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tucked a blue marsh-violet behind her ear so swiftly she didn’t have a chance to jerk away. “But I promise to make it as painless as possible.”
    “Painless?”
    “The first time is always painful … but pleasure soon follows.”
    Someone tittered nearby. Maura looked past him and caught sight of a gaggle of young women. With a spurt of anger, Maura wondered which one would have the privilege of feeling Colin’s hand on her breast tonight.
    She turned on him. “You’re nothing but a common seducer, Colin.”
    “You wound me, lass.” He clasped both hands over his heart.
    “It’s the truth that hurts.”
    “Faith, what have I done for you to think so badly of me?”
    “You don’t remember yesterday?”
    “Ahh, yes.” A gleam came into his eye. “I remember yesterday.”
    Another ripple of laughter through the crowd, a ripple that annoyed her. What game was Colin playing? He was talking too loud. He was making people think there was more to what she was saying than what she was saying.
    She hiked her hands on her hips and addressed the gossips. “I’ll have you all know that nothing happened yesterday.”
    “It’s true.” He cast a sad gaze their way. “Nothing happened, to my eternal regret.”
    “We were just practicing—”
    “Yes, yes, practicing,” Colin interrupted, “for it takes some practice to get it right, doesn’t it my friends?”
    Amidst the laughter, she hissed, “Stop this. Stop it right now.” The circle of observers had thickened and they were all ears. How could he do this in the shadow of a church spire, while the cleric’s words still rang in her head? “You’ve had your fun. I’ll have no more of this foolishness, and none of you.”
    He caught her before she could shoot past him, a grip of iron on her upper arm. “You had enough of me yesterday, then?”
    “More than enough.”
    “It’s true that there’s enough of me to be had.”
    If a smile could dance off a face, Colin’s would be bouncing a jig on the paving stones. The crowd around them was all but choking in hilarity. Her fury started to curdle. He was the reason she couldn’t be absolved for her sins, and yet here he was, making fun of her before all of Athlone.
    Well, she could play that game too, if she put her mind to it.
    She yanked out of his grasp and turned toward the crowd. “Aren’t men,” she said, meeting the gazes of the women, “always so full of themselves?”
    She was gifted with shouts of agreement.
    “Be that as it may,” Colin responded, “I’d rather be full in you , lass.”
    “Seems to me,” she said, whirling to face him, “that you believe shepherds were looking upon you when you were born.”
    “I may not be God’s gift to the world, lass, but many a woman would say I’ve got a worldly gift.”
    “A gift, you say? Truth be told, yesterday you came up a bit short.”
    Colin paused for a moment—a second’s hesitation—watching her with a gleam in his eye. She took some pleasure in knowing that the laughter now rolling around them was finally at his expense.
    “Lady.” He bowed before her. “You surprise me.”
    “Has no lass found the heart to tell you this before?”
    “None with so angelic a face.”
    “Then I’ll be more blunt.” She remembered something one of the milkmaids had laughed about after slipping behind a haystack with a day-laborer. Maura only had the vaguest idea of what it meant. “I can’t help but notice that your beard—” she said, scraping a finger across his clean-shaven jaw, “—is little more than fuzz.”
    “Is it not a fine thing for a man to be free of thatch?”
    “A lass can judge by the thickness of the hay whether the pitchfork is any good.” The crowd laughed and she felt a trill of satisfaction.
    “Remember,” he countered, “grass does not grow thick on a well-beaten path.”
    “If the path is so well beaten, then perhaps your pitchfork is like a spindle—worn out by the using.”
    “Rather,” he