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back against his face.

    “You stayed with me?” he asked, clearly having no difficulty remembering the events of yesterday now. He glanced about the room. “You brought me here?”

    “Of course. I couldn’t have left you bleeding to death on the roadside, could I?”

    “Oh, you could have,” he countered, silver lights glinting in the pale blue of his eyes. “Others would.

    “Well, I couldn’t have.”

    “Well, then you’re very kind.”

    Kind? She winced. No one had ever described her as kind before. With good reason.

    “No,” she replied, her voice more of a reprimand than she intended. “I am not.”

    He seemed to stare at her even harder then, his fingers tightening around her hand.

    Amending her tone, she explained, “Fair recompense, I should think.” She curled her fingers against his cheek to keep her palm from caressing his flesh, warm and supple beneath her hand, the gritty growth of a beard tickling the backs of her fingers. “The least I could do for you after you came to my aid.”

    He grinned, a disarming smile that revealed a flash of white teeth in his bronzed face. A smile that would curl any female’s toes. Only Astrid was not any female.

    Bertram had possessed his fair share of charm and endearing grins. Her heart had fluttered on more than one occasion in the course of their courtship. And yet that all ended after they were married and he had obtained what he sought—her dowry to spend. And spend he did, running through it in record time.

    Never again. A charming smile would not worm its way past her defenses. She was dead to such things. Nothing like her mother, so easily charmed and lured by a man.

    “Ah, then. I’m not in your debt?” His eyes twinkled with a lively light and she marveled that anyone should be in such good spirits while suffering from a nasty knock to the head. She could not fathom him at all.

    Bertram would have gone to bed for a month, every servant in the house put to use attending him. The man had been fractious when he came down with a mild cold.

    “Of course not,” she replied briskly, attempting to slide her hand free again. “I merely brought you here and played at the role of nurse…and not very well, mind you.” She gave her hand another tug, uneasy beneath the gleam of his light blue stare. “If anything, I’m still very much indebted to you and your heroic efforts.”

    He cocked a dark brow. “Oh? Interesting. And how might you repay me?” His eyes skimmed over her suggestively, his mouth curving in that beguiling grin again. Oh, he was a wicked charmer. His thumb moved in small circles over the sensitive inside of her wrist. Tingles shot up her arm.

    Cheeks burning, she yanked her hand free with a disgusted sniff. “A gentleman would not require a lady to repay him.” She rubbed her wrist, the imprint of his hand burning like a brand.

    Rising, she poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the bedside table and offered it to him. He accepted the glass. She watched, transfixed at the play of his throat as he drank thirstily.

    “Easy,” she cautioned.

    He handed back the glass with a satisfied sigh and folded an arm behind his head, revealing the paler skin beneath his nicely sculpted bicep. Even the tuft of hair beneath his arm drew her eye, the sight so male, so…primal.

    “Not even a small token, then?” he asked. “I believe knights of old accepted tokens from ladies in payment for services given.”

    “An antiquated custom no longer in practice, to be sure.”

    “But not without some sense.” His blue eyes warmed. “And appeal.”

    Her mouth twisted with disdain. “Such tokens, I believe, were freely given and not coerced.” Were men everywhere alike? Grasping, devious opportunists doing all they could to get what they felt they deserved? “What would you have me give, sir?”

    “Call me Griffin.”

    She arched a brow. “What would you have me give, Mr. Griffin?”

    “The name is Griffin Shaw,