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thought, he might have hoped for a skirt and a glimpse of leg, but the tailored slacks certainly did justice to her firm thighs and nicely rounded ass.
    “That’s her, is it?”
    He glanced over and caught a very speculative look on his cousin’s face.
    “Don’t bother yourself, cousin.”
    Aidan grinned. “So that’s how it is. Excellent. I’ll have to introduce—”
    His words were interrupted as the doors at the opposite end of the ballroom opened and Cristobal appeared. There was no fanfare, it wasn’t the Harp way. It was curiosity that had every eye in the room swinging in that direction, not for the Ardrigh, but for the Earthers who accompanied him.
    “Well, now, there’s a beauty,” Aidan said appreciatively.
    He followed his cousin’s gaze to a small, dark woman, her petite figure shown to fine advantage by a deep coral dress that managed to hug her curves while still giving the appearance of modesty. She was lovely, but not to his taste. He preferred women who looked like they could walk the forest with him without screaming. Women like Amanda. Fuck!
    Forcing Amanda out of his head, he studied the officer next to the beauty. He was tall and lean, his uniform fitting as if it had been tailored specifically for him. Which it probably had. His name was Randolph Leveque and he was the scion of one of Earth’s wealthiest industrial families.
    Rhodry had been briefed, along with all of Cristobal’s guard, on Nakata and his officers. Everything they’d managed to gather so far anyway. Some of it had been gleaned from conversations with various members of the landing party, and much of it had been offered freely by the fleet’s Commander Wolfrum and his First Contact team. He’d learned enough already to know that the Earthers hadn’t come all the way out here looking for lost colonies. The rediscovery of Harp had been pure happenstance. The Earth fleet was after treasure—minerals and metals, anything they could send back to their home planet for a profit.
    “She appears to be taken,” he told his cousin, noting the way Leveque kept one hand low on the dark-haired woman’s back, clearly staking his claim.
    “Just means more of a challenge, lad.”
    Shaking his head in amusement, his focus narrowed as he scanned past the admiral and his party to fall on a familiar figure. Amanda was conversing animatedly with Leveque’s companion, as if they knew each other well. She should have looked mannish in her uniform, compared to the petite beauty and her elegant gown. Instead, she looked even more attractive to him. Graceful and strong, feminine, and irritatingly sexy.
    He scowled at his own thoughts. Lieutenant Amanda Sumner was trouble. He could feel it in his bones. She was too interested in the trees of Harp, for sure. Even more, she was trouble for him. His position on Harp was complicated enough, between those in the city who suspected him of dynastic ambitions, and his own clansmen who resented the fact that his de Mendoza grandfather had skipped an entire generation in order to name Rhodry as heir and clan chief.
    He didn’t need the complication of an affair with any Earther, much less this one, with her unexpected, and unheard of, connection to Harp’s forest.
    “So what’s she like?” Aidan asked.
    “I don’t know the woman, but she looks like Leveque’s, so watch your step.”
    Aidan laughed. “I meant the Earth lieutenant you can’t take your eyes off of.”
    He shrugged. “She doesn’t know what’s good for her. She wasn’t on the ground five minutes before she was off into the Green, lost in thought, without a care for what might be coming after her.”
    His cousin nudged his shoulder. “And you’ve taken a shine to her.”
    “Hardly,” he lied. “I’ll be glad when they’ve all gone back to their ships, and I can get back to the mountains where I belong.”
    “You think Cristobal will let you go?” he asked doubtfully.
    He turned to regard his cousin. “Why not? He