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dropped him as a babe.”
    Her adorable vehemence made Susannah laugh, which made Frannie blush.
    Then Damien cut into their conversation. “Speaking of meat pies…might you bring us a few?”
    “ I’d be happy to,” Frannie said, before disappearing into the kitchens.
    “ It seems you have a sweetheart,” Damien remarked.
    “She’s lovely, isn’t she? Her heart will be broken if she should learn the truth about me and I would hate to make her sad.”
    “ We’ll have to call you something else then. Susannah is hardly a boy’s name.”
    “Xavier,” she said spontaneously. “Call me Xavier. It sounds so dashing.”
    “It sounds ridiculous,” Damien said flatly.
    “ How about Peregrine?” Susannah suggested. She could see herself as a Peregrine.
    Damien indulged in another long look at her. Every time it affected her strangely. Every time!
    “Percy could suit you,” he said finally.
    “Peregrine Xavier Grey,” Susannah said slowly, her lips curving into a smile. “ I daresay I like it.”
    Damien half laughed, half groaned. “Why do I feel that I’ll be receiving missives from you signed Percy?”
    Just yesterday, or even hours ago, Susannah would have replied that there could be no reason for them to have a correspondence and he needn’t expect any missives from her signed Percy or otherwise. The words were there on the tip of her tongue, ready to be spoken, but she bit them back because she no longer meant them at all.
    Funny, what a change had occurred wi thin just a few hours! As if in her corsets, gowns and jewels she were the imperious and haughty Miss Grey who lived only to enjoy and preserve her liberty to live as she wished.
    But in breeches, with a mug of ale in hand, she was Percy, a young lad engaged in a flirtation with the barmaid and the hulking man beside her on a barstool. She rather being liked Percy.
    “I do think I will write to you,” Susannah said. “ After all, good manners compel me to send you a thank-you note for the gifts. Unless you want them back?”
    “Not my size,” Damien drawled.
    “Not at all…” she said, and indulged in along hot look of her own at Damien. He was bigger than she remembered. Brawnier, too. The years had been good to him. His mouth curved into a smile and she caught a spark in his eye. He raised his glass to hers.
    “ Cheers,” he said.
    “Cheers,” she replied. “ To adventures.”
    “Together. Adventures together.”
    Susannah/Percy just smiled and sipped her ale, which was cool and bitter on her tongue. Until that moment, she had banished his proposal from her thoughts. But now she dared to consider it.
    Her mind immediately strayed to the wedding night.
    This was Damien—her lifelong nemesis and constant plague upon her—but as she sipped her ale and gave him a good look from under the shadows of her cap, she saw the rogue everyone else did.
    She saw the way his dark hair fell rakishly across his forehead. Maintaining her disguise was the only thing that kept her from gently brushing it aside. She saw his firm, sensual mouth and imagined a kiss. She took note of the slashes of his cheekbones, the distinct line of his jaw—shadowed slightly with stubble. His eyes were bright green and fixed upon her. She blushed, imagining the wedding night.
    Not that she was going to marry him.
    Freedom! Liberty! Mistress to herself and no one else!
    She had solemnly vowed her allegiance to those things.
    She had promised herself.
    And yet…his mouth, upon her lips. Those strong hands, all over her. That mischievous grin, in the moonlight.
    “Your sweetheart is com ing,” Damien murmured with a slight nod of his head. “Percy.”
    Indeed, Frannie was heading their way with a tray in her hands, one laden with plates and food. She carefully set the tray down and served them plates with steaming hot meat pies, slices of wheat bread with fresh butter, mismatched cutlery and rough linen napkins.
    “Can you I get you anything else?” Frannie