"Fright?" He laughed and set a hand over his heart. "You wound me, my charmer."

He was standing very close, quite close enough for Freyja to realize that the top of her head reached barely to his chin. But she always had been short. She was accustomed to ruling her world from below the level of much of the action.

"I am neither your sweetheart nor your charmer," she told him. "I shall count to three. One."

"For what purpose?" He set his hands on either side of her waist.

"Two."

He lowered his head and kissed her. Right on the lips, his own parted slightly so that there was a shocking sensation of warm, moist intimacy.

Freyja inhaled sharply, drew back one arm, and punched him hard in the nose.

"Ouch!" he said, fingering his nose gingerly and flexing his mouth. He drew his hand away and Freyja had the satisfaction of seeing that she had drawn blood. "Did no one ever teach you that any ordinary lady would slap a man's cheek under such scandalous circumstances, not punch him in the nose?"

"I am no ordinary lady," she told him sternly.

He grinned again and dabbed at his nose with the back of one hand. "You are adorable when you are angry," he said.

"Get out."

"But I cannot do that, you see," he said. "That grandfatherly soul and his pugilistic henchman will be lying in wait for me, and I will be doomed to a leg shackle as surely as I am standing here."

"I do not want to hear any of the sordid details," she said, the significance of his dishabille suddenly borne in upon her. "And why should I care if they are lying in wait?"

"Because, sweetheart," he said, "they would see me coming from your room and draw their own slightly scandalous conclusions, and your reputation would be in tatters."

"It will doubtless survive the shock," she said.

"Have pity on me, O fair one," he said, grinning again-did he take nothing seriously, this man? "I fell for an old trick.