a disgusted shake of his head. ‘You could have been killed, damn it!’
In retrospect Stazy accepted that her method of leaving Bromley House really hadn’t been a good plan at all. Not only had starting the engine sounded like the roar of an angry lion in the stillness of the night, but there had still been no guarantee that she would have found it any easier to leave by the back road. She would never know now.
No, in retrospect, taking the Harley hadn’t been a good plan at all. And, if Stazy was being honest, she now admitted it had also been an extremely childish one.
Why, oh, why did just being around Jaxon make her behave in this ridiculous way …?
She gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘I just feel so—so useless, having to sit here and wait for news from my grandfather.’
Jaxon’s expression softened. ‘I’m sure Geoffrey is well aware of exactly how you feel, Stazy—’
‘Are you?’ she said warily.
‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘Look, it’s almost one o’clock in the morning, and no doubt the kitchen staff all went to bed hours ago. So why don’t the two of us go down to the kitchen and make a pot of tea or something?’
She smiled ruefully. ‘Tea being the English panacea for whatever ails you?’
He shrugged. ‘It would seem to work in most situations, yes.’
It certainly couldn’t do any harm, and Stazy knew she was still too restless to be able to sleep even if she went up to bed now. ‘Why not?’ she said softly as she crossed the room to precede him out into the hallway.
The house was quiet as Jaxon and Stazy crossed the cavernous entrance hall on their way to the more shadowy hallway that led down to the kitchen, with only the sound of the grandfather clock ticking to disturb that eerie silence.
A stark reminder, if Jaxon had needed one, that it was very late at night and he and Stazy were completely alone.
And if Stazy believed there had been no repercussions for him after having to walk away from her earlier this evening then she was completely mistaken!
A fifteen-minute cold shower had done absolutely nothing to dampen Jaxon’s arousal. Nor had sitting at the desk in his bathrobe to read through the notes he had already accumulated for the screenplay. Or telephoning his agent in LA and chatting to him about it for ten minutes.
None of those things had done a damned thing to stop Jaxon’s mind from wandering, time and time again, to thoughts of making love with Stazy in Geoffrey’s study.
As he was thinking about it still.
Self-denial wasn’t something Jaxon enjoyed. And walking away from Stazy—not once, but twice in the past two days!—was playing havoc with his self-control!
The cosy intimacy of the warm kitchen and working together to make tea—Jaxon finding the cups while Stazy filled the kettle with water and switched it on—did nothing to lessen his awareness of her. Not when his gaze wandered to her constantly as the slender elegance of her hands prepared and warmed the teapot and he all too easily imagined the places those hands might touch and caress. The smooth roundness of her bottom in those black fitted denims wasn’t helping either!
‘Feeling any better?’ Jaxon prompted gruffly, once he was seated on the other side of the kitchen table from Stazy, two steaming cups of tea in front of them.
‘Less hysterical, you mean?’ She grimaced.
He shook his head. ‘You weren’t hysterical, Stazy, just understandably concerned about your grandfather.’
‘Yes,’ she acknowledged with a sigh. ‘Still, I didn’t have to be quite so bitchy about it.’
‘You? Bitchy?’ Jaxon gave an exaggerated gasp of disbelief. ‘Never!’ He placed a dramatic hand on his heart.
She smiled ruefully. ‘You aren’t going to win any awards with that performance!’
‘No,’ he acknowledged with a wry chuckle.
Stazy sobered. ‘Do you think my grandfather is telling us the truth about this threat?’ She looked across at him worriedly. ‘It occurred to me earlier that he could be using it as a smokescreen,’ she continued as Jaxon raised one dark brow. ‘That maybe this screenplay and the making of the film might have brought on another heart attack …?’
‘Why am I not surprised!’ Jaxon grimaced ruefully. ‘Do you seriously believe your grandfather would lie to you in that way?’
‘If he thought I would worry less, yes,’ she confirmed unhesitantly.
Unfortunately, so did Jaxon.
Although he honestly hoped in this instance that wouldn’t turn out to be the case. ‘Then it’s one of those questions where I can’t win, however I choose to answer it. If I say no, I can’t see that happening, then you aren’t going to believe me. And if I say it’s a possibility, you’ll ask me to consider dropping the whole idea.’
Stazy was rational enough now to be able to see the logic in Jaxon’s reply. ‘Maybe we should just change the subject …?’
‘That might be a good idea,’ he drawled ruefully.
She nodded. ‘As you probably aren’t going to be able to speak to my grandfather about it for several days yet, perhaps you would like to tell me what it is you found earlier and wanted to talk to him about …?’
Jaxon gave a wince. ‘Another lose/lose question as far as I’m concerned, I’m afraid. And it seems a pity to spoil things when we have reached something of a truce in the last few minutes …’
‘It’s probably an armed truce, Jaxon,’ Stazy said dryly. ‘And liable to erupt into shots being exchanged again at any moment!’
‘Okay.’ He grimaced. ‘Curiously, what I’ve found is something the reporter who wrote the biography seems to have missed altogether …’
‘Hmm …’
Jaxon raised one dark brow at that sceptical murmur. ‘You don’t think he missed it?’
‘What I think,’ Stazy said slowly, ‘is that, whatever you found, my grandfather will have ensured the reporter didn’t find it.’
‘You believe Geoffrey has that much power …?’
‘Oh, yes.’ She smiled affectionately.
Jaxon shook his head. ‘You don’t even know what this is about yet.’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t need to. If my grandfather left some incriminating papers in the library for you to look at then he meant for you to find them.’
That made Jaxon feel a little better, at least. ‘There were two things, actually, but they’re related.’
Stazy looked down at her fingertip, running it distractedly around the rim of her cup as she waited for him to continue.
He sighed. ‘I found your grandparents’ marriage certificate for February 1946.’
‘Yes?’
‘And your father’s birth certificate for October 1944.’
‘Yes?’
‘Leaving a discrepancy of sixteen months.’
‘Two years or more if you take into account the nine months of pregnancy,’ she corrected ruefully.
‘Yes …’
The tension eased out of Stazy’s shoulders as she smiled across at him. ‘I’m sure that there are always a lot of children born with questionable birth certificates during war years.’
‘No doubt.’ Jaxon was literally squirming with discomfort now. ‘But—’
‘But