to her back and stared sightlessly up at the blank white ceiling. It seemed incredible to believe it was under a year since she had first met Jake. She felt as if she had known him a lifetime, so much had happened.
* * *
It was a beautiful July day. Lexi waited in the entrance porch of her home, and watched as a sleek black car drew to a halt in front of the door and the tall figure of a man stepped out.
‘Mr Taylor?’ she queried as the man bounded up the stone steps to stop only inches away from her.
‘Yes, and you must be Alexandra Laughton. Your solicitor said you were young, but he didn’t mention beautiful.’
‘Lexi, please. No one calls me Alexandra,’ she said nervously and blushed scarlet, embarrassed by his frank compliment, and also by the overpowering effect the man had on her. He looked about thirty, and was dressed in a plain white shirt, dark tie and an immaculate three-piece business suit, the jacket stretched taut across broad shoulders and a massive chest. His hair was black and thick, and his face alert and hard. There was no mistaking the fierce predatory expression on his roughly hewn features. A broad forehead, deep dark eyes, high cheek bones and a straight blade of a nose above a wide, firm mouth. His skin was the colour of polished mahogany.
‘I’m afraid I’m in rather a hurry. So, shall we proceed?’ he said briskly, all business.
‘Y-yes. Yes, of course,’ she stammered, leading him into the panelled entrance hall. ‘You’re very brown. Are you English?’ God! Where had that come from? She cringed; it was totally out of character for Lexi to pass personal comments and she turned red with embarrassment. ‘Please...’
To her surprise he started to laugh and, catching one of her small hands in his, he said, ‘Jake Taylor, luv... Born within the sound of the Bow Bells. A cockney, a tanned cockney, though I believe my father was a foreigner.’ He drawled the last word teasingly.
He was laughing at her but she could not blame him; so far she had not managed to make much sense. Lexi shook her head in a vain attempt to clear her brain, and her long red hair spun around her face in a glittering cloud before settling back on her slender shoulders. She had dressed with care, expecting the first prospective buyer for the house, in a plain, shirt-style straight-skirted cream summer-dress. She had added a minimum of make-up to her golden skin; she was one of those very rare redheads with a skin that actually tanned. Her full lips were carefully outlined in a soft coral lip gloss and a touch of mascara on her long lashes completed her make-up and she’d thought she appeared quite adult, until this man had looked at her.
‘I’m sorry, that was presumptuous of me. Please, follow me, and I’ll show you around.’ Her violet eyes met his once more, and she felt the intensity of his gaze to the soles of her feet. She again shook her head, but nothing could clear her mind and she spent the next hour leading him around the half-dozen reception rooms, up the grand staircase, all around the upper floors until finally they arrived back in the hall with Lexi still in a bemused state.
‘Are you free for the rest of the day?’
‘What? Oh, yes.’ Lexi had to get her brain in gear, but it seemed to be an impossibility. ‘But why?’ she asked, standing once more in the front porch. Common sense told her he should leave: he was too dynamic, too male, and certainly too sophisticated for her. She felt oddly threatened by him, but her foolishly fast-beating heart wanted him to stay.
‘Good. I had only allowed an hour for our meeting; now I think I’ll make a day of it and you can show me around the countryside, then I can get the feel of the place. You understand.’
She didn’t understand at all, but her heart leapt in her breast at the prospect of spending the whole day with the man. Before she could agree or disagree Jake had ushered her into his car and slid in beside her. He made a call on the car-phone to someone called Lorraine, who seemed less than pleased at his extended visit, Lexi thought, then he turned to her.
‘Now, I am your willing tourist until late this evening, or, if you prefer, tomorrow morning.’ And, flicking her a blatantly sensual smile, he asked, ‘Which way to Castle Howard? I’ve heard it’s worth seeing.’
The faint spicy tang of his aftershave teased her nostrils, and for some reason his sexy grin appeared to heighten her awareness of him in a way no other man had ever managed to do before. She was not a complete innocent; she had a good social life at college and she had had her fair share of dates, but Jake Taylor was something else again, and she found the emotion he aroused in her enthralling.
Twenty minutes later they were driving up the impressive drive through the entrance gates and into the large field-like car park of Castle Howard.
‘Good, it’s near your place,’ she heard Jake murmur as he helped her out of the car, his eyes darting all around, taking everything in.
Jake flung a casual arm around her shoulders. ‘I think this might just be the clincher,’ he opined and, paying the admission fee, urged Lexi through to the courtyard while she was still trying to fathom out what he meant.
For the next few hours she walked around in a dream. Jake strode around the elegant house, his hand never leaving her shoulder as he talked non-stop to her, pointing out the things that really grabbed his interest, from the magnificent domed roof in the grand hall, unique in all of England, to the quaint child’s high chair. Castle Howard was magnificent: the furnishings, the restoration, works of art—everything about the place was exquisite. A superb example of eighteenth-century architecture, it was built by the Third Earl of Carlisle, and to the present day was still owned by the same family of Howards. Lexi had visited many times before, but today the awesome grandeur of the place was overwhelmed by her intense awareness of her companion.
To Lexi’s surprise Jake seemed almost as impressed by the wide variety of tourists—Americans and Japanese rubbed shoulders with continentals—as he was with the house itself, and finally, when they walked back outside into the summer sunshine and strolled around the extensive grounds, Jake had no compunction in striking up conversations with dozens of people, while Lexi looked around at the wonderful landscape, long lawns, magnificent lakes, summer house, and, high on one hill, the family mausoleum. It wasn’t hard to see, she thought, why it had achieved worldwide recognition as the location for the television serial Brideshead Revisited. Perched on the Howardian Hills, it had to be one of the best stately homes in England.
‘Penny for your thoughts.’
She looked up and smiled into Jake’s darkly handsome face. ‘They aren’t worth much, but I am hungry,’ she stated. ‘Walking gives me an appetite.’
‘You give me an appetite,’ Jake growled huskily and, before she realised his intention, he had turned her into his arms, and brushed his hard mouth gently across her full lips. It was like being touched by lightning; a shiver trembled the length of her spine and her full lips parted helplessly beneath his. The breath hissed out of him. ‘God!’ he exclaimed, as he broke the kiss.
He held her away from him, studying her flushed, bemused face. ‘I’ve been aching to do that from the minute I set eyes on you. You have a very unsettling effect on me, little girl. But this is not the place.’ Knowing full well how he affected her, he grinned reassuringly down into her wide violet eyes, and, curving her arm under his, led her back to the car.
She wasn’t used to a handsome sophisticated man like Jake flirting with her and, during the journey to the city of York where Jake had insisted they visit next, she couldn’t think of a word to say. But somehow the atmosphere between them was a companionable one, and by the time they arrived in York and found the car park Lexi had recovered some of her poise.
It seemed quite natural to walk hand in hand around the mighty cathedral, and then follow the narrow streets around the Shambles. Finally, they ended up in a small French restaurant with the original name of Number 19 Grape Lane, and, over a lovely meal of pan-fried salmon on a bed of pasta in a red wine sauce—Jake’s choice—he enthusiastically explained his plan for Forest Manor. He wanted to buy it and turn it into a hotel, and shrewdly he asked her if she would take it off the market for a week or