Satan's Contract. SUSANNE MCCARTHY

surprise.

      She hadn’t known that Gramps had had any relatives—certainly none who had bothered to visit him while he was alive. Maybe it was inevitable that now he was dead anyone who thought they might have the least claim on a share of his fortune would come crawling out of the woodwork. But at least he could have had the decency to let the poor old man rest in peace for a few days!

      He was still regarding her with that mocking gaze, taking an arrogant appraisal of her slender figure in the torn silk shirt and slim-fitting jodhpurs. She returned him a look of icy contempt, but that only seemed to tickle his sense of humour.

      ‘Well, I guess you must be little Pippa,’ he drawled in that lazy voice; she had assumed at the first that the accent was American, but she guessed now that it could be Canadian. But how did he know who she was?

      ‘That’s right,’ she confirmed, sharply suspicious. ‘But I don’t recall that we were ever introduced.’

      ‘Nor do I—I’m quite sure it’s an experience I wouldn’t have forgotten in a hurry. But you’re an absolute ringer for your grandmother.’

      It was evident from his tone that he intended no compliment, but Pippa accepted it as if it was, smiling with all the old lady’s high-nosed condescension. ‘Thank you.’ She had managed to refasten most of her buttons, which made her feel a little better. ‘Might I ask who you are?’

      ‘Don’t you know?’

      ‘Obviously I don’t,’ she retorted with a snap. ‘Or I wouldn’t be asking.’

      He laughed. ‘Quite a little hornet, aren’t you?’ he remarked with casual interest. ‘Hasn’t anyone ever tried to draw your sting?’

      ‘Several people,’ she retorted tartly. ‘But no one’s ever succeeded.’

      ‘Yet.’

      That single word was both a threat and a promise, and she had to turn away quickly, her heartbeat oddly disrupted by the mocking look he had given her. To hide the deep tinge of pink that had coloured her cheeks she bent to examine Fury’s hocks. How dared he speak to her like that, look at her like that? She had never met anyone so downright arrogant in all her life!

      ‘Your horse appears to have escaped injury—no thanks to you,’ he commented drily. ‘How about you? No bumps or bruises?’

      She flashed him an icy blue glare. ‘None at all, thank you.’

      His sardonic smile never wavered. ‘I’m glad to hear it. If you’re proposing to remount, I’d better give you a hand.’

      Pippa hesitated, caught in an uncomfortable dilemma. She would have dearly liked to disdain his offer, but with nothing convenient to use as a mounting-block she wouldn’t be able to get up on to Fury’s back by herself, and the only alternative was to walk back to the stables. And after all, he would only be touching the sole of her boot, she reflected with acid humour; there seemed to be something quite appropriate in that!

      ‘Thank you,’ she conceded, at her most haughty.

      The provocative glint in his eyes taunted her as he bent and cupped his hands. For a moment she found herself gazing down at those wide, powerful shoulders, that crisp sun-bleached hair, and her mouth felt strangely dry. No one quite like this had ever come into her orbit before. And he was all man...

      With an impatient shake of her head she dismissed the uncharacteristic reaction—there was no way she was going to let this...this cowboy think he could have any effect on her. But she had to put her hand on his shoulder to steady herself as he tossed her up into the saddle, and the sensation of powerful male muscle moving beneath her fingers made her feel suddenly hot all over.

      ‘Nice horse,’ he approved, running his hand down over Fury’s sleek neck. ‘Isn’t he a bit powerful for you?’

      ‘Not at all,’ she retorted. ‘I can manage him perfectly well. And he jumps beautifully—he’s descended from one of the finest hunters in the county.’

      ‘A hunter, eh?’ His expression of distaste made his opinion patently clear. ‘I guess I might have expected that you’d enjoy a barbaric pastime like that— “The unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable”.’

      It was on the tip of her tongue to retort hotly that he was mistaken; she loathed hunting—it had been one of the first and longest-running quarrels she had had with her parents when she had told them exactly what she thought of them for indulging in such a cruel ‘sport’. But obstinately she wanted no point of agreement with this irritating man, so she merely shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t give a damn for your opinion.’

      He chuckled with cynical laughter. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to,’ he countered. ‘After all, you’re a Corbett, aren’t you? I don’t suppose you give a damn for anyone’s opinion.’

      She returned him a look of frosty disdain. ‘What would you know about my family?’ she enquired haughtily.

      ‘Oh, rather a lot,’ he responded with a strange, enigmatic smile. ‘You’d be surprised.’

      ‘Would I?’ She had deliberately infused a measure of indifference into her voice; if he wasn’t going to volunteer any information about his identity, she was quite sure she wasn’t going to gratify him by appearing curious.

      ‘Tell me,’ he went on in a conversational tone, ‘is your dislike of me personal, or do you just despise anyone who didn’t go to the right school or have the right accent?’

      She slanted him a cool glance from beneath her lashes; evidently he was so arrogant that he assumed her lack of interest was due to snobbery. ‘Why should that concern you?’ she returned, seeing a chance to score a point.

      His eyes glinted in sardonic amusement. ‘Oh, I just wouldn’t like to think I was losing my touch.’

      ‘I’m sure that would be a very novel experience for you,’ she countered, her voice laced with sarcasm. ‘I dare say every other woman you meet falls at your feet on sight.’

      ‘Oh, not always on sight,’ he drawled. ‘But I can usually get ’em where I want ’em within a little while.’ He was holding Fury’s bridle, preventing her from escaping, and the dark glint in his hazel-brown eyes was having a very peculiar effect on the beat of her heart. ‘I wonder how long it’d take with you?’

      ‘I...I shouldn’t waste your time, if I were you,’ she forced out, struggling to keep her voice steady. ‘You’re really not my type.’

      He smiled slowly. ‘You know, a good-looking chick like you ought to know better than to issue a man with a challenge like that,’ he remarked. ‘It could turn out to be well-nigh irresistible.’

      Her agitation was sending Fury skittering around, and she was having trouble controlling him. ‘Don’t call me a chick,’ she snapped hotly. ‘And let go of my bridle.’

      ‘It seems to me that’s just what you need—a hand on your bridle,’ he commented provocatively.

      ‘Well, it won’t be yours!’

      ‘We’ll see.’ But to her relief he let her go, the flicker of cynical amusement in his eyes infuriating her, so that she snatched a little at the reins as she turned Fury away, making him jib. Swiftly controlling her rising temper, she eased her grip, and urged the horse into a smart trot, sitting very straight in the saddle, her chin tilted up at a haughty angle.

      ‘See you later, then,’ he called after her.

      ‘Not if I see you first,’ she was betrayed into retorting.

      He shouted with laughter. ‘Hornet! But I would have thought you could have come up with something a little more original than that.’

      Ignoring the provocation, she rode on.

      It was some minutes later before she had calmed down sufficiently to remember that he hadn’t actually told