Petunia lashed out with both hands. It was a hard blow but a clumsy one. Blade was an expert at several kinds of unarmed combat and normally it would have troubled him no more than a mosquito bite. But he was off balance and surprised. He sprawled backwards onto the sofa. Petunia snatched up her blouse and vest with one hand and her purse with the other and dashed for the door. As Blade struggled to his feet she vanished out into the hall, still bare to the waist. The door slammed behind her with a crash that made the glasses on the bar rattle and the cocktail forks jump off the coffee table onto the rug.

Blade swore. Not a placid man at the best of times, he was now filled with anger and frustration. He was tempted to launch a kick at the coffee table, but just in time he remembered that it was solid teak, four inches thick, with a marble top. The last time he had kicked it, he had spent the next week with three toes on his right foot in splints and bandages.

The memory cleared his head and made him laugh just as loudly as he had cursed. Poor Petunia. Poor, sensitive Petunia! He had had no way of knowing that she would fly into such a rage at the mention of her real name. Particularly in the middle of another sort of passion. But perhaps he should have guessed it and kept his mouth shut about the results of his little bit of research.

Yes, he should have. He had been a spy, in fact, and it was very much in his blood to go on being one whenever the chance arose. But like the American CIA, he had played spy in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Fortunately, he knew Petunia's address. He could and would send her a note of apology and perhaps some flowers and a bottle of her favorite sherry. That might get things back on the track again. But if not-well, the world was full of more women who would be good company than Blade would ever have a chance to meet if he lived to be a thousand years old.