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silver. They don’t mock the shabbiness of your bodice or whisper that your bonnet has been out of fashion for three seasons. Perhaps we didn’t care to be scorned—or worse yet— pitied by a man who’s probably never earned an honest day’s wage in his life.”
    “Oh, I tried earnin’ an honest day’s wage once,” he replied, his face hard. “But it didn’t take much more than a day of strugglin’ to survive on the pennies they paid me to learn that I didn’t care for bein’ cold and hungry and barefoot. That I’d rather take what I wanted without the by-your-leave of some fat English overlord.”
    Although Pamela was loath to admit it, his defiant words stirred her blood, as did the ruthless glint in his eye. In that moment, there was something almost noble in his bearing.
    Her hand slid into her reticule. Before she could regain her sanity or lose her nerve, she drew out a pretty little pearl-plated pistol and leveled it at his chest, raking back the hammer with her thumb. “I hate to interrupt another stirring speech about Scots’ rights and the tyranny of the English, but I’m afraid it’s my by-your-leave you’ll be needing from this moment on.”

Chapter 3
    T he coachman squeaked in shock as the pistol appeared in Pamela’s hand. “Why, ye’ve all gone mad as March hares,” he cried, “the whole lot o’ you!” Before any of them could react, he sprang to his feet and went scrambling down the hillside, abandoning coach, musket, horses, and paying customers without so much as a backward glance.
    “If you weren’t pointin’ that pistol at my heart, lass, I might be tempted to agree with him,” Connor said, eyeing the woman holding him at gunpoint with newfound respect.
    With its dainty size and pearl plating, the pistol looked more like a feminine trinket than a weapon capable of blasting a hole through his chest and putting an end to his misspent life.
    “Pamela, what on earth are you doing?” hersister demanded, looking even more shocked than the coachman had. “Have you lost your wits?”
    “Hush, Sophie. I know exactly what I’m doing.”
    Connor nodded toward the weapon in her hand. A hand that was remarkably steady, he noted with reluctant admiration. “Then I suppose you also know a weapon that size only holds one shot.”
    She smiled sweetly at him. “At this range one shot is all I would need. So why don’t you be a gentleman and hand over your pistol?”
    He smiled back at her, just as sweetly. “If you want it, you’ll have to come get it.”
    Her smile faded. Eyeing him warily, she inched forward until she was just within reach of the muscular arms he’d folded over his chest. She crept closer, forced to look up at him through a tumbled skein of hair. Several sleek coils tinted a rich, warm mahogany had spilled down from their pins to frame her face.
    It was a perfectly ordinary face—as oval as a cameo with a straight, slender nose, a generous rose of a mouth and full cheeks. But those eyes…they sparkled like amber gemstones beneath the arched wings of her brows—glowing with intelligence, good humor…and a tantalizing hint of mischief.
    With those remarkable eyes still locked on his, she reached for the weapon tucked into his belt. As the back of her hand brushed the taut planes of his belly through the folds of his shirt, she wavered. He cocked one eyebrow, challenging her to continue. She was so close he could smell the intoxicating scent of lilac water wafting from her hair.
    “Careful, lass,” he murmured. “We wouldn’t want that thing to go off, now would we?”
    He felt the tensed muscles in his abdomen twitch with reaction as she closed her free hand around the heavy grip of his pistol and smoothly slid the long barrel out of his breeches.
    She slowly backed away from him. He studied her, intrigued by the meticulous care she took to keep the muzzle of his pistol pointed at the ground until she could get it tucked safely into the crimson sash of her