‘You must be a nightmare for film studios to insure.’
‘No doubt.’
‘What about the flying in Blue Skies …?’
He shrugged. ‘I went to a village in Bedfordshire where they have a museum of old working planes and learnt to fly a Spitfire.’
A grudging respect entered those green eyes. ‘That was … dedicated. What about riding the elephant in Dark Horizon?’
He grinned. ‘Piece of cake!’
‘Riding a horse bareback in Unbridled?’
He gave her a knowing look. ‘A blessed relief after the elephant!’
‘Captaining a boat in To the Depths?’
So Stazy obviously hadn’t seen just one of his films, but several. Although Jaxon was sure that Stazy had absolutely no idea just how much she was revealing by this conversation. ‘I used to spend my summers in Great Yarmouth, helping out on my uncle’s fishing boat, when I was at university.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You attended university?’
Jaxon was enjoying himself. ‘Surprised to learn I’m not just a pretty face, after all?’
If Stazy was being honest? Yes, she was surprised. ‘What subject did you take?’
He quirked a teasing brow. ‘Are you sure you really want me to answer that?’
She felt a sinking sensation in her chest. ‘Archaeology?’
‘History and archaeology.’
She winced. ‘You have a degree in history and archaeology?’
He gave a grin. ‘First-class Masters.’
‘With what aim in mind …?’
He shrugged. ‘I seriously thought about teaching before I was bitten by the acting bug.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’ Before she’d made a fool of herself and treated him as if he were just another empty-headed movie star. That, in retrospect, had not only been insulting but presumptuous.
Jaxon shrugged wide shoulders. ‘You didn’t ask. Besides which,’ he continued lightly, ‘you were having far too much fun looking down your nose at a frivolous Hollywood actor for me to want to spoil it for you.’
Because it had been easier to think of Jaxon that way than to acknowledge him as not only being a handsome movie star but also an intelligent and sensitive man. Which he obviously was.
A dangerous combination, in fact!
Stazy straightened briskly. ‘Shall we get on?’
In other words: conversation over, Jaxon acknowledged ruefully. But, whether she realised it or not, he had learnt a little more about Stazy this morning; it was a little like extracting teeth, but very slowly he was learning the intricacies that made up the personality of the beautiful and yet somehow vulnerable Stazy Bromley.
And finding himself intrigued and challenged by all of them.
‘Time for lunch, I believe …’
Stazy had been so lost in reading one of her grandmother’s diaries that she had momentarily forgotten that Jaxon sat across the table from her, let alone noticed the passing of time. Surprisingly, it had been a strangely companionable morning, that earlier awkwardness having dissipated as they both became lost in their individual tasks.
She gave a shake of her head now. ‘I rarely bother to eat lunch.’
‘Meaning that I shouldn’t either?’ Jaxon teased.
‘Not at all,’ she told him briskly. ‘I’ll just carry on here, if you would like to go and—What are you doing …?’ She frowned across at Jaxon as he reached across the table to close the diary she was reading before rising to his feet and holding out his hand to her expectantly.
‘Ever heard the saying “all work and no play …” ‘
Her mouth firmed as she continued to ignore his outstretched hand. ‘I’ve never pretended to be anything other than dull.’
‘I don’t find you in the least dull, Stazy,’ Jaxon murmured softly.
She raised startled eyes. ‘You don’t?’
‘No,’ he assured her huskily; having spent the past three hours completely aware of Stazy sitting across the table from him, how could he claim otherwise? She was a woman of contradictions: practical by nature but delicately feminine in her appearance. Her hands alone seemed proof of that contradiction. Her wrists were fragile, her fingers slender and elegant, but they were tipped with practically short and unvarnished nails. He had spent quite a lot of the last three hours looking at Stazy’s hands as she turned the pages of the diary she was reading and imagining all the places those slender fingers tipped by those trimmed nails might linger as she caressed him.
‘Let’s go, Stazy,’ he encouraged her now. ‘I asked Little earlier if he would provide us with a lunch basket.’
She frowned. ‘You expect me to go on a picnic with you?’
‘Why not?’ Jaxon asked softly.
Probably because Stazy couldn’t remember the last time she had done anything as frivolous as eating her lunch al fresco—even in one of the many cafés in England that now provided tables for people to eat outside. When she was working she was too busy during the day to eat lunch at all, and when she came here her grandfather preferred formality. Occasionally Granny had organised a picnic down on the beach at the weekends, but that had been years ago, and—
‘You think too much, Stazy.’ Jaxon, obviously tired of waiting for her to make up her mind, pulled her effortlessly to her feet.
Stazy couldn’t think at all when she was standing close to Jaxon like this, totally aware of the heat of his body and the pleasant—arousing—smell of the cologne he favoured. ‘Aren’t we a little old to be going on a picnic, Jaxon?’
‘Not in the least,’ he dismissed easily. Not waiting to hear any more of her objections, his hand still firmly clasping hers, he pulled her along with him to walk out into the cavernous hallway. ‘Ah, Little, just in time.’ He smiled warmly at the butler as he appeared from the back of the house with a picnic basket in one hand and a blanket in the other. ‘If Mr Bromley calls we’ll be back in a couple of hours.’
Jaxon handed Stazy the blanket before taking the picnic basket himself, all the time retaining that firm grasp on Stazy’s hand as he kept her at his side. He strode out of the front doorway of the house and down the steps onto the driveway.
The warm and strong hand totally dwarfed Stazy’s, and at the same time she was tinglingly aware of that warmth and strength. The same strength that had enabled him to ride an elephant, go bareback on a horse, to handle the controls of a Spitfire and captain a fishing boat, and do all of those other stunts in his films that Stazy had assumed were performed by someone else.
Making Jaxon far less that ‘pretty face’ image she had previously taken such pleasure in attributing to him.
If she were completely honest with herself Jaxon was so much more than she had wanted him to be before meeting him, and as such had earned—albeit grudgingly!—her respect. It would have been far easier to simply dismiss the pretty-faced Hollywood actor of her imaginings; but the real Jaxon Wilder was nothing at all as Stazy had thought—hoped—he would be. Instead, he had a depth and intelligence she found it impossible to ignore.
Add those things to the way he looked—to the way he had kissed her and made her feel the previous evening—and Stazy was seriously in danger of fighting a losing battle