?”

  “No. The hardest part is the villain.” This probably wasn’t the moment to tell him that she thought she’d found her villain in this out-of-the-way country pub, too.

  “Really?”

  He appeared more than politely interested and the pub was nearly empty, so she told him. “A villain is the crux of a murder mystery. Especially one like mine. A maniacal, cruel, serial killer. He or she has to be attractive, subtle, devious, and deadly. You want the readers to identify with him enough that they become truly gripped.”

  “The reader identifies with the people trying to catch the killer, surely?”

  “Who’s the most interesting character in The Silence of the Lambs? For me it’s Hannibal.” She shrugged. “When I’m writing, the villain is the key.” And as she stared into that deeply magnetic face with those stunning eyes, she began to be very glad she’d come into the pub. T
here was something tough, uncompromising, and somehow dangerous about this man. She had not only discovered her victim, but she had a strong sense that her villain was gazing at her now. A tiny shiver of excitement, apprehension-hell, maybe it was glee-traveled across her skin. “When I figure out who he is, I’ll be able to really get going.”

  “Are you staying in the neighborhood?”

  “Yes.” She put a hand to her forehead. “I’m staying at Stag Cottage. I came in here to pick up the keys.”

  “And found a bloody corpse.”

  She started to laugh. “I’m so glad I came here.”

  “So’m I.” And he sent her a glittering half smile that made her thankful she was sitting down so he wouldn’t notice that he’d made her knees tremble. Dark, brooding, intense. There was something about him that made her vision of murder fade and something equally visual take its place. She envisioned hot, sweaty, high-octane sex, arms and legs tangled. His skin tawny, his hair so black against her own pale skin and light brown hair.

  His eyes were staring into hers and she felt that he shared the intense awareness. She forced herself to break eye contact and take refuge in her tea.

  “You must be Ms. Stanton?”

  “Meg Stanton, that’s right.”

  “Arthur Denby. Welcome to Ponsford.” He held out his hand and she shook it. Arthur, she thought. Noble, resourceful, a warrior king. It fit him, though she wasn’t sure the sexually predatory Lancelot wouldn’t have suited the man better.

  He strode back behind the bar and returned with a set of keys on a disappointingly modern-looking key ring. “Come on, then. If you’re ready, I’ll take you over.”

  “Oh. I’m sure I can manage.” She didn’t want him in her living space until that insistent picture of them together could be excised from her mind. For all she knew, the guy had a wife and six kids living upstairs, the kids washing glasses and the missus ironing his shirts while he lorded it over his domain down here.

  “There are a few things I need to show you.”

  “Okay.” She glanced around. He was the only bartender. “Do you want me to wait until it’s more convenient?”

  “Now’s fine.” He turned to the young guy with the printout. “Joe, I’m going to show this lady to Stag Cottage. Can you watch things for half an hour?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Cheers.”

  They walked out together and Arthur said, “Have you got a car?”

  “No. I thought about renting one, but I’m here to work, not sightsee.”

  “Where’s your luggage?”

  “At the train station. I walked over.”

  “Right. Come on then, Stag Cottage is across the way.”

  The sun was sudden and warm after the dim light in the pub. The stone walls glowed golden and the great estate on which her cottage was located was as elegant as a dream. Hart House, seen in context, looked even better than the pictures she’d viewed on the Internet.

  There was no traffic on the narrow road, so they crossed it together. She liked the way Arthur walked, his long limbs swinging with confidence. He wore jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt that advertised no band, no cause, no brand-name clothes maker. She got the feeling that this man was nobody’s billboard.

  She tucked that notion away as an excellent detail to give her villain.

  “How long are you staying?” he asked as they reached the road’s dusty shoulder.

  “Three months.”

  “To write your book?”

  “Yes. I really hope to have a first draft written by then.” A complete first draft. Not bits and pieces of chapters that went nowhere.

  “This is the short way, across the fields. If you’d a car we’d have gone around by the road.” As he spoke he gestured to a stile. An honest-to-goodness stile. She felt like a heroine out of Jane Austen as she stepped up and over and into the public footpath on the other side. Late-summer sunshine spread like butter across the fields.

  And the tiny stone house sat there like a perfect retreat from the world.

  “And there’s Stag Cottage.”

  Her heart flipped over. She actually felt it somersault in her chest. The cottage was so perfect-exactly what a cottage should be, built of warm stone, with a thatched roof. She wanted to hug the place. Her senses were stirring and the mild panic that had traveled across the ocean with her relaxed. Maybe, just maybe, her crazy idea was going to work.

  Chapter Two

  Arthur Denby opened the door for her with the key, and she stepped inside. And she knew. If she hadn’t already had a pretty big hint in the pub, she knew that she’d find her story here.

  “This is so perfect,” she breathed.

  “Ever set a book in England before?”

  She turned to stare at him. “No,” she said slowly. “This is the first time.” How stupid-it wasn’t until he’d asked the question that she’d realized her book was going to be set in England.

  She wanted to walk right up to Arthur and kiss him. Not because he was gorgeous and sexy and about to be written into her book as an irresistible villain, but because he’d saved her wasting any more time in the wrong setting. She’d come to England thinking her book would take place in the Puget Sound.

  Nope. Britain all the way. She must have known. Somewhere inside her she must have known the solution, so she was receptive that day she was idling on the Internet looking for inspiration, and she’d come across the Web site that featured Hart House and its visitors’ accommodation in Stag Cottage.

  She put down her bag, containing her laptop, passport, and wallet. The essentials. Everything else, including her toothbrush, was at the train station, but she already felt at home. In fact, she couldn’t wait to get started.

  “I’ll show you how to use the cooker,” he said, pointing to the oven in the small galley kitchen. She tried to follow what he was saying, but instead she found herself watching his hands when he lit the pilot light. Such capable hands. Such sensual hands. Oh, he’d know his way around a woman’s body, this one. He exuded sexual power.

  They could kill, too, those hands. Somehow she knew that. He wouldn’t waste time on moral dithering. If someone he loved was threatened, if he felt he had no choice, he’d kill.

  He’d have even less compunction making his interest in a woman clear. She doubted he’d often been told no.

  “I’ll take you upstairs now,” he said, and she thought he’d listened in on her thoughts. She almost said “It’s a little soon” before she realized he was still playing tour guide.

  “Sure, okay.”

  Up they went. She followed him and felt the quiver of awareness. Oh, he filled out a pair of jeans nicely. She told herself to stop ogling the guy’s butt, but where else was she supposed to look? Besides, she was a woman who believed in life’s little luxuries, and this was surely one of them.

  Just because she looked didn’t mean she had to touch. And until this book was written, she reminded herself, looking was all she’d be doing.

  The staircase was narrow, the walls rough plaster, wonderfully old and atmospheric.

  There were two bedrooms upstairs, and a bathroom. The largest bedroom contained a big, comfy bed with a chintz-covered duvet in lavenders and greens. The walls were palest yellow, the ceiling sloped, and a dormer window overlooked the fields and the immense grandeur of Hart House.

  When Arthur stood in her bedroom and explained about the heat register, she could barely concentrate. He was looking at her, talking about the electric heat, but there was an entirely different heat stirring the air. She felt it coming off his body, from the eyes that looked at her so keenly.

  She felt such an intense physical reaction to this man who was a complete stranger that she took refuge in looking out of the window. There was a river on the other side of the big house and she could imagine herself tramping all over the area on the many footpaths as she wrestled with her story. In the distance she could see sheep moving slowly, like scattered clouds.

&
nbsp; “It’s a lovely part of the country,” he said from behind her.

  “Yes, yes it is. But I’m here to work,” she reminded both of them.

  They clomped back down the stairs and he handed her the keys. “The number of the pub is by the phone. My home number is there as well, if you need anything.”

  Was it her imagination or had he put the slightest emphasis on the last bit?

  He was the most appealing man she’d met in a long time, but she didn’t have the time, not while her deadline was breathing down her neck. So she sent him her blandest smile.

  “There are a few staples in the cupboards, but if you plan to cook tonight, you’ll need to get to the shops. The ones in town close at five. There’s a Sainsbury’s-that’s an American-style supermarket. It’s open until seven, but it’s a drive.”

  “Any chance of home delivery or takeout meals?”

  “Not in the village. There’s the King George Café-does a nice breakfast, lunch and cream tea, but it’s not open for dinner-or there’s the pub.”

  “Right. I guess I’ll see you for dinner, then.”

  “You’ll see me before that.”

  Her brows rose.

  “I’ll fetch your bags from the station.”

  “Oh, there’s no need, I can-”

  “It’s all part of the service.”

  She took the keys he held out. “Thanks.”

  She allowed herself the luxury of watching him walk back across the fields, watching the long gait, the easy stride of a man at home in the country. She told herself it wasn’t lust gluing her gaze to his retreating back, but research. When he got to the stile, he turned and lifted a hand. As though he’d known she’d be watching him. Which she had, damn it, she thought, waving back.

  Okay, lady, she said to herself, time to write. The tingling in her fingertips that had never quite gone away since she’d had her vision in the pub now warred with a slight queasiness in her stomach that she knew was nerves.

  She unzipped her bag and pulled out her laptop, placing it on the sturdy oak kitchen table. The kitchen chairs were also oak, though they appeared to be a later vintage than the table. They were also hard.