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insatiable.”
    “Now, that is quite enough,” she cut in indignantly.
    “I’ll kill you,” Domenic told him.
    “All by yourself?” he asked sweetly. “Maybe you’d better call a few guards.”
    Torn between outrage and relief, Allegra didn’t know whether to go over and kick him or laugh, but she had to admit his taunting was doing the trick. If her former fiancé had any sense, he would take this chance the stranger had given him to save face and go storming back to his mistress.
    But, she discovered, Domenic was too full of liquid courage tonight to take the easy way out—or perhaps there was something to his reputation as a fine swordsman.
    Uneasily she watched him pull a jeweled dagger from inside his coat.
    The stranger merely smiled and gave his big knife a nimble flick from one hand to the other.
    Now that she saw him in action, she was not surprised he’d evaded the guards Domenic had sent. She couldn’t imagine how he had gotten over the garden wall, either. Then again, he didn’t look like a man who would let anything as trifling as a ten-foot brick wall stop him.
    The only question was why he had bothered to save her.
    “You’re the one who was following her,” Domenic growled. “You never slept with her.”
    “Well, yes,” he admitted, “not yet.”
    She snorted. Arrogant heathen.
    Folding her arms over her chest, she leaned back against the tree with an irresistible sense of satisfaction. So, she mused, he had been following her. She knew it. But why?
    “Allegra, go into the house. This ruffian is obviously with the rebels.”
    “You locked the doors, my lord,” she said. “Remember? Besides, I don’t think he is.” She looked him over. “No one in the square knew him.”
    “Miss Monteverdi, don’t go anywhere, please,” the stranger cajoled her. “When I saw you, I sought a proper introduction, truly I did—”
    “Ha,” she replied.
    “But his lordship here interfered before I was able to procure one. Bet you’re glad I persisted, eh?” He tossed her a beguiling grin that quite took her breath away.
    “Allegra,” Domenic said tautly, “go and shout for the guards to arrest this scoundrel, or what’s left of him when I am through with him.”
    “For what crime, my lord?” she asked.
    “Trespassing.”
    “That hardly seems fair—considering.”
    “Do not contradict me,” Domenic snapped, never taking his eyes off the stranger, his dagger glinting in the moonlight as the two men circled in fighting stance.
    “He is not trespassing,” she said. “It is my house. I shall say I invited him. Don’t worry, Domenic. I think if he wanted to kill you, you would be dead already.”
    The stranger belted out his jolly laugh again. “How now, do I hear a compliment for my lowly self? Now I shall fight for you all the more fiercely, my lady. Apologize, villain, or I shall be forced to deal harshly with you,” he commanded her betrothed in a thunderous tone full of a humor Domenic failed to appreciate.
    Allegra rolled her eyes, charmed in spite of herself, while Domenic’s eyes narrowed to slits of glittering green.
    “Get out of here,” she told the man. “They will hang you.”
    “They won’t have time,” Domenic declared, and charged at him.
    Allegra watched in distress, desperate that no blood be shed but knowing that if she called for the guards to pry them apart, only her misguided rescuer would end up punished for his gallantry, and at this point she rather felt Domenic deserved a thrashing.
    Who on earth is he?
    Wearily she lifted her hand to her forehead, watching the two cut and slice at each other and slam each other about, dueling, it seemed, for her honor.
    Aunt Isabelle would have been so thrilled for her.
    But gazing at the spectacle, all she could think was that here was yet more proof that her plans for peace were a waste of time. It could almost make one wax philosophical on the brute nature of man, but she was so tired from hostessing the ball and