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next to her,
Tony saw that she wore no paint or powder. Probably didn’t own any.
If she did, she wouldn’t know how to use it. She was a nobody from
nowhere, in fact, and didn’t have a sophisticated bone in her
body.
    It seemed a lovely body, though. His senses
recognized its slender beauty even as his conscious mind attempted
to find fault with it.
    Her gown looked as if it were a million years
old.
    Tony’s finer nature told his critical one not
to be so damned snooty. Not everyone could be born with a silver
spoon in his or her mouth, as he had been. Poor Mari Pottersby had
been reared by a lunatic in dire circumstances. Tony should be
treating her courteously, not seeking ways to find fault with
her.
    Mari murmured, “Thank you.”
    As she walked, she lifted her skirt, and Tony
saw dust coating its hem. And those shoes. They were antiques if
he’d ever seen any and they, too, were so dusty, he couldn’t make
out what color they’d been to start with. He frowned. “Did you walk
all the way over here, Miss Pottersby?”
    Her color, which was deep to begin with,
deepened still until a rosy flush crept into her cheeks. Tony
watched, fascinated. He’d never, ever have dreamed that she could
be so attractive.
    “Yes, I did,” she said, her tight tone
implying she considered him a fool for asking. “How else was I
supposed to get here?”
    Martin, hurrying behind them, said, “I’m so
sorry, Miss Pottersby. I should have thought to send a car for
you.”
    Dammit, Tony wanted to be the one to have
said that. Too late now He said, “You ought to have told us this
morning that you had no transportation, Miss Pottersby. We didn’t
expect you to walk here.”
    She looked him straight in the eye. Her eyes,
Tony noticed with a sudden clenching in his chest region, were huge
and dark and sparkled like jewels. “I have transportation. It’s
only that I didn’t think the donkey would have been appropriate to
the occasion. I don’t generally expect folks to provide
transportation for me, you know. Besides,” she added with something
like a smirk, “one ass at a time is my limit.”
    Dammit, she was too fresh for this world.
“Meaning me, I suppose.”
    “You know yourself better than I.”
    Tony heard Martin snort as if he were
smothering a laugh, blast him. He decided to quit firing her wit
with fuel, dropped the ass question, and went back to the original
point, which she was either too stupid or too stubborn to perceive.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Miss Pottersby. We’re hoping to conduct
business with you. We’d have been happy to send a car.”
    Martin held a chair for her. At the same
time, he grimaced at Tony, signaling him to stop quarreling with
the mine owner. Tony knew he should. They needed her, and they’d
succeed more easily if she liked them. But something foreign seemed
to have taken possession of his common sense this evening, and he
couldn’t have stopped tiffing with Mari if he’d wanted to.
    As Mari sat in a huff and a fluff, she
barked, “Then you should have told me you could send a car sooner,
shouldn’t you? How am I supposed to know what you big-money,
picture-backing people do and don’t do? I’ve had to work for my
keep all my life. And I can’t read minds.”
    Tony heard Martin’s stifled moan of despair
even as he growled, “Most people who work for a living generally
have some common sense.” He managed a fairly decent sneer. “At
least that’s what I’ve always been told. I wouldn’t know from
experience, would I?”
    She was glaring in earnest now. “It doesn’t
look like it to me.”
    By the time Martin sat and began trying to
soothe ruffled feathers, Tony was so mad, he could have punched
something. Preferably Miss Marigold Pottersby, who was protected by
an act of nature, being female and therefore unpunchable.
    Tony felt cheated. And very, very
annoyed.
     
     
     
     

Chapter Three
     
    If Mari ever got the opportunity, she was
going to give Tony Ewing a