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astonishment.
    "Don't you dare bother to deny it." She waded past him with as much dignity as she could muster in the now knee-deep water. "I know a flirtation, possibly even a seduction, when I see it."
    Jared's mouth dropped open. "Seduction. How can you possibly believe I would try to seduce you while traveling in a horseless carriage?"
    "That's what makes it so devious." She splashed the final steps out of the pond. "It's completely unexpected."
    "Women." He practically spit the word. "Women make no sense at all. And I'm beginning to suspect mat's especially true for impulsive, improper American women."
    "What on earth is that supposed to mean?" She smacked her hands on her hips and glared furiously. "You're trying to tell me I'm ... I'm ... I'm stupid because I'm American?"
    Confusion shone in his eyes. "I did not say stupid. Did you hear me say stupid?"
    "You didn't have to say it." She waved away his objections with an angry gesture. "It was implied."
    "I didn't imply stupid. I didn't even mean stupid." He paused for a moment. "Foolish perhaps, but not stupid."
    "Foolish?" Irrational, unreasonable fury swelled within her. How dare he insult her intelligence? Her gender? Her country? "Very well, Mr. Grayson, but let me tell you one thing. I'd much rather be a foolish American than a stuffy Englishman."
    "Stuffy?" Bewilderment settled on his features as if she spoke a language he did not understand, and satisfaction surged through her. "Who said anything about stuffy?"
    "I did." She cast him a haughty glance. "Stuffy and snobbish and straitlaced."
    His eyes flashed. "I scarcely think you can accuse me of being straitlaced when you've just finished charging me with attempted seduction. It seems not being able to make up your mind is the very definition of foolish."
    Cece gasped with fury. "Be that as it may: but I'm not foolish enough to stay here one moment longer and be insulted by an arrogant Englishman." She turned and marched up the hill.
    "Arrogant?" he called after her. "At least the English have something to be arrogant about."
    Quentin reached him and followed Jared's irritated gaze glaring at Cece's stalk up the hill. "I thought you liked Americans."
    "Quentin," he said grimly, "as much as they may protest it, the behavior of women has nothing to do with nationality. This creature is a female first and an American second. American men are sane, rational, inventive and energetic." He raised a brow at his now grinning friend. "But women, all women, are either the most insipid, boring beings on the face of the planet or," he gazed in Cece's direction, "they are lunatics."
    Quentin laughed and turned his attention to the leaning vehicle, tossing a comment over his shoulder. "I thought the short one was quite lovely, charming and relatively sane."
    Cece met Emily halfway up the hill. The infuriating woman walked with the grace of a princess. Here was a female with no lack of confidence. A woman who could, no doubt, hold her own in many, if not most, situations. A woman who could easily rule an empire. Jared narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "Who is she?"
    "I believe her name is Emily." Quentin's voice came from behind the vehicle.
    "Not herm" Jared said impatiently. "The other one, Cece."
    "She's the daughter of an old friend of my aunt's." Quentin bent to check the carriage wheels, his words muffled, his manner vague. "Father's some kind of butcher, I believe."
    Jared's mood darkened. Quentin's words brought back his own financial status and his urgent need to marry an heiress. Working with the automobile always distracted his attention from his problems and responsibilities. His heart always lightened here.
    Dismally, he noted a vague disappointment at Quentin's words. It would have been interesting had Cece been an heiress. No, not interesting—irresistible. Still, the very idea of marrying Cece for her money twisted something inside him. A bare hour in her presence and he knew she deserved to be more than the mere