Nancy Warren: British Bad Boys

Okay, so she was still mad at him, but not as angry now she’d had this epiphany. Still, he didn’t have to know that. He’d snuck away without a word. She wasn’t going to let him get away with treating her like that.

So she walked forward, ready to ask him, rather pointedly, what he thought he was doing. She couldn’t be heard approaching through the crowded room, of course, and when she arrived behind him, she didn’t have the heart to speak when he was about to throw his final dart. So she waited. She could see the taut line of his body, the stillness of his head as she imagined him squinting at the spiderweb of circles on the board, then his hand came back decisively, and with a graceful arc, he threw his dart. It didn’t land terribly near the bull’s-eye, but it was a respectable shot.

“Not bad,” she said at his shoulder.

He turned, brows raised in surprise. “Maxine. Hello. I didn’t expect to see you at the pub tonight. Thought you were working.”

Those charming blue eyes were so guileless she’d have believed he’d forgotten all about the fact that he was supposed to be on hand. If she were a naïve woman.

“I came to-”

“But where are my manners?” he interrupted, slipping a hand behind her upper back and urging her forward. “Come and meet my mates.” There it was. Mates. As though he were anybody.

“Barney, Dave, Patrick, and that handsome dark fellow over there is the pub owner, Arthur.”

“Hello,” she said, giving them each a taste of her smile, then turning to George, by which time the smile was suffering a severe case of rigor mortis.

“Tell your mates you have to leave,” she said, managing to squeeze the words out through her closed teeth.

He chuckled, a Hahaha, you’re so amusing for a Colonial type laugh. “Did I tell you it’s my birthday?”

Damn it. No, he hadn’t, nor had anybody else, and that little piece of information certainly wasn’t in her research folder-or if it was, none of her supposedly keen underlings had bothered to bring it to her attention.

“Your birthday?”

“Yes.”

“I wish I’d known. I’d have got you a present.” Okay, one of the keen underlings would have picked something out; something tasteful and expensive enough to ensure the good relations remained cordial until the end of the shoot.

“You know what I’d really like?” he asked, as guileless as a sunny day, if they ever saw one in this country.

She had a horrible feeling it was going to be something she’d regret. New sewer pipes, central heating for the entire ancient castle, Internet access in every room. “No, what?”

For an Englishman, his teeth were awfully white, and amazingly straight in a country where orthodontists must be a rare species. “I would love for you to stay and join us for the evening.”

She glanced around. “But I’d be the only woman.”

“Well, it’s my birthday and I want you.”

She raised her brows. Somebody guffawed and then tried to cover up the sound by drinking so he sounded as though he were drowning. Without so much as acknowledging the amusement from his buddies, the earl said, “I want to you to stay and play darts.”

“Americans aren’t big on darts,” she said.

“Ah. It’s quite simple, really. Shall I show you?”

Oh, what the hell, she decided. It wasn’t like she’d get any useful work done with an earl who was half sloshed anyway. So she relaxed, and said, “Okay.”

“Right. We’ll have a bit of a practice go, just to get you on your feet.”

George walked to the dartboard and retrieved his dart, then presented her with three. “Now,” he explained, standing so close to her she could feel the heat off his body, smell the beer on his breath, and see a darker spot on his chin where he’d missed a patch while shaving. She smiled. He was sexy-the kind of sexy that crossed continents, time zones, language barriers, probably centuries.

She felt the sizzle when his shirt-white, with pale blue stripes-touched her. She glanced up sharply, but if he was aware of the current of heat flowing between them, his blue eyes didn’t show it. If anything, he seemed obsessed by the dartboard.

He took her hand, put a dart in it. Closed her fingers around the shaft and then closed his hand around hers. Whew. The heat flowing from his fingers into hers was amazing. Scary almost.

“Ready?” he asked softly, into her ear.

“I’m not sure,” she answered truthfully.

This didn’t happen to her. Not ever. She met all kinds of hot guys, all over the world. They were intellectuals, professors, adventurers, tycoons. The kinds of men a person made documentaries about were not clerks and bureaucrats. But of all the superachievers she’d met, none had affected her so…personally.

Until now. And let’s face it, she reminded herself, George’s main claim to fame was that five hundred years ago, one of his ancestors had backed the right horse in the Catholic versus Protestant wars. It’s not like he’d crossed the Atlantic on a surfboard while trying out his new cell phone technology, or climbed Everest, written plays, or discovered the genome. No. He was a throwback to a world that no longer existed-hanging onto a derelict estate by his dirt-free fingernails. What was so special about George Hartley that she should feel her skin shiver when he brushed close to her, or her nostrils flare when she drew in the scent of him?

Nothing, she reminded herself again. Nothing.

Still, when he pulled her arm back, murmuring instructions into her ear, she did react. A shiver so subtle she hoped he didn’t notice it wafted over her. Her nipples tightened.

She wanted to close her eyes and lean back, lean into him, into his warmth and solidity. Naturally, she didn’t. Instead, when he asked if she was ready, she said she was. She’d never thrown a dart with someone before. It was surprisingly fun.

Together they tossed a dart that would have taken off the guffawing guy’s ear if he hadn’t ducked at the last second.

“Oops,” she said.

“Never mind,” George said softly. “Next time.”

“You’ve been avoiding me,” she said quietly. They were sitting, and somehow she’d ended up beside his lordship, close enough that she could speak softly and not be overheard.

“Nonsense. Busy day, that’s all.”

“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” And if he was, she was totally up shit creek. She was going to have to talk him back into his initial enthusiasm, whatever she had to do.

“About the documentary?” He blew out a breath. “I don’t know. I’m thirty-two years old today and I’m acting like a man twice my age, tied to this falling-down wreck.”

“Why do you stay?”

“It’s my home. My duty.”

“And you love it.”

He looked at her ruefully. “It’s hard to explain, really. It grows on you. Today was bloody frustrating, though. An injured man, the bank breathing down my neck.” He sipped from a pint that was clearly not his first. “There are days I really do want to chuck it all. Maybe I’ve got more of my mother in me than I realized. She hated it, you know. Spent as much time on your side of the pond as she could. Made my father miserable. You’ll hate it, too, being from Los Angeles and all that sunshine.”

“I don’t hate it. It’s a wonderful place. We may have sunshine in L.A. but we don’t have all this history.” Oh, no. His mother had hated England? One of the topics she’d wanted to go over with him was the romantic story of the eighteenth earl and his American bride. She didn’t want their story to be one of bitter misery. Where was the fairy tale? Damn.

“What about you? No wife? Girlfriend?” Of course, she already knew he didn’t have a wife, but she didn’t want him to know she’d been researching his private life. And she was curious about the girlfriend.