wardrobe while you still slept and then jumped out on you as soon as I surmised the coast to be clear.'
'Three.'
He looked at her, raised his eyebrows, waggled them, and turned with studied nonchalance toward the truckle bed.
Freyja screamed.
'Jesu, woman,' he said, one hand coming up as if to be clapped over her mouth.
But it must have been clear to him that that would have been akin to shutting the stable door after the proverbial horse had bolted. Freyja had considerable lung capacity. She screamed long and loud without once having to stop to draw breath.
The stranger grabbed up his coat and boots, dashed to the window, threw up the sash, poked his head out, tossed down his garments, and then disappeared.
The drop to the ground must be at least thirty feet, Freyja estimated, feeling a moment's remorse. His mashed remains were probably splashed over the cobbled yard below by now.
The door burst open to reveal a veritable mob of persons in various states of dress and undress, the innkeeper bringing up the rear, the gray-haired gentleman and the unshaven, leering thug with him.
'He burst in upon you after all, did he, my lady?' the gray-haired man asked above a hubbub of voices demanding to know what was the matter and who had been murdered in his bed.
But she despised the man-both on her own account and on that of the stranger whom he had tried to trap by using a woman-if the story was to be believed, that was. It was altogether likely that the stranger had made off with all the man's valuables.
'A mouse!' Freyja cried, gasping and clasping her throat. 'A mouse ran across my bed.'
There was a great to-do as a few ladies screamed and looked about them for chairs to stand on and a few men dashed into the room and went on a spirited mouse-hunt, under the bed, behind the washstand, behind the wardrobe, under the truckle bed, among Freyja's bags.
Freyja meanwhile was forced into maintaining a part quite unfamiliar to her. She shuddered and looked helpless.
'I daresay you dreamed it, ma'am-my lady, I mean,' the innkeeper said at last. 'We don't often have no mice in the house. The cats keep 'em out. If there was one, he's gone now, right enough.'
Alice had arrived in the midst of the commotion, all wild-eyed terror, probably imagining what she would say to the Duke of Bewcastle-or, more to the point, what he would say to her-if her mistress's throat had been slashed from ear to ear while she was sleeping elsewhere than the room where she was supposed to be.
'Your maid will stay with you, my lady,' the landlord said as the other guests drifted away, some indignant at having been so rudely awakened, others clearly disappointed at not having witnessed a mouse caught and executed for its transgression in having run across a bed with a human in it.
'Yes. Thank you.' Freyja thought she sounded suitably pathetic.
'I'll sleep on the truckle bed, my lady,' Alice announced bravely after everyone else had left and the door was closed. 'I am not very afraid of mice, not as long as they stay on the floor. You wake me if it bothers you again and I'll chase it away.' She was obviously terrified.
'You will go back to your bed, wherever it was,' Freyja told her. 'I would like to sleep for what remains of the night.'
'But, my lady-' Alice began.
'Do you think I am afraid of a mouse?' Freyja demanded scornfully.
Her maid looked understandably mystified.
'Well, I didn't think you were,' she said.
'Go.' Freyja pointed to the door. 'And may this be the last interruption any of us suffers for the rest of this night.'
As soon as she was alone, she hurried to the window, put her head out, and peered downward, fearful of what she would see. He was a rogue and a villain and deserved whatever was coming to him. But surely not death. No, she would feel sorry, even a little guilty, if that had been his fate.
There was no sign of either the stranger or his boots or his coat.
It was then that she noticed the ivy growing thick on the walls.
Well, that was a relief anyway, she thought, closing the window and turning back into the room. Perhaps now she could expect a few hours of peaceful sleep.
But she stopped suddenly before she reached the bed and looked down at herself.
That whole scene-or series of scenes-had been enacted while she was clad in nothing but her nightgown, her feet bare and her hair loose and in a voluminous bush of tangled waves down her back.
Gracious heavens!
And then she smiled.
And then chuckled.
And then sat on the edge of the bed and laughed aloud.
The utter absurdity of it all!
She could not remember when she had enjoyed herself more.
CHAPTER II
Joshua Moore, Marquess of Hallmere, was on his way
