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motorbike—a reasonably powerful one, at that? Why shouldn’t she enjoy the same feeling of freedom that he himself could remember enjoying years ago when he’d still beena university student? And why shouldn’t she be able to speak her mind? Although, granted, this
did
afford him a slightly bigger problem.
    ‘I don’t think so,’ Lizzy said tartly, momentarily sidetracked by his sudden change of tone. She folded her arms and glared at him.
    ‘Fair enough.’ He shrugged, and in the shadowy darkness she was aware of a shiver of apprehension racing like cold water down her spine at the menacing glitter in his dark eyes. ‘You’ve just accused me of being a snob.’
    ‘Which you are! ‘
    ‘And I’m not sure that I appreciate that.’ His eyes drifted to that full, defiant mouth. Under the leather jacket, the jeans and the mid-calf hiking boots, he couldn’t make out her figure; it was no wonder that he had mistaken her for a boy. He wondered what she looked like out of the masculine garb, then he impatiently snapped back to the point at hand. He wasn’t here to win a popularity contest. He was here to size up Crossfeld House, to see how much money it would cost to bring it up to scratch, and to put any aspiring fortune-hunters in their place. Whether the girl in front of him considered him a snob because of that was entirely beside the point.
    Lizzy wanted to jeer at him, to make some disparaging remark about how men like him, born into wealth and privilege, weren’t entitled to ride roughshod over people they considered their social inferiors. But she was mesmerised by the stark, angular beauty of his face. It kept making her lose her train of thought, which she hated. Out of all the girls in her family, she had always prided herself on being the level-headed one, the one who was least likely to pander to a man.
    ‘That’s not my problem,’ she managed to tell him in a lofty voice.
    ‘No, I don’t suppose it is,’ Louis countered smoothly. ‘But,while we’re on the subject of prejudices, maybe you might want to stop and think about your own.’
    Lizzy’s mouth fell open. ‘Me, prejudiced? I’m the
least
prejudiced person on the face of the earth!’
    ‘You’ve just accused me of being a snob. Yet you don’t know me.’
    Bright colour flamed her cheeks and she scrambled for something to say. ‘You’re right. It’s bitter cold out here and I have to be getting home,’ she eventually muttered in a stiff voice. ‘You can find the local garage in the Yellow Pages and call them to get the car, or bring your stuff to the house or whatever. Do you have any idea how long you’ll be staying here?’
    A spark of hope ignited at the thought that his hideous experience at the hands of his broken-down car might spur him on to make a faster than anticipated return to city life; in which case, there would be no risk of her bumping into him again. But any such hope was squashed when he shot her a half-smile, leaving her in little doubt that he had read her mind and knew exactly what had been going through it.
    ‘No idea.’ He glanced over his shoulder to the brooding enormity of Crossfeld House. ‘Who knows how long it’ll take to go through every room in that place?’
    ‘But … but surely you’ll need to head back down to London? And Nicholas, isn’t he the surveyor who would have already checked out all that stuff?’
    ‘One can’t be too careful.’ He looked at her narrowly. ‘Why? Are you scared that you might accidentally run into me again? It’s a small place, as you’ve pointed out; steel yourself for the prospect. And, by the way, spread the news that I’m in town and I’ll be keeping a sharp eye out for the Sharp woman and her brood of grasping harpies.’ Louis had no idea what had propelled him to tack that on. He wasn’t a believer in being overtly threatening; there was usually far more to be gained by being subtle.
    ‘You can always tell them yourself when you see them at the