Free So Enchanting by Connie Brockway Page A

formidable. It hadn’t worked that way. If anything, the additional years only made him seem more dangerous. Certainly more virile.
     
    Even at their first meeting, he’d exuded more rough masculinity than any man she’d ever seen, and now that quality was magnified. He looked hungry. He looked predatory. In short, he looked more now that which he was in fact: dangerous. In spite of the humor.

    “Sometimes I tweak a few noses.” Amelie’s admission caught Fanny’s attention.

    “Of course she does,” Hayden interjected gruffly. “How could she resist taking to task those ignorant enough to think she’s a . . . a witch? I can barely say it, it’s so preposterous.”

    “Thank you.” Amelie’s shining eyes lifted Hayden atop a very tall pedestal. “As Fanny always says, ‘There’s no sense arguing with popular opinion, so one might as well have a bit of fun with it.’ ”

    Please be quiet, Amelie , Fanny silently begged.

    “Does she?” Lord Sheffield murmured.

    “Oh, Fan doesn’t encourage me, of course,” Amelie said loyally. “I can behave quite naughtily without outside inspiration.”

    Hayden laughed as if Amelie had just made the wittiest remark imaginable. Amelie blushed, dimpled, lowered her eyes, glanced up through her lashes at the chuckling lordling, and blushed even deeper.
     
    Oh, dear, thought Fanny. She should have realized what would happen the moment she’d laid eyes on Lord Hayden’s strapping young figure, but she’d been too caught up in her own concerns to pay the girl and boy much heed. Would happen? Had happened. Amelie—dear, cloistered, inexperienced, and superlatively vulnerable Amelie—had taken one look at the golden youth and succumbed to a prodigious case of calf’s love.

    And Lord Hayden? His chest was puffed up and his eyes equaled Amelie’s for brilliance. He had to be, what? Twenty? Twenty-one? Old enough to have known his share of debutantes, shopgirls, lascivious ladies, and manipulating mamas. Someone—Fanny darted an accusing glare at Sheffield—should have taught him by now that it wasn’t nice to flirt with susceptible young girls.
     
    But then, Fanny thought unhappily, he was just a young man, and young men did so love to be heroes. For him, Amelie probably represented the quintessential princess in a tower (or in this case, a town) guarded by a dragon (or in this case, 217 resident dragons) and thus needed rescuing. By a hero. Him.

    “Lord Sheffield, what did you mean when you said you were here to look after my continued health?” Amelie tore her gaze away from Lord Hayden long enough to ask.
     
    Grey Sheffield smiled pleasantly. In response, Fanny’s nerves quivered a warning.

    “Your guardian, who, despite the inexplicable posturing of this pup, is Lord Collier, not his son here,” he said, “has received an anonymous letter asking for immediate assistance, as someone was trying to—well, why be shy?—kill you.”

    Fanny’s concern about Sheffield’s recognizing her vanished with his words. “What letter? Do you have it with you? Let me see it,” she demanded, sticking out her hand as Amelie gasped.

    “I don’t have the letter with me,” he replied, regarding her closely. Let him. “I have already spoken to the postmaster and he claims he does not recall it and that people often post their own mail and toss it in the mail-bag without his knowing. It simply said, ‘Come quick. Someone is trying to kill our witch.’ ”

    Fanny frowned, more troubled than frightened.

    “But,” Amelie said, “why would anyone want to kill me?”

    “Exactly,” Sheffield declared approvingly. “Behold, Hayden. A young lady who cuts to the chase. How rare.” He sat down on the railed partition dividing the bank’s single room, swinging his leg casually. “So, what do you suppose this is all about then?”

    “I haven’t any idea,” Amelie replied. Her eyes widened. “Do you suppose I am in danger? Have you come to take me out