Rebellion & In From The Cold by Nora Roberts Page A

heard music, she shook her head.
    “Madam.” Smiling, he lifted her hand to his lips before she could recover. “You seem to be without a partner.”
    “I was….” Dumbly she stared at their joined hands. Light glittered on his signet ring and reminded her of time and place and differences. Serena snatched her hand away and clasped it with the other behind her back.
    “What are you doing here?”
    “I was fishing.” He turned and pointed to the pole he’d propped against a tree. Beyond it, his horse grazed lazily on the turf of the bank. “With Malcolm until a short time ago. He wanted to get back and look at Betsy.”
    She could already feel the color sting her cheeks as she thought how ridiculous she must have looked in her partnerless minuet. “He should have been about his lessons.”
    “I’m assured he did his duty by them this morning.” Because he couldn’t resist, Brigham stepped back to take a long, thorough study. “May I ask if you always dance alone in the wood—in breeches?”
    Her eyes kindled as she chose anger over embarrassment. “You had no right spying on me.”
    “You quite took me by surprise, I promise you.” He sat on a rock, crossed his ankles and smiled at her. “Here I was, contemplating how many more trout I might catch, when a rider comes barreling through the forest with enough noise to frighten every fish for miles.” He didn’t add that her wild approach had had him drawing his sword. Instead, he buffed his nails on his coat.
    “If I had known you would be here,” she said stiffly, “I would have ridden another way.”
    “No doubt. Then I would have missed the delightful sight of you in breeches.”
    With a sound of disgust, she whirled toward her horse.
    “Such a fast retreat, Serena. One might think you were … afraid.”
    She spun toward him again, eyes flashing, and planted her feet. “I’m not afraid of you.”
    Magnificent. There was no other way to describe her as she stood, her body braced as though she held a sword in her hand, her eyes molten, her hair tumbling like firelight down her back. She had ridden through the forest with a speed too great for safety and with a skill few men could have matched. However much she aggravated him, Brigham could not deny her courage or her style.
    Neither could he deny that the way she looked in breeches made him uncomfortable. However ill-fitting, they showed the enticing length of slim legs and the slender curve of waist and hip. With the homespun shirt tucked and cinched, he could see the gentle sweep of breasts that even now rose and fell in agitation.
    “Perhaps you should be afraid,” he murmured, as much to himself as to her. “As I find myself plagued with all manner of dishonorable intentions.”
    Her stomach quivered at that, but she held her ground. “You don’t worry me, Lord Ashburn. I’ve dispatched better men than you.”
    “So I imagine.” He rose and saw what he had wanted to see—the quick, and just as quickly controlled, flash of unease in her eyes. “However, you have yet to deal with me, Serena. I doubt you’ll manage to box my ears.”
    She would have backed up a step if pride hadn’t rooted her where she stood. “I’ll do worse if you touch me again.”
    “Will you?” Why was it that the more the woman spit at him, the more he wanted her? “I’ve already apologized for what happened in the stables.”
    “The stables?” She lifted a brow, determined not to give an inch. “I fear whatever that might have been, my lord, was so unimportant as to be already forgotten.”
    “Cat,” he said mildly, though not without admiration. “If you continue to sharpen your claws on me, you’re bound to break them.”
    “I’ll risk it.”
    “Then let me refresh your memory.” He stepped closer. “You were as hot as I, as pleasured as I. It wasn’t a swooning girl I held in my arms but a woman, ripe for loving, damned anxious for it.”
    “How dare you?” The words came out in a