She made a grunty-groany sound she hoped indicated frustration. “It’s this book. It’s finally going well. I’m terrified to stop in case I can’t start again.”

“Lots of murder and horror?”

“I’m really getting to the good stuff now.”

He looked down at her, an expression almost of challenge on his face. “You haven’t called me in the middle of the night.”

Her stomach curled over, as though she were on the downhill rush of a roller coaster. She returned his gaze, feeling breathless. “I haven’t been scared enough.” Her gaze dropped to his lips, and she wondered how such a tough face could have such a sensuous mouth. “Yet.”

“I know a wonderful technique for chasing away fear,” he said softly, turning to face her. The river lapped quietly behind them, and a breeze ruffled the trees.

“You do?”

“Yes,” he said, and grasping her shoulders, he put his mouth on hers, soft and slow, but determined. She’d known it would happen, of course. She supposed she’d known it from the first second she’d seen him. His mouth was warm, so warm, his lips strong and agile. Her hands ended up on his shoulders, though she had no conscious thought of putting them there, so she felt the play of muscle, the warmth of his body.

He pulled away slowly, looking down at her as though he knew the single kiss had rocked her to her pedicured toenails.

“Desire,” he said. “That’ll keep your fear at bay.”

Oh, how wrong he was. Now she began to fear that this very inconvenient and impossible-to-stop attraction was going to totally screw up her work.

The author of a book couldn’t have sex with its villain.

Meg was finger-combing the last dampness from her hair. She hadn’t been able to decide what to wear for dinner at the big house, and finally settled on a simple coffee-colored linen dress with chunky amber beads and earrings. Her heels were never going to make the tramp all ten miles or whatever it was up to the house, so she stuck on her walking shoes and carried her ridiculously high-heeled sandals in a shopping bag.

After days being cooped up with her muse, she was pretty excited to be going out.

A butler opened the heavy oak door to her. A real, honest-to-God butler. Oh, and wasn’t he straight out of central casting with his beaky nose, long face, and air of gentility.

She gave her name, and he looked discreetly off into the distance when she hastily changed her shoes, then relieved her of her shopping bag.

He trod with stately slowness down the flagstone hall. She almost expected him to announce her, like at a ball, but he merely opened a door and said, “You’ll find his lordship and Miss Maxine in here.”

“Thank you.”

She entered and saw not Maxine or George, or anyone except the tall, dark man standing beside the fireplace, one elbow on the mantel and a crystal glass winking amber in his hand. Arthur’s eyes warmed when he looked at her and she suddenly felt as breathless as she had in that moment right before he’d kissed her.

Then Maxine rose from her chair and came forward, breaking the spell.

“I’m so glad you could come,” she said. “George needs cheering up.”

Meg smiled at the poor earl, sitting with his bare foot wrapped in a tensor bandage and resting on a low footstool that had to have been embroidered by the Normans shortly after the conquest. Other than the bare foot, which showed a certain purple aspect, he looked movie star handsome.

“How’s your ankle?” she asked him as she walked over and gave him her hand.

“It bloody hurts,” he complained. “If that great oaf hadn’t trodden on me, I’d be standing up and greeting you properly.”

Since the wicked way he was grinning at her had her thinking that Maxine was going to have her hands full, she shook her head at him. “It looked to me like you were both playing like you were ten years old.” The soccer players were all in their thirties, with a few who looked to be in their forties, but they’d played their football, as they insisted on calling it, as though they were kids, running and shoving and getting filthy. Max was right, though-they were all men in their prime and they looked totally hot.

“Nonsense. You don’t understand the complexities of the game,” he told her.

“You are such a wally,” Arthur told him. “And if you can’t greet your guests properly, I can.” Then he walked forward, said “Hello,” and gave her a quick kiss. Just a brush of his lips over hers, really, but the thrill danced all the way down her spine.

“Hello,” she said, telling herself there was no need to blush. He was only winding up their host. Still, the tingle remained.

Arthur, who was standing in for George as host, it seemed, in anything that required standing, asked her what she wanted to drink. “Um, I don’t know.”

He lowered his voice. “Mrs. Brimacombe, the cook and housekeeper, tends to solid British fare. I recommend a good stiff belt of something.”

“Surprise me,” she said, knowing that one way or another, he was going to do exactly that.

There were two other couples. Old friends of George’s who’d also played today and their wives. Meg fell into the evening feeling almost like a spectator at a play. These people had known each other forever and the back-and-forth banter, the in-jokes, and the shared history were laid out before her. Of course, they were polite, well-mannered people, and they included her. The discussion was general, but every once in a while there’d be a line or a joke that had to be explained.

Since she was now writing a book set in England, with a British villain and a lot of characters much like these, she was only too happy to watch them live their very English lives in front of her, while she absorbed.

The perfect butler announced dinner and a single waitress served it, a come-down, she suspected, from earlier days when there would have been a full staff. The meal was fine. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with peas and green beans and roast potatoes. Maybe a little overcooked for her taste, but not so dire that she really needed the martini in her system. She wondered if Arthur had ulterior motives for getting her drinking and one glance at him convinced her that he did.

The conversation flowed with the wine. From British-American relations to books to new plays in London ’s West End.

She discovered that George and Maxine were at the stage in their relationship where they couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other. A touch here, a steamy glance there. Obviously, those two were deep-down crazy for each other.

And Meg discovered that Arthur had a sneaky sense of humor and that he was a local chess champ.

“Do you play?” he asked her.

“Sometimes. But I’m not very good.”

“We’ll have to have a game,” he said, and the way he looked at her made her wonder if chess was the game he had in mind.

And then Maxine brought up the subject of Meg’s writing. “You know, I’ve always fancied writing a book,” said Charles, one of the men.

“Then you should do it,” she said. She heard this all the time and always wondered why, if they wanted to do it, people didn’t sit down and try. It was like saying, “Oh, I’ve always wanted to speak German,” without ever taking a lesson.

“Meg writes the most incredible murder mysteries,” Maxine said. “I can never sleep when I’ve got one on the go. Honestly, they’re terrifying.”

“Don’t you find it difficult to imagine the mind of a killer?” asked Charles’s wife, Nora.

“Well, yes and no. The thing to remember is that in his or her mind, the killer has no other choice, no option but to kill. He may be insane, but in his mind, it’s the right thing to do. He or she is the hero in their own mind. If I can find a compelling enough reason for what they do, then my villain comes to life.”

“You sound like you approve of your villains.”