Marcus tossed aside the blanket. He would feel better after a plunge in the cold river. As he started to climb off the mattress, a voice murmured drowsily, “My darling ...” A hand touched his arm. “You’re awake . . .”

Marcus gave a violent start. He looked over his shoulder. Sleepy blue eyes gazed up at him from out a mass of disheveled blond curls.

“Darling,” Evelina repeated, and her hand ran up and down his arm. “Don’t get up yet. We have the whole day before us.”

She was naked. Marcus had a confused impression of heavy breasts and bare shoulders and a smooth, flat stomach and dark shadows below that. . .

His blood burned, his loins throbbed. He was aroused and, at the same time, repulsed—as by a vague memory of something ugly and sordid. Marcus wrenched his gaze away from her. Not knowing quite what he was doing, he jumped out of the bed and hurriedly walked away from it.

“Please, cover yourself, Mistress,” he said, and his voice was harsh. He fumbled for his breeches that he found lying on the floor. He couldn’t remember undressing. God help him! He couldn’t remember anything!

“Oh, my dear,” said Evelina with a gurgling little laugh, “it’s late in the day for modesty.” Her voice altered slightly. “After all those wonderful things you said to me last night!”

What had he said? Marcus recalled drinking wine and kissing Evelina and her kissing him back and him breaking out in blotches and the dreadful itching . . . and that was as far as memory took him, before his mind ran to the little room and Ven and the battle with Grald. Yet, there seemed to be something else and it had to do with her. If only he could think through the pounding in his skull!

He looked down at his bare chest and arms and torso and saw no trace of the red blotches.

“Marcus . . . my love,” Evelina said with a catch in her throat. “I should be horribly angry at you, but how can I be angry at the man who may be the father of my child? Look . . .”

Reluctantly, he turned around.

Evelina wriggled over to one side on the mattress and pointed to a patch of blood, the mark of the end of a maiden’s virginity. Marcus looked at the mattress, and he looked at her. He didn’t believe her. He knew in his heart and soul that he had never made love to her. Yet he couldn’t prove it. He couldn’t even prove it to himself, much less to anyone else.

He hadn’t made love to the maiden fair, because he’d been fighting a dragon.

“Say you love me, dearest, like you did last night. Promise you’ll always take care of me, like you did last night.” Evelina purred. “And come back to bed.”