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eyes were rife with intimate promises. A more fainted-hearted woman would surely swoon from his beauty, but all she could do was let her mouth fall open, fishlike.
    "Mistress Margery," he said, in a voice low and smooth as honey.
    He leaned forward, and she leaned away, wide- eyed.
    "I was thinking about your gift room. I hope you will never have cause to relegate my gifts to such a place. They are given in homage to your beauty."
    Her two suitors crossed their arms over their chests and glared. At the same moment, they said, "Mistress Margery—"
    She held up her hand, never taking her gaze from Gareth, who raised her other hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. A shock of astonishment surged through her. What was he doing? Had he planned all along to court her, and be paid as a bodyguard at the same time?
    Her disappointment grew until she could no longer look into his face. Had she trusted the wrong man?
    Margery pulled her hand away, struggling to remember every rumor she'd ever heard. Her brother James had once tried to tell her about Gareth's disgrace and his flight from the country. She hadn't believed James, but now she wished she'd paid more attention.
    She looked into Gareth's golden eyes. They were narrowed, and seemed to be studying her intently. Was he looking for weaknesses?
    He would find none. He was just one more man in a long parade of suitors she could never marry.
    Grief threatened to overwhelm her at the futility of her life. But in these last trying months, she had learned to be strong—or at least to pretend she was. She called on that strength now and met his intensity with a smile.
    "How sweet of you to promise gifts, Sir Gareth. But it is most certainly not the way to my heart. You would only be one of many."
    The twins glanced away, their smiles bolder. Her two suitors looked baffled, uneasy.
    Gareth said, "I promise you, mistress, that you shall not put aside my gifts. They will be humble, yet from my heart."
    For the first time since childhood, Margery experienced the blinding power of his smile. But she saw it now for what it was: an imitation of an emotion he could not begin to grasp.
    When the jugglers were finished, she had Gareth shown to a bedchamber. A few moments later she said her own good-nights and went to her room, but Gareth's behavior would not leave her mind. She waited for a brief time, pacing before the hearth, then peeked down the corridor. There were no servants in sight.
    She tiptoed past Anne's and Cicely's closed doors until she reached the chamber she had assigned Gareth. She put her ear against the wood,
    heard no sounds, then burst in and leaned back to close the door.
    Gareth already had his sword drawn. When he saw her, he slammed it back into the scabbard. "Margeiy, never do something so foolish again. You will need protection for the rest of your life if you continue to make such thoughtless mistakes." He threw his saddle bag on the bed and leaned over to open it.
    "So now it is protection again?" She strode toward him, hands on her hips. "Make up your mind. After all, if you're my suitor, I shall need protection from you!"
    He straightened, and she took a step backward. He seemed suddenly as tall and wild as the Viking ancestors he resembled. And she'd come in here alone?
    "Protection from me?" he said. "You have already hired me as your guard. Did you think—"
    He broke off and studied her for an uncomfortable moment, while she began to think she'd miscalculated.
    "I was worried my acting would not be skilled enough." He looked down her body. "I've never had to make an effort to court a woman before."
    Acting? A blush of mortification swept from her chest to her forehead. When he'd kissed her fingers, when he'd spoken of her beauty, he'd been acting?
    "You asked me to come up with something to hide my true purpose here," Gareth said calmly. "I'm going to pretend to be another of your suitors. What better way can I be near you, keeping you from any