Nancy Warren - British Bad Boys

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.

“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.

At home she had an ergonomic desk and a chair with about seventeen levers and knobs to adjust height, angle, and amount of lumbar support. She shook her head at herself as she found a cushion on the sofa in the lounge area, as Arthur had called it, and placed the flattish square cushion covered in green brocade on the kitchen chair. She faced the window and the view of the fields with the big house in the background.

A bit of crawling around on her hands and knees and a minor amount of swearing later, and she had her adapter plugged into the English socket. The computer seemed perfectly happy with the new system, powering up with a reassuring whir.

She sat down. Opened a new file, flexed her fingers as though she were a pianist about to perform at Carnegie Hall. Typed Chapter One.

Then she sat against the hard wooden back of the kitchen chair and pondered the murder in the pub.

She pulled out the six pages and typed in what she’d written, adding details as she went.

The pub was busy. It was a Friday night. She imagined a lot of laughing, the thunk of darts hitting the dartboard, the end-of-the-workweek letting loose as the place filled up and the pints went down. The restaurant would be kept busy. Patrons as thick around the long bar as seagulls around a fishing boat. And, in the dim corner, the man in the expensive dark suit drinking his beer slowly. Was he waiting for someone? Or was it a surprise when the tall figure sank down beside him on the long upholstered bench?

A surprise, she decided. Her victim did not know his killer. She described the knife briefly. It wasn’t elegant or showy. It was an unadorned stiletto: a tool of death. Nothing more. It was the hand holding the knife that fascinated her. The long, sensual fingers curled round the hilt. It was a man’s hand. He wore no ring, but the fingernail of the thumb was ridged as though it had been smashed and had regrown in a strange manner.

Meg felt the moment that the knife moved. It wasn’t a simple matter to stab a man to death in a public place. He needed strength, her villain, as well as guile and an amazing self-confidence. She saw all three come together in the way he watched for his moment, then took it, muscles bunching in his arm, the suppressed grunt of effort, the gasp of shock from the victim, and the quiet sigh as his last breath was expelled.

By the time Manfred Waxman slumped to the table, stabbed through the heart, the villain had pocketed his knife and was making his way to the door before the first drop of blood hit the floor.

She heard the pub door open, and shut. Then the villain sauntered down the village high street as though he were a man on his way home after a couple of pints. She felt the knife in his pocket, as though her own fingers touched the blade, still wet with a dead man’s blood.

When a hand touched her shoulder she jumped a mile. She’d have screamed if her heart hadn’t jammed in her throat, preventing her from making a sound. She swung around to find Arthur looking down at her in some amusement.

“I’ve never seen anyone go into a trance the way you do. I knocked on the door, and then I called. I could see you in here through the window so finally I let myself in. Sorry I startled you.”