Donovan fought to keep the irritation out of his voice. “Don’t you have someplace to be, Alex?”
Alex crossed the room to the door. He gave Taylor one last libidinous glance and an easy smile. “I’ll see you at dinner tonight.”
Alex hurried to his car and drove the five minutes to Constance’s house. He gave two quick raps on the front door, then opened it and walked in without waiting to be invited. “Connie? Are you ready to get to work?” His familiarity said they were much more than casual acquaintances.
Constance emerged from the back room. Her blond hair hung to her shoulders, her makeup perfectly applied. She glanced around, then her gaze landed on Alex. She tightened the sash of her silk robe. “You’re alone?”
Alex studied her for a moment. She claimed to be thirty-one, but he knew she was closer to forty. She’d maintained a youthful appearance and an appealing body, especially for an older woman—older compared to his twenty-seven years. In fact, there were a lot of other things he knew about Constance that he was sure no one else knew.
He looked around, feigning a hint of confusion about what she might have been searching for when she entered the room. “You were expecting Donovan to be with me? Or perhaps you were hoping for Donovan by himself.” He reached out and tugged at the silken sash until it came loose, allowing her robe to fall open, revealing the sheer nightgown she wore.
A sly smile curled the corners of Alex’s mouth as he raked his gaze over her obvious charms. “Ah, yes…I see you were hoping for Donovan solo. Well—” he removed his jacket and tossed it over the arm of the couch “—never let it be said that I failed to help out a lady in obvious distress.” He tugged on the front of her robe, slowly drawing her toward him.
Connie stepped away, closed her robe, retied the sash and leveled a steady gaze at him. “You’re quite the randy lad, Alex…always ready for a tumble.”
Alex winked at her. “As you know from personal experience—ready, willing and very able.”
“Well, you’ll have to put all of that ‘ready, willing and able’ aside until another time and another place. Right now we have festival business to discuss.”
“Whatever you say. Business first—” he cocked his head and shot a questioning look in her direction “—and pleasure later?” He retrieved a notebook from his jacket pocket and seated himself at her dining room table.
Constance picked up the file folder from the corner of the table and withdrew several sheets of paper. “I’ve compiled a list of what needs to be done and what I’ve already accomplished. I think we’re in good shape for this year’s festival, just the last-minute details to take care of.”
Alex took the list from her, but didn’t bother to look at it. “You know, Connie—” he pulled her into his lap “—it’s not doing you any good to set your sights on the status that being married to Lord Donovan Sedgwick would give you. After all, Donovan has rebuffed your increasingly blatant overtures in that area. Even before Uncle James died, you had decided on Donovan. I assume you believed that Uncle James’s age meant that Donovan would be coming into the title sometime very soon. And by a strange quirk of fate, he came into it sooner than anyone anticipated. But even though you have decided Donovan is going to be your next husband—”
“Next husband?” Constance jumped to her feet and took a couple of steps away from Alex. “Whatever are you talking about? Everyone knows that I’ve never been married.”
A sly grin turned the corners of his mouth. “Sorry, Connie…I keep forgetting about the myth you insist on perpetuating.”
He emitted a soft chuckle, as if an amusing thought had just occurred to him. “But as I was saying maybe it would be more feasible if you set your sights on someone else. There are lots of men out there with titles. Of course, not many of them have such a lucrative estate to support that title as Donovan does.”
She furrowed her brow in momentary concentration. “Perhaps you’re right. Maybe I need to use another tactic.” She gave Alex an appraising look, then leaned her face into his and placed a kiss on his lips. “But first, let’s finish with the festival business. We’ll have time later this morning for other pleasantries.”
DONOVAN STOOD at the door of the informal dining room. He watched as Taylor poured herself a cup of coffee, then stood in front of the window staring at the gardens. He continued to be bothered by the strange sensation that he knew her from somewhere. He closed his eyes for a moment, but the image continued to swirl around in his mind. He was inexplicably drawn to her, almost as if she had cast some sort of spell over him—as if some unknown force had pulled him into a fateful liaison fraught with unknown danger.
Taylor turned toward him as he entered the room. He drank in her features—the shape of her face, the creamy texture of her skin, the set of her eyes, her slightly parted lips and the fullness of a mouth that deserved to be repeatedly kissed as often as possible. He tried to shake away the powerful urge to kiss those tempting lips as the heated desire again settled low in his body, fighting with his attempts to maintain a businesslike attitude.
“Is there something wrong?” Donovan’s intense stare sent a small tremor of anxiety through her body. She was determined to track down her family history. Her grandmother had filled her in on as much as she knew, but there were still so many missing pieces. Her grandmother had been born on the Sedgwick Estate where Taylor’s great-grandparents were the last of the tenant farmers to live there. Her grandmother had been sent to Canada as a small child to live with an aunt and uncle.
All Taylor knew of her great-grandparents, Clark and Emily Kincaid, was that they had been murdered by Lord William Sedgwick, a crime for which he had been swiftly convicted and then executed. She knew nothing of the details, but was determined to seek them out. Only now that she was actually at the Sedgwick Estate, standing face-to-face with the very appealing and disturbing Lord Donovan Sedgwick…
“Do I have jelly on my face or an orange juice mustache?” She forced a nervous chuckle as she moved her fingertips to the side of her mouth as if to wipe away an offending smudge.
Donovan’s hand followed hers, his fingers lightly touching her hair, then brushing against her cheek. He quickly withdrew his hand and took a step backward. He hadn’t realized he was staring at her so intently. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…well—” he awkwardly shifted his weight from one foot to the other “—you look so familiar, as if I should know you from somewhere, but I can’t quite place it. We, uh, we haven’t ever met…have we?”
“No…” His eyes held her in a captive spell, as if he had literally drawn all the energy from her body. She experienced a shortness of breath. Her skin still tingled where he had touched her cheek. Her voice barely rose above a soft whisper. “I’m sure I would have remembered if we had.”
“Yes, well…” He nervously cleared his throat. “Shall we go?”
She breathed a sigh of relief as he seemed to release her from the mystical hold he had on her senses. He led the way up the curving staircase, his voice becoming all business as he provided her with information on the history of the property.
“The original estate dates back to the late 1300s. Some of the structures from that time are still here. The tithe barn and the lodge house—” A shudder swept through his body at the mention of the lodge house. Thoughts of the grisly events from a century ago flashed through his mind.
He forced away the unwelcome intrusion and regained his composure. “As I was saying, the tithe barn and lodge house date from that time along with some of the outer buildings.”
“Has the estate always been in the Sedgwick family or did your family acquire it later?”
“My