The Wyoming Heir. Naomi Rawlings

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Plans have changed. Samantha is accompanying me. You can meet her there.”

      Sam sprang from her seat. “Luke, you can’t—”

      “Perhaps you’re concerned about a chaperone?” Wells interjected. “My sister is awaiting us in the carriage. She’s a spinster and a perfectly acceptable chaperone.”

      “Miss Wells, Luke.” Sam held her chin at a determined angle, but she blinked against the tears in her eyes. “The mathematics teacher you met at the academy yesterday.”

      So Miss Wells and the dandy were related after all. And that also made her the daughter of the local assemblyman. No one had bothered to tell him that, either.

      What was the daughter of a politician doing teaching mathematics like some spinster?

      Not that it mattered. Nope. Certainly not. Whatever Miss Wells chose to do or not do, whoever she happened to be related to or not related to, was no concern of his.

      Luke rubbed his hand over his forehead and glanced back at his sister, only to find more tears glistening in her eyes. Confound it. Why did she cry at everything he did? Made him feel like an ogre—which he most definitely was not.

      Or so he hoped. Maybe he had some questions for Sam, and needed to have a long chat with her suitor, but now was hardly the time to go into all that. Clearly Sam and Wells had arranged to attend the banquet, and it hardly seemed fair to stop them just because he’d arrived in town and hadn’t known about their plans.

      But he still didn’t cotton to the idea of Sam going off without him. “How about this. Sam and I will go to the banquet together. Sam, if your friend and the mathematics teacher want to tag along, so be it.”

      Sam bit her bottom lip and sent him an uncertain glance. “Does that mean you’re going to change clothes?”