Diana Palmer - Noelle

“How dare you!” Impulsively, her fingers closed over the big paperweight on the desk as she glared at him. “Don’t you make fun of me!”

The movement of her hand hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Or you’ll do what?” he challenged, smiling at her. His eyes danced with unholy glee. “Throw that at me? Go ahead,” he said, and the glitter in his eyes made him look like a different man.

She hesitated. There was something there, something that warned her not to underestimate him.

“What’s the matter?” he persisted. “No guts?”

She drew in her breath. “I’m not afraid of you.”

He took a step closer, and she moved the chair back a little farther.

He laughed with pure pleasure and halted his advance, leaning heavily on the cane. “You intrigue me, Miss Brown,” he murmured. “I can’t say that I’ve ever met anyone quite like you.”

“I can’t believe that,” she returned, relaxing a little now that she’d put some distance between them. “New York City must be full of women.”

“Certainly,” he said agreeably. “Elegant, sophisticated women with beautiful clothes and excellent manners and sparkling conversation.”

“Everything that I am not,” she said quietly, echoing his own earlier words.

“You lack the advantages of wealth,” he corrected. His practiced eye ran over her assessingly. “But you have potential. In fact, you have a grace of carriage already. You simply don’t have social graces. That isn’t your fault.”

“How comforting to know it,” she said, stung by the knowledge that he thought her lacking. She was already unsettled because she couldn’t accept Andrew’s invitation to the dance.

“You misunderstand me. You’re young enough to learn,” he said.

“And who’s going to teach me?” she asked belligerently.

“Andrew?” he suggested dryly.

She flushed. “I couldn’t possibly ask Andrew; it would be too humiliating to admit to him that I’m a social moron, even if he already knows it.”

He cocked his head and his narrow blue eyes stared at her. “Andrew’s opinion means a great deal to you, doesn’t it, Miss Brown?”

“Well, yes. It was he who brought me here and gave me a home,” she replied.

“That’s the only reason?” he probed.

“He’s everything a man should be,” she said finally, twisting a piece of paper in her hands. “I’m sorry if you don’t approve of my admiration for him. I know that my background is nothing special.”

He glared at her. “Your background is nothing to me,” he said shortly. “Your character is all that concerns me.”

“You don’t think I have character,” she accused. “You think I’m after Andrew because he has money, don’t you?”

He chuckled softly. “At first, yes—I did think you might be an opportunist. But you improve on closer acquaintance. I don’t think you have a larcenous bone in your body. You aren’t the type.”

She eyed him with open curiosity. “You’d know the type, wouldn’t you?”

His eyes became intent. “What do you mean?”

“You’re a lawyer,” she replied simply. “You must have defended many men who were guilty of their crimes.”

“Not knowingly,” he pointed out. “I have too much respect for the law to dirty my hands helping felons to break it. Although there are plenty of people who consider themselves qualified to be judge and jury,” he added.

“You’re talking about the lynchings, aren’t you? There are a lot of them these days.” She put the twisted paper in her hands on the desk and pushed it away. “It’s a shame that many accused people don’t have a chance at a trial.”

“That will change one day,” he replied.

“I hope so.” She searched his blue eyes curiously. “Why did you decide to come home after so long in New York?” she asked bluntly. “Was it because you thought I was trying to cheat Andrew out of his inheritance?”

Her plainspoken nature amused him. He smiled indulgently and perched himself on the corner of the desk, looking down at her from far too close. “Yes, I think it was,” he replied, with equal forthrightness. “But I was tired of practicing pocketbook law, too. The last case if handled was a property dispute. My client was in the wrong, but I didn’t find it out until the verdict was handed down and there was some”—he paused—“unpleasantness.”

“Someone tried to beat you up?” she asked, wide-eyed.

He almost told her. Surprisingly, he wanted to. But he shrugged. “Something like that,” he said, and passed it off.

“You don’t like being wrong, do you?” she asked him.

He laughed, annoyed. “I rarely am.”

“How conceited,” she shot back, but she smiled.

“I know the law.” He corrected her faulty impression. “I’ve been in practice for ten years.”

“That’s what Andrew said.”

He wondered what else his stepbrother had told her about him. Nothing good, he was certain. Andrew didn’t like him, and the younger man was apparently taken with Noelle. He wouldn’t like an older rival.

“Andrew and I are very different,” he pointed out.

“Yes, I know. He’s much younger than you, isn’t he?”

His jaw tautened. “Not that much younger,” he said irritably.

“It’s very odd, you know,” she said thoughtfully, studying him, “that you look so much older than he does. Shouldn’t it be the opposite? I mean, he was in the war and you’ve spent years sitting in a courtroom. One would think that a soldier, a man who dealt in death, would look older than a well-dressed lawyer who never had to face more than an occasional verbal threat.”

His eyes dropped to her long-fingered, elegant hands folded on the desk. She had no idea what his life had been like. She was right, but she didn’t know the truth. He’d lived more in his lifetime than Andrew ever would.

“I haven’t offended you, have I?” she asked worriedly. “I sometimes speak without thinking.”

His eyes shot back up to catch hers. He smiled slowly. “You’re not afraid of me. I’m glad. I don’t pull my punches, and I won’t expect you to. Our association should prove to be an interesting one, with a basis of such honesty.” He eased off the edge of the desk and got to his feet. He leaned heavily on the cane, wincing.

“It’s an old injury, isn’t it?” she asked, standing up, and continued before he could reply. “You must have had a hard time getting around in a big city like New York. It’s less crowded here.”

She’d gone to open the door for him, and he gave her a glare that disconcerted her with its cold fury.

He reached over, grasped the door’s edge, and slammed it. The noise made her jump. His expression was even more threatening than the loud noise.

“I don’t need doors opened for me, a rocking chair to rest in, warm milk to help me sleep, or solicitous exaggerations from a woman who sees me as a cripple!”

She gaped at him. “I thought no such thing about you! I would have opened the door for anyone who—who…” She flushed.

“Anyone who was crippled, isn’t that what you meant to say? Spit it out, then.”

“All right,” she said furiously. “I’d open a door for anyone who was crippled. There! Does it make you happy to have embarrassed me so? Would you rather I pretended that there’s nothing wrong with you, when I can plainly see that it hurts you just to stand up?”

He drew in a sharp, angry breath. He leaned ever more heavily on the cane, aware of her slenderness and his superior height as he loomed over her. The injury was temporary. Wouldn’t she faint if he told her how he’d acquired it! His eyes gleamed as he debated with himself about doing exactly that.

“I’m sure that a bad leg doesn’t have anything at all to do with practicing law, and your grandmother says there isn’t anyone at all who’s better at it than you are,” she continued, unabashed. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, but I like doing things for you.”