by Cindy Nord
She starched her spine, straightening. “Lord Henry Smyth Green is the Earl of Lochnor. He is every inch a gentleman, Mister...”
“Reed,” he growled, pulling his hat brim lower. His eyes narrowed. “Dillon Reed.”
She lowered her hankie, and the fluttering pulse in the hollow of her throat caught his attention. “Well…Mister Reed, my father insists it’s safe, and others support his assessment. In fact, Lord Green, my fiancé, awaits my arrival. I’ve little to say in this matter, but if I did, I certainly would not have chosen the likes of you to act as my shield of protection westward.” She tilted her parasol to block the sun’s glare and scanned the crowd before reconnecting her gaze with his. “Regardless, if my family believes I am safe shackled with…you, then I shall sally forth in my adventure.”
Dillon glared across the top of her hat, straight through the green and blue strands of ribbons that fluttered in the afternoon breeze. Good God, the obnoxious chit views our two-thousand-mile trek as nothing more than an inconsequential hitch in her otherwise lark of a life.
“And in the future, Mister Reed…”
His glare collided with hers.
“You will do well to remember it is not your place to tell me where I can--or where I cannot go.” Her clipped words dripped with censure. “Your task is simply to get me there.”
The muscle beneath his eye twitched. The desire to tell this arrogant, bustled-up sugartit exactly where she could go chaffed at him like a tick on a horse’s ass. But, he stifled the urge. After all, she was right: He wasn’t a gentleman.
Gentlemen didn’t kill people.
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