Free Taking the High Road by Morris Fenris

so neatly and compactly.
    The door was, remarkably, unlocked. While this seemed to be a safe neighborhood, why take chances? More fool she, trusting not to be bothered—or even assailed—by some combative passerby.
    “Miss Powell? Miss Cecelia Powell?”
    “One minute, I’ll be right there.” True to her word, very shortly she appeared in the outer hallway, frowning slightly against the brilliant sunshine behind him. “Mr. Townsend? Welcome, sir. Please, do join me in my office, and we can discuss—Oh…” As Noah moved forward, to be identified, she backtracked just a little. “I do sincerely beg your pardon for the mistake. I’ve been waiting to meet with the father of one of my students, and I—But…wait…I know you, don’t I?”
    All in the space of a few seconds, her voice had gone from confident to apologetic to uncertain.
    A state of affairs Noah deeply appreciated. And could capitalize upon.
    “You don’t know me, exactly. We nearly bumped into each other late one afternoon at Gabe Finnegan’s old office, in Boston.”
    “Yes, of course, I remember now. But then—you—you’re…”
    “I’m your half-brother, Noah Harper. And I’m here to retrieve the gold mine shares you stole from me and my mother.”
    She had gone deathly pale, and he could see the sudden lift of her breast in the floaty muslin thing she was wearing. Another affront to the senses. Cheap, too; just what he would expect. The garment was more suited for her boudoir, not racketing about in public.
    “Our father—”
    “ My father, little Miss Gutless Wonder. Not our father. Mine . My father. And everything he had was left to me.”
    Cecelia was retreating to a room at her back. What she called her office, apparently. As if that would save her! Instantly, Noah followed and shoved his way inside before she could close the door and lock it against him.
    “There, now, isn’t this pleasant?” he said silkily, pulling out a white painted chair, uninvited, to plop down upon its seat.
    “Please—leave,” she managed, trembling. Yet ready to stand and confront him, to fight for what she wanted. Brassy; he’d give her that much. Probably just like her mother, the old soiled dove herself. “You have no—no right to be here. This academy belongs to me!”
    He leaned back, perfectly at ease and in command of the situation. “Sit down, Cecelia. I may call you Cecelia, may I not, since we are related? Under the blanket, so to speak.”
    Pale as she was, a splash of rose hue painted her cheekbones. With that, and the splendid piercing blue of her eyes, Noah was beginning to feel slightly as if he had been shoved beneath some giant microscope, for examination.
    “I want you to go. I want you out of my building; I want you out of my town. Go back to Boston.”
    “Oh, now, sister dear, there’s no need to be nasty about this.” He would know about nastiness; his smile was full of it.
    “Mr. Townsend will be here any minute,” she pointed out. “I’ve been expecting to meet with him for a conference about his daughter. You won’t want to be sitting in my office when he arrives.”
    Unperturbed, Noah cast a slow glance about. “Been waiting long, have you? I’d say you’ve been stood up for today. We’re all alone here, so we can settle this like the gentleman I am and the—lady—you are not.”
    Cecelia gasped. “Get out, you miserable worm!”
    “Oh, it’s name-calling we are, now?” Furiously, he surged out of his chair, lunging across the desk to grab her left arm in a killer clinch. “Understand this, you floozy who’s the daughter of a floozy, I want those shares. I want control of the Catherine handed back over to me. Immediately. That mine should have come to me, along with everything else. You will return any interest you have, or I will by God have you run out of town on a rail with your reputation in tatters!”
    Too proud to jerk free, she halfway dangled from his grip to glare at him. “I shall not!