"Which brings me to my final point," she said. "I've allowed you to make business decisions for this company on my behalf quite long enough. It's time I take my official place on the board. I want my proxy back from you." She lifted her chin, well primed to embark on this final crusade. "It's time I took on a bigger stake in the running of this business. I believe I do own a large percent of this company."

He threw out his hands and turned. "Thank you for reminding me."

She padded irately into the dressing room, following him. "I have just as much right to be part of the decision-making process as you or Johnny. More so because my father was the original founder of this company."

"Really?" He balanced himself against the wall as he thrust his foot into the bootjack "And all these years I thought it had been a joint venture between your father and mine." He shoved the second boot into the jack. His shirt outlined his shoulders. "How long will you remain in London acquainting yourself with this part of the company?"

She glared at him as he sat and removed his socks. "Long enough for you to approve my levee project with my name as the lead engineer. A week? Two weeks? How long do you want me here?"

His eyes narrowed. Rachel knew Ryan hadn't made it to the top of his form because he was soft. She knew the incredible speed with which he could mobilize forces and have her removed from her position in the company. Period. He knew how to dismantle corporations. In the last eight years he'd done it a hundred times to his competition or to those affiliates that did not make a profit. He would do it with her if he learned how involved on the engineering side of the business she secretly was. Or how much financial trouble the division in Dublin had fallen into this past year.

"Are you trying to complicate my life on purpose?" His voice sharpened with the accusation. "You're twenty-nine years old, with pangs of mortality knocking at your back door, so you've decided to return to my doorstep and remind me what a complete-"

"Don't you dare insult me, Ryan Donally."

"Let me tell you a little secret that I'm sure you don't remember since you chose not to be around at the time." He threw his shirt on the floor. "But I've already seen twenty-nine. Two years ago, in fact, and, trust me, you'll survive this crisis." He had the gall to laugh at her, but his eyes remained sober. "Just like you always do."

She did not want to dive into his mind any more than she'd already tried to do since her arrival in London. "You are a man who has done and always will do and say as you please. You should have been born a king. At the very least, your Napoleonic qualities make you an excellent dictator worthy of a medal."

"Thank you, Rache." He bowed at the waist. "I believe that I'll take that as a compliment coming from your beautiful lips."

"Get out!" she demanded.

Ryan's eyes swept downward to where the robe molded itself against the curves of her bosom, his ire quickly surmounted by amusement. "And where, madam, do you intend that I should go?"

Rachel lowered her arm. And opened her jaw, ready to crawl into the floorboards.

Except shock had frozen her. Her stunned gaze traveled past his abdomen, up the width of chest and tanned column of his throat. Reason fled to the back of her brain. Her gaze reached the bow of his mouth and higher, to his eyes. The shock was abrupt. They stared at each other beneath the white heat of anger, their gazes locked, his eyes so dark they were nearly black behind the thick fringe of his lashes.

Then he moved and she was suddenly pinned to the wall, his hands on either side of her head as he looked down into her face. And Rachel felt a jolt of arousal, a shock of crystal-perfect awareness of him so pervasive she could not breathe.

"Now what do we do?" His expression slipped behind the impervious mask of the carefree sinner Rachel knew so well and hated.

"I haven't spent the last few years working as hard as I have simply to hide any longer because you find a woman on the board inconvenient." Her words came out breathless and heated. "I'm sure I will be seeing you again soon enough, Ryan."

"Tell me"-he leaned his nose toward her hair-"are you sure that's safe? All alone in the same room with you smelling like something I want to eat?"

"Oh!" Her awareness of him, of his words slammed against the hedonistic desire to scrape her palms over his chest. "You are a bully, Ryan Donally." She dipped beneath his arm. "And you aren't getting rid of me that easily. It's time that you learned to share."

Ryan remained with his palms pressed against the wall and listened to the hurried rustle of her robe. The door slammed. Knocking his forehead against the wall three times, he swore as he attempted to rein in one muscle in particular.

Only Rachel was capable of frustrating him to the point of violence. Ryan folded his arms and, turning, leaned his back against the wall. Only Rachel could make the scent of apples and cinnamon synonymous with sin. Only Rachel could arouse his temper to the point of desertion.

Ryan realized the monstrous incongruity of his sudden surge of lust and anger-which at the moment felt the same-after years of emotional self-control. The least he could have been able to accomplish with his monumental will and determination was last more than twenty-four hours before he wanted to shove his tongue into Rachel's mouth.

"Would you like a brandy, sir?" Boswell calmly inquired from the doorway.

He peered at his trusted, nearsighted valet and frowned. "See that Miss Bailey doesn't get a notion to walk back to London, until after she's dressed."

But the order was no more than an effort at self-preservation. He would send her back naked if it meant getting her out from beneath his roof tonight.

Chapter 4.

"A re you sure Mr. Donally knows I spent the night?" Rachel asked, as Boswell set a coffee tray on the table the next morning when she arrived downstairs for breakfast.

"Yes, mum. He was informed when he returned home."

"He is here?"

"He returned just before dawn, mum." There was a cheerfulness in his voice that disconcerted her. "He was quite put off by it all, mum."

She was sure that her overnight presence in this household violated every tenet of moral etiquette, but it wasn't as if she and Ryan were lovers, though she had seen him naked once a long time ago. And he'd seen her in a worse state of dishabille than the heavy robe she'd worn in his room last night. She'd never been an outwardly prissy type anyway. She'd rarely worn a real dress until she was well into her middle teen years.

"He doesn't like me very much, Boswell."

"Quite the opposite, Miss Bailey," he reassured her. "I've never seen him so angry."

Rachel flushed, and said, "And this is a positive sign?"

"Mr. Donally doesn't get angry, mum."

Rachel laughed. Of course he got angry. He'd always been hot-tempered around her. Shrugging aside Boswell's logic, Rachel stirred cream in her coffee and brought the cup to her lips. Mary Elizabeth was on her morning constitutional with Miss Peabody. They would be back in an hour. Rachel had watched her briefly from her window that morning.

Taking a deep breath, she inhaled more than coffee aroma and looked at the fresh spray of flowers adorning each end of the polished table and three console tables between the glass doors that looked outside. A massive sideboard sat against the wall. "Why doesn't Mr. Donally just stay at his house in London?" Rachel asked.

"He usually does when he remains in the city for more than a few nights, mum. But for now he has more privacy here for himself and his daughter."

Rachel idly flipped through the newspaper Boswell had brought her. A courier had delivered it from the train station earlier. Beyond the window, the early-morning sky was a crisp, bright blue. At home, she was always up before dawn. She had already been awake for three hours.

Last week, she had kissed Memaw good-bye and made her way to London on the Holyhead ferry. She had not stepped foot in England in four years. This morning, Boswell had found her a pair of boy's trousers, shirt, and boots. She saddled one of Ryan's fancy thoroughbreds and rode to the chapel where Kathleen was buried.

Now she was eating in Ryan's fine dining room on beautiful china; yet, the glittering morning held nothing that spoke of home or familiar things. She could not sit there forever thinking useless thoughts, staring at the sky beyond the windows, and wondering where Ryan had gone last night. Her clothes had taken too long to dry. The last train to London had departed the station at seven, so she'd been left with no choice but to spend the night. She wasn't a complete stranger there. She had visited Kathleen three times after she'd been married and Ryan had been away. Boswell had put her into the blue room where she'd stayed before.

"The newspapers aren't always kind toward Mr. Donally," Rachel said, folding the broadsheet and shoving it away.

"No, mum."

Not that he deserved kindness, she thought, having read the financials on a daily basis for years. Ryan raided companies for profit. He would take them over, break them up, and sell off their weaker assets. His contacts extended across the Atlantic as well as the Continent. The London Times had once accused D&B's charismatic chairman of taking his corporate genius and pillaging the less fortunate for profit. The British Globe called him a vulture. Vanity Fair labeled him one of the most eligible men in Great Britain.

But to her he was still just an arrogant Irish nincompoop.

Finally, she finished breakfast. Ryan was still asleep. Annoyed that he could sleep so late when her entire future remained uncertain, she paced in her room before again leaving the chambers. She explored the house, opening doors and looking inside the rooms. At the end of the corridor she found a glass studio. Three pairs of French windows opened from the studio to the terrace. A summer breeze filled the room. Fencing gear lined the wall in braces and brackets. She stepped into the room. David had taught her to fence years ago, and she practiced regularly. But nothing she had in her possession compared to the splendors she found in this room.

Rachel lifted a shiny foil from its brace on the wall. Felt the steel in her hand and tested its weight. She stood in momentary riposte, foil extended. She feinted and lunged at imaginary targets, slashing the air with each step backward and forward. Sunlight glinted off the thin edge of steel, and she flicked at the protective knob at the end. There were other ways to slay the dragon that was Ryan Donally, she decided, as an idea popped into her head.

Smiling to herself, Rachel grabbed a second foil, walked out of the room, down the long corridor, and stopped in front of Ryan's door. Holding her ear to the solid wood, she listened for noise. He didn't sound awake. No one was moving inside.

Rachel knocked. When she heard no response, she carefully opened the door. Sheer draperies billowed gently, and Rachel could see the lake behind his house. Honeysuckle filtered through the other essence Rachel breathed, leaving no doubt in her mind the masculine inhabitant of these chambers. She moved farther into the room.

A kneeling bronze Venus sat on one of the console tables that flanked each side of the four-poster tester bed. Ryan lay on his stomach, his head resting on one arm pillowed beneath his cheek. His back was bare to the waist where the sheet had twisted around his hips. His shoulders were wide. His muscles were defined in corded delineations that crossed his upper arms and back, unmarked, save for the scar slashed across one defined biceps-a wound he'd received when he was younger, in a fight against the local village thugs who made some comment about the Irish.

Even in sleep, Ryan's body emanated strength, a contrast to his peaceful repose. His lashes looked like smudges against the flesh. His jaw and cheeks were dark with the beginning of a beard. The last time she had seen Ryan in any state of undress, he had been swimming with his brothers in the pond behind his house. He had been fifteen. Gazing at him now, she felt a rush of heat in her face. But she was in no mood to drink him into her senses or her memory when he was the complete cause of her misery.

"If you look any harder, Rache, I don't think you'll like what you find." His eyes were open, and he was looking at her from beneath the careless toss of his bangs. Not that she blamed him for his anger. She had no business in his private chambers.

He pushed himself up on one elbow, his dark hair disheveled and in his eyes. As if he noticed her attire for the first time, one brow shot up his forehead. His gaze dropped to her mouth. "Have you been drinking?" he demanded.

"Truly, Ryan." With only one look into those coffee-colored eyes, he made her feel like a blushing virgin, a love-struck ninny, and lush all rolled into one. When she was neither a ninny or a virgin. "I've seen you undressed before."

"That was a hell of a long time ago. And I was bloody swimming in ice water."

"What difference does that make?"

His amused gaze slid over her face and down her boy's shirt. "If I told you, you would only slap me."

"Then tell me, won't you?"

He flopped on his back and scraped a palm over his jaw. He was laughing, she realized, gaping at him. He opened one eye as if it hurt to look at her. She'd shocked him. She'd never shocked him before, and she watched him, the two fencing foils in her hand lowered to her side. The sheet barely covered his lap, drawing her eyes downward to his hard belly. He was so beautiful, unquestionably male-more potently sexual than she was used to dealing with in those men who surrounded her in her day-to-day life. More than she remembered in him. The smattering of hair on his chest tapered to a dark line down his abdomen to disappear beneath the covers that covered the lean span of his hips. No part of him was lacking.

He was looking at her hard when she finally raised her gaze. Narrowing his eyes, he seemed to penetrate the very fabric of her soul to scorch her heart, the sensation stunning her because it was not something she could control, and it heightened the sense of danger he aroused in her, reminding her of her own survival.

They had no future, not in the sense she'd thought she'd wanted when she arrived in London. Ryan didn' t love her. She suspected he could be every bit as ruthless with her when it came to his personal and professional life as gossip implied.

Yet, strangely Rachel understood Ryan's drive to marry above his station, had always understood him since they'd been children. The Irish were not welcome into a society that held to such staunch elite segregation of cultures and faith. Ryan had battled the establishment his entire life.

In return for Ryan's wealth, Lady Gwyneth would give his daughter something that he, with all of his riches, could not, she thought with the crystal-clear knowledge that she could never offer Ryan what he so single-mindedly sought.

A true place in society.

No one would ever shun Mary Elizabeth or scorn her because she was the wrong religion or a descendant of Celtic primitives. She would be welcomed to society and someone's home, never suffering the perfidy society inflicts on those who live beyond the confines set by the elite. Everything that Ryan worked for in his life was within his grasp.

Indeed, she and Ryan had both set about conquering the world to the exclusion of all else. Today's fight only lent more importance to her own quest, especially now. For when she left London this time, D&B would be all that she had left.

"Have you invaded my chambers to end your misery, Rache? Or mine?" he finally asked, a warning surely aimed at the look he'd glimpsed in her eyes. "I should warn you, the blade is blunted."

She waggled the end of one foil in front of his nose. It was an effort not to smack him. "If I win, you send my report through the committee for funding, and my name goes on it as chief engineer."

"Is that right?"

"Are you afraid you might lose?"

"Hardly," he scoffed, awake and fully aware of her presence. He raised his brows. "Can't this wait?"

"This is important to me, Ryan.""Sleep is important to me.""It's already well into the day. The sun has been up for over three hours.""Jaysus." He flung off the sheets.Rachel retreated an alarmed step, expecting him to appear naked beneath. He wasn't. Not completely.

He wore loose-fitting silken pajamas that clung to his hips. Padding past her across the chamber, he walked into the dressing room. "When this is over, promise me you'll leave London and go back to Ireland, Rachel."

"When I win you'll accept me as an equal in this company."

She could hear the splash of water, drawers opening and slamming shut. She set her hand on the back of

a high-backed chair where his shirt lay discarded from last night. The masculine trace of his familiarcologne tugged at her senses-as well as something subtly more invasive. Expensive French perfume."I can't wait for this." Ryan returned to the doorway wearing black pants tucked into tall boots and finishing the last of the buttons on his shirt. "You must have faith in your instructor."

"I have all the faith on my side. He's a priest, Ryan," she said, tossing him a foil, which he snatched easily out of the air. She would personally skewer him. "Bare feet and in the grass. First strike wins."

"Why bare feet?" Ryan asked when he and Rachel suited up in their protective leather vests and mesh

helms.

Rachel stood in ankle-deep grass, her foil poised, her wild hair restrained at the back of her neck with a thong. Miss Pride and Prudent had always thrived beneath the unfortunate notion that she could do anything better than he could.

"Because it makes us even," she said behind the mask. "You're taller than I am.""I'm still taller." Raising his foil, he stepped backward into his stance."Yes, but I learned to fence barefoot in the grass, the first time David stepped on my toes." She bent in the en guarde position, and he could see the flash of her white teeth behind the mesh. "My advantage on the grass in exchange for your height."

"Not bad, Rache."

They faced each other.

Eyes dazzling in the morning light, she smiled. "I hope you have your nib and standish ready."

Rachel lunged two steps, and he barely parried her attack. Behind the mask, his eyes narrowed. This time when his gaze held hers, there was something else in his eyes. It was a rare occurrence when Ryan underestimated anyone.

"On your guard, Ryan."

The click-click of foils marked the beginning of the contest, and Ryan countered her advance. He hadn't

considered that she might actually know how to fence. Her timing was impeccable and her steps close to the ground. Her body moved like a dancer's, all grace wearing pants. The leather vest stretched across her breasts, drawing too much of his attention. They went around the garden once. He parried her riposte and stepped aside as she slashed her blade up against his, whirled like a ballerina, and landed with the foil extended, ready to impale him through the heart.

They were both breathing hard.