He hoped to Christ it was the heir but what if it wasn't but that reward? She was sore enough at him. Whatever it was, he caught her arm as she brushed past him.

Immediately, he wished he hadn't. He was doing this to help himself. Not her, right? Yet the feel of her arm through the soft gray dress was a cool, silky echo of what he remembered. Something started up in him. Something ridiculously like longing. Something that made no sense when the conceiving of the Beaumont heir ...