“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.

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.

“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.”