Read Falling for Alexander (Corkscrew Bay #2) for Free Online Page B

some ungodly age to the second Earl of Ashley, a miserable guy by all accounts and what we’d consider nowadays a veritable psychopath.”
    “ An ancestor of yours?”
    She rolled her eyes. “ She was barely twenty when her husband locked her and their five-year-old son in the North Tower and set it on fire.”
    That got his attention. “ Why would he do that?”
    “ Well, there’s the psychopath thing,” she said. “And he was a mean drunk. But according to the story, he got it into his head that his wife was a witch and the boy the devil’s spawn.”
    “ They were burnt alive?”
    Kate shook her head. “ Margaret strapped her son to her back and managed to escape, using the ivy vines to climb down. The villagers hid them while her family was summoned down from Oxfordshire to take charge of the situation. Not too long after, a second mysterious fire razed the north tower to the ground and claimed the bastard’s life. Margaret’s son became the third Earl of Ashley. Not surprisingly, the north tower was never rebuilt.”
    Alexander chuckled.
    The echo of that rich tenor rumbled down her spine to toast her toes. The cost of amusing him. The moment the antagonism between them lowered, she started appreciating how utterly gorgeous the man was.
    She pressed her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes. “ Moving swiftly on to 1783.”
    “ There’s more?” he said with what might or might not have been a mock groan.
    She could go on all day… all year if required. Stories handed down from one generation to the next. Stories that wove threads through Castle Darrock and Corkscrew Bay, back and forth, give and take, marrying the two in a seamless history. Stories like the one where the seventh Earl and his lady created the ghostly legend of The Purple Lady with phosphorous smoke to distract excise officers on the nights when a new shipment of contraband sailed in on the opposite side of the bay.
    Sto ries to warm the cockles of a man’s heart or, in the case of Alexander Gerardo, maybe just defrost the edges.
    After the first half-hour, his attempts to derail her toward more recent history, her own with regards to her aunt in particular, floundered. Duri ng the course of the next hour, his flippant remarks dried up and she got a few more of those rumbling chuckles out of him. At this rate, they might even get their Easter egg hunt.
    Her conservative optimism didn ’t last ten minutes past stepping out of the car. They’d stopped at a tourist strip along the coast, one of the many seaside resorts that boasted a string of restaurants, ice-cream parlours, curio kiosks and not much else.
    Kate climbed the wooden slats to the promenade one step ahead of him, her fing ers trailing the banister, her gaze on the stunning panoramic horizon where pale blue sky met the darker blue-green of the ocean. Long, warm fingers brushed hers, there and gone in a flash. Her breath hitched and didn’t release until the lingering tingle faded.
    An accident?
    No apology was forthcoming. She moved that hand from the banister to the strap of her backpack that was currently doubling as her purse, but the damage was done. She was suddenly, acutely aware of the man behind her.
    Had he fallen back a step? Was his gaze on the view or on her backside? Oh, God, she could feel his eyes exactly there, a caress almost as tangible as that fleeting brush of skin. Heat flushed her throat and the tingling sensation returned, spreading down her spine. Didn’t matter that he saw nothing tempting, that she was a challenge he had no trouble resisting.
    She picked up her pace, bounding onto the promenade and into a stiff march.
    “Kate…” he called. “Wait.”
    “ What!” She stopped dead, took a second to breathe, then spun about.
    That second had given him the time to catch up. He was right there, catching her at the shoulders just before she spun straight into his chest.
    “Whoa…”
    Her head jerked up.
    His gaze hit hers, his face