Tempting the Heiress by Barbara Pierce

all I intend to say about the matter.”
    “And the Italian?”
    With her chin tilted up, she said, “Not your concern.” Amara opened the door. It took only several brisk strides to reach her and slam the door shut with the palm of his hand.
    “I am not running anymore. It is time you dealt with it.” His statement sounded like a threat. Perhaps it was.
    She leaned against the door. Her regal bearing, the
dignity with which she tilted her chin, gave him the impression she was looking down on him even though he was taller by more than eight inches.
    “Your pugnacity may appeal to some, but I am not as malleable as I once was. Your threat does not frighten me.”
    He was damned to live in perpetual discomfort if her uppishness alone made him hard. Since he longed to haul her back into his arms and kiss her senseless, Brock locked his hands behind his back.
    “I am not your enemy, little dove.”
    Agitated by his informality, she retorted, “Nor my friend!”
    “No, I am more .”

CHAPTER SIX
    The evening air chilled Amara as she and her cousin sat in the coach awaiting Lady Keyworth. Her father had departed the Dodds’ ball hours earlier, preferring the risk of hazard to the silken intrigue of the ballroom. Her interest in the evening’s revelry had ceased after she had left Brock, his parting words still ringing in her ears.
    “No, I am more .”
    She sagged back into the seat with a heavy sigh. The man had inherited a noteworthy theatrical flair. It was bred in the Bedegraynes, like their good looks and intellect. Brock Bedegrayne had taken his natural gifts and honed them into a lethal combination of danger and charisma. While she spent the remaining hours of the night worrying that he might attempt a public confrontation which would alert her mother of his interest, a part of her kept reliving those minutes in his embrace. Amara bit her lower lip in contemplation. Whatever her feelings, the most dominant was not a maidenly terror.
    The coach door opened, and a footman assisted her mother as she stepped into the compartment. She settled
into the empty bench across from them. The footman shut the door and called out to the coachman.
    “Cease chewing your lip, Amara. I thought we cured you of that nervous habit when you were ten.”
    “Yes, Mama.” One brazen kiss, she lamented silently, and all her girlish eccentricities had reappeared. Next, she would be chewing on the fingertips of her kid gloves!
    “Hold fast!” the coachman called out and the ladies dutifully braced themselves. The horses bounded forward, their harnesses jangling like music in the night. The sudden motion jostled the occupants within the compartment. Lady Keyworth placed a hand up to her turban, keeping it from sliding off. Appearances were everything, even if no one was watching.
    “Piper,” her mother said, “I expect you will write your mother and father about this event. Your beauty and graciousness have served you well.”
    Even in the dim lamp-lit interior her cousin’s face glowed at the praise. “Everyone was so kind. It seemed there was an eternal fountainhead of partners. Why, my slippers are surely ruined.”
    “A worthy reason for a shopping jaunt. Amara will show you which shops we favor with our patronage. As I vowed to your dear father, you will have the proper polish when you leave us.”
    Much of the enthusiasm on her cousin’s face withered. Either her mother’s not-so-subtle reminder that Piper had arrived on their doorstep too countrified for the ton had induced the sudden mood, or it was her suggestion that the two ladies spend another afternoon together. Any commiserating that might have developed vanished at the venomous stare Piper delivered in Amara’s direction. Perhaps it was rather unkind of her, but she returned the glare
in spades. They would never be confidantes. What veil of civility they possessed had been wholly rended with her mother’s callous words. It was a loss she did not regret. She