|
Tall, Dark And Immortal If there is one thing Dixie LePage does not need in her life, it’s complications. And the man sitting across the table from her in a crowded English pub is a major complication. For starters, there’s the broad shoulders. The slightly amused smirk. That smoldering look that makes it impossible to concentrate. No doubt about it, the guy is hot and sexy. Of course, there is one wee little problem: He claims to be a vampire named Christopher Marlowe, as in THE Christopher Marlowe, famous playwright, contemporary of Will Shakespeare. Amend that to hot, sexy, and totally insane. So why can’t Dixie seem to resist the warmth of Christopher’s charm, the protective feel of his strong hands, or the tempting pull of his full mouth when the sun goes down…?
Prologue
“You want me to give her an unwelcome?”
Sebastian Caughleigh almost smiled. His nephew caught
on quickly. “We’ll call it a... discouragement.” With that
laugh, James had definite possibilities.
“I can take care of one old lady.”
“This is the granddaughter. The daughter died years ago
and it seems the Misses Underwood’s sister snuffed it a few
weeks before old Miss Faith. This Dixie LePage is thirty and
conveniently sent me her picture.”
James peered at the photo on the desktop. An auburn-
haired young woman with green eyes smiled at the camera.
“Nice,” James murmured. “Do I get to choose the inconvenience?”
“No! She’s arriving on the twelfth and obligingly gave us
the flight number. You find her at Gatwick. Lift her wallet.
Without money or credit cards, she won’t get far. With a bit
of luck she’ll run home in distress. A fainting female who
can’t take inconvenience.”
A glint of appreciation lit James’s pale eyes as he smiled
at the photograph. “Maybe I won’t lift her wallet—first
thing.”
“You will. It’s survival. For all of us. We can’t have her
poking around the house and finding stuff the Sunday supplements
would kill for.”
“What if losing a wallet doesn’t delay her?”
“How far can she get without passport or money? She’ll
be stranded and run home—where she should have stayed.
The damn woman could have had nice regular checks and no
hassle, but she just had to come and see a ‘real, quaint
English village.’” Sebastian snorted. “I’ll give her quaint.”
James chuckled. “The wallet should work. Nice idea,
Uncle. I salute you.”
“It was Emily’s. She lost her wallet and passport in
Madeira last year and she’s still talking about it.”
A smirk played on James’s pale lips. “Always knew you
were attracted to the woman for her mind.” He nodded. “I’m
off then, Uncle. Got to work out the details of my ‘welcome.’”
Sebastian frowned at the closed door. He hadn’t told his
nephew the half. If this wretched woman arrived and insisted
on claiming her property, they’d have problems beyond
measure. Once she was in the house . . . Sebastian
pushed his chair from his desk. She couldn’t get that far.
James’s little diversion had to work. If not, they’d have to get
awkward, maybe even nasty. Others stood to lose along with
him. Maybe it was time to call in favors.
Chapter One
Dixie LePage prayed for patience. A train strike! Just her
luck! And all because she’d listened to her travel agent, who
insisted the train was the best way to travel in England. “Fast,
easy, and none of the problems of driving on the wrong side
of the road.” She’d tossed over a paying job and flown across
the Atlantic on the strength of two letters and a phone call
only to find herself stranded. She’d come out of curiosity, the
promise of a sudden inheritance, and the prospect of being
on a different continent from the man who’d made a fool of
her, and was now stuck.
Dixie’s plan B: to hire a car and drive the thirty or so
miles, might have worked. But half the population of Southern
England beat her to it. Her attempts to call Mr. Caughleigh,
the lawyer, didn’t go too well either. She lacked the necessary
small change or a phone card. Resisting the temptation
to smash the receiver into the wall, she muttered heavenward.
“Having trouble?” a smooth, very proper British voice
asked.
Dixie turned and stared at the bluest eyes she’d seen since
her ex-fiancé. “It’s these stupid phones. There are no proper
instructions!” This was unfair, she knew. Directions came in
half-a-dozen languages.
“Oh!” Blue Eyes laughed. “American, are you?” What
was so amusing about that? “Use your credit card. You do
have one, don’t you?” His long arm reached too close beside
her and a manicured finger pointed at familiar logos. If she
hadn’t been so wound up, she’d have noticed them herself.
Mr. Caughleigh, or “Corly” as the secretary said it, wasn’t
in. “He’ll be in about nine-thirty. I’ll tell him you called,
Miss LePage.” So much for thinking he could help her.
“Need a ride?”
Blue eyes had lurked while she called. “No, thank you.”
“I’m driving into Surrey, perhaps I could drop you somewhere?”
She remembered Gran’s warnings about white slavers
hovering around train stations. Airports made a good modern
equivalent. “Thank you, I’m fine.” She made to walk
away.
“Don’t trust me?” The idea seemed to amuse him.
“No.” She’d never again trust a Norse god with moussed
hair, a plastic smile and shallow blue eyes. She’d learned that
much.
The smiling clerk at Travelers’ Aid suggested she take a
coach to a place with the improbable name of “Leatherhead,”
a short distance, he claimed, from Bringham. Dixie’s
image of something out of a Regency romance didn’t last
long. The coach proved to be nothing more exotic than a
long distance bus. The so-called “express” bus made a dozen
stops in a couple of hours. Dixie vowed to walk next time.
Shoot, there wouldn’t be a next time. She should have taken
the lawyer’s advice and let him sell the house and send her
the proceeds. She settled back in the surprisingly comfortable
seat and shut her eyes. Time to catch up on lost sleep.
“I’m sorry but I think you’re in my seat.” Dixie blinked.
The reincarnation of Miss Marple half-smiled at her.
Dixie’s neighbor settled with a flurry of packages and a
gracious smile and chatted for the next hour. Or rather nattered
on while Dixie listened to details of Miss Marple’s
married son, his wife’s taste in kitchen decor and her grandsons’
success in football. Dixie knew enough to know she
meant soccer, however she did learn that Leatherhead was
one word.
“Here’s your stop, the same as mine,” her neighbor announced
and Dixie found herself and her suitcases on the
sidewalk.
“Someone picking you up?” her companion asked.
“I thought I could get a taxi.” Truth was, she hadn’t
thought beyond the bus ride and had no idea how far she still
had to go. “I’m going to Bringham.”
“Bring’em,” she said and Dixie made a mental note to remember
to swallow the ‘h’ like everyone else. She held out a
wrinkled but surprisingly strong hand. “I’m Ida Collins. My
son will give you a lift. He lives near Bringham. Stanley,”
she said to the man who’d appeared on the sidewalk with a
young boy. “This young lady needs a ride to Bringham. No
sense in her wasting money on a taxi.”
Stanley took this in his stride. Maybe his mother foisted
strangers on him all the time. “If it’s not too much trouble....”
Dixie began. She figured she’d be safe. Rogues and abductors
wouldn’t have a small boy trailing behind them.
Stanley grinned. “Nah. We live in East Horsley, it’s on the
way.”
“I’ve got luggage.”
“We’ve plenty of space. I brought the Rolls. Mum likes
it.”
Stanley, with his blue jeans and zippered windbreaker
didn’t quite fit the Rolls-Royce image, but the coach hadn’t
matched her imagination either. “Thanks, I’m really grateful.
My name’s Dixie LePage.” She held out her hand.
He took it. “How do you do? Stanley Collins. You’ve met
my mum, Ida, and here’s Joey.”
Dixie smiled at a small boy, complete with freckles, Dallas
Cowboys’ sweatshirt, and a Chicago Bulls’ cap. “Hello,” he
said through a wad of chewing gum.
Settled on the butter-soft leather upholstery, Dixie appreciated
why Ida liked the Rolls. “Beautiful car,” Dixie said,
eying the rosewood dashboard and the soft carpet.
She’d said the right thing. Stanley beamed. “Best one we
have. We keep it for weddings mostly—and picking up
Mum,” he added with a chuckle.
Dixie’s jet-lagged mind clicked. “You rent it out?”
“Right you are! Collins Car Hire. That’s me. If you ever
need a car...”
“I do. Like now. You have regular cars?” She leaned over
the high seat back, wide awake at the prospect of transportation.
Stanley grinned. “What’s a regular car? I’ve a nice little
Metro on the lot and a Fiesta due back in Saturday.”
“I’ll take whatever you have today.” Dixie would have
handed over her plastic money there and then.
Stanley chuckled. “You Americans make up your minds
quickly.”
“I made up my mind hours ago. The airport rental companies couldn’t deliver.”
Stanley grinned. “Cheers then! Let me drop Mum and I’ll
take you down to the shop.”
The Metro turned out to be a small, red car—stick shift,
but Dixie could handle that.
Stanley called Joey over to look at her license. South
Carolina driver’s licenses were an obvious novelty here. For
her address, she gave the one Mr. Caughleigh had written,
Orchard House, Bringham. “That’s all I have. No street or
number I’m afraid.”
Stanley’s eyebrows almost disappeared under his hair.
“You’re living at Orchard House? You bought it or renting or
something?”
“I’ve inherited it. It was my great-aunts’.”
“Sheesh!” Stanley muttered between tight lips, his eyes
not quite meeting hers. “You’re an Underwood?” He made
Underwoods sound like roaches.
“My grandmother was. She died just before Faith Underwood.”
Stanley Collins sucked in his cheeks and looked Dixie up
and down like a secondhand car of doubtful provenance. “I
heard there was another sister who ran off with an American
during the war.”
Gran would laugh at that one. She and Charlie Reilly
were married in the Grosvenor Chapel with his commanding
officer’s blessing, even if Gran’s sisters had boycotted the
ceremony. “That was my Gran.”
Stanley rubbed at an invisible mark on the car hood.
“Mentioned this to Mum, did you?”
“It never came up. Did she know my aunts?”
Stanley shrugged and looked away, intent on aligning the
windshield wiper blades. “Everyone knew them. Interesting
old ladies but you’d know that.”
Dixie shook her head. “Never met them. And Gran never
came back here after she married either.”
He looked straight at her for twenty long seconds. “Good
luck to you then. Now how long would you be wanting the
car?”
They agreed on two weeks, or what Stanley called a fortnight
and Dixie drove off with directions to Bringham scribbled
on the back of an old envelope. She wondered about
Stanley’s words as she maneuvered the narrow lanes, remembering,
most of the time, to stay on the left. A black sports car
passed with about two inches to spare. Dixie gasped. Had
renting a car been such a good idea with drivers like that on
narrow roads?
Stanley’s directions got her to Bringham in fifteen minutes.
It took longer than that to find a parking place. The
packed High Street stretched for fifty yards, a snarled mass
of cars, pedestrians and baby carriages. At one point, it was
blocked by a baker’s van. Dixie looked around as she waited,
fascinated by the narrow street and the old buildings. A wool
shop and its neighboring florist had bow windows and paneled
doors that hinted of hooped petticoats and reticules. On
the opposite side of the street, a modern grocery store sat
next to a Tudor tea shop. Definitely a street to explore on
foot.
She parked in an impossibly narrow space in a crowded
“car park” hidden behind the grocery store. Actually getting
out of the car involved gymnastic feats, and she eased herself
sideways between her car and the large BMW beside
her.
Mr. Caughleigh’s address was Mayburn House, 29 High
Street. That shouldn’t be too hard to find. A narrow alley led
from the car park to High Street, and a sign on the fence
asked, “Have you paid and displayed?”
“Paid and displayed what?” Dixie muttered to herself, a
vaguely obscene image coming to mind.
“You’re American,” a cheery voice announced.
| 
