The noble knight who had set out to rescue her sister from an arranged marriage all those years ago was at heart a gallant gentleman. Indeed, in her sixteen-year-old eyes he had been worthy of sitting at the Round Table itself. Surely he would not make blatantly unchivalrous advances to a lady.

Would he?

She must have misunderstood him. Perhaps he was teasing her.

"Remind me to give you a bit of ribbon or some such frippery as a gift for your efforts tonight, my lord," Phoebe said. She could not tell if she sounded suitably sophisticated or not. She was nearly twenty-five years old, but that did not mean she had had a great deal of experience with ill-mannered gentlemen. As the youngest daughter of the Earl of Clar-ington, Phoebe had always been well protected. Too much so at times, as far as she was concerned.

"I do not think a bit of ribbon will be sufficient payment," Gabriel mused.

Phoebe lost her patience. "Well, it is all you are likely to get, so do stop provoking me, my lord." She was relieved at the sight of a lamp-lit window ahead. "That must be Mr. Nash's cottage."

She studied the small, ramshackle house revealed in the moonlight. Even at night it was possible to see that the cottage needed attention. There was a general air of neglect about the place. A broken gate barred the overgrown garden path. The glow from within the house revealed a small, fractured window-pane. The roof needed patching.

"Nash does not appear to be doing particularly well in the manuscript trade." Gabriel drew his stallion to a halt and swung lithely to the ground.

"I do not believe he sells a great number of manuscripts. I got the impression from his letters that he has a large library but that he is loath to part with any items from it." Phoebe halted her mare. "He is selling The Knight and the Sorcerer to me only because he is in dire need of funds to purchase a volume he considers more important than a frivolous medieval romance."