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mouth went dry as sand. Her breasts felt heavy and tight. Her palms were itchy. “Are you putting a spell on me?” she whispered and then looked quickly over her shoulder for a possible witch or sorcerer, as if Javier might very well be capable of such a thing. When she returned her fevered gaze to his, she held her breath. “My body feels very strange when I am around you.” The words sounded matter-of-fact when she had formed them in her mind, but they sounded terribly forward and inappropriate when they left the safety of her mouth.
    Her right hand flew up to cover her mouth, then her other flew up to cover her eyes. Since her hands were once again free to assume a useful purpose, concealing her abject embarrassment was as good a job as any.
    She heard his movements as he rose and walked away from her. When she had regained enough courage to show her face, she took her hands slowly away. Javier had mounted his horse and was in the process of resituating the two slender lengths of rope in neat circles on either side of his saddle. He patted them with something akin to affection, then turned to see Isabella had been watching him.
    They stared at one another like that until, from the east, they heard the laughter of the other two men and the accompanying noises of their horses.
    Before the other two were upon them, Javier gestured toward Isabella’s dress. “You might want to… straighten yourself.” He glanced away quickly before she had the chance to look down and see that her corset was guilty of an utter dereliction of duty.
    She whipped quickly around to face one of the omnipresent pine trees and tried to stuff her ample chest back into its confines as best she could. Why was she so flushed and sensitive and swollen everywhere? She stomped her foot to get ahold of herself, yanked the corset up with a final, ruthless tug, then tied the string at her neck with a solid double knot that would not come undone without a concentrated effort.
    The reappearance of the other two men changed the tenor of whatever had transpired or had been about to transpire in their absence. Isabella asked, as tactfully as such a thing could be asked, if she might have a moment or two of privacy to do her ablutions. All three men reined in their horses with comic speed and turned out of the small clearing. They had her mare on a lead trotting happily after the other horses.
    Javier called over his shoulder, “We will be a five-minute walk straight west.”
    Isabella smiled at their awkward male aversion to anything to do with the rudimentary functions of the female anatomy. The nuns had told her in fierce tones that men were never to be included in any discussion of that nature, especially anything to do with her monthly blood or the pains that accompanied it. All of those experiences were excellent opportunities to practice restraint and do penance, for which she had been thoroughly trained. Her discomfort was an opportunity to remain amiable and reliable, regardless of her body’s limitations. And that is how the nuns had trained her to regard the human body. Limiting. Something that had to be tolerated until an eternity of heavenly rest came at last.
    A husband wanted a beautiful, charming, delightful wife, the nuns had explained to Isabella on the day she departed the convent. All Isabella could think during the entire two-hour recitation of their womanly wisdom was, How would you know?! None of them had ever been a wife. Not physically, at least. All of them were married to Jesus just as legitimately as Isabella would have been married to that complacent de la Mina heir, but Isabella—despite her successful efforts to limit her physical… pleasure… to middle-of-the-night, solitary, sinless dreams—suspected a real husband of the flesh might have some additional… demands.
    When she was feeling particularly optimistic, Isabella even imagined a husband who might want to share that intimate knowledge of her body, just as she would