Easing open the door of the cramped room, Kylar found himself staring at an oversized meat cleaver. It was being held by Elene. She was very much awake.

In the darkness, Elene obviously didn’t recognize him. She looked torn between screaming and hacking at him. Her eyes locked on the sword in his hand. She decided to do both.

Slapping her hand with the flat of his bollock dagger, Kylar launched the knife out of her grip. He dodged a grasping hand and got behind her in a moment, clapping a hand over her mouth.

“It’s me. It’s me!” he said as he had to twist this way and that to dodge flying elbows. He couldn’t hold a hand over her mouth and pin both arms and stop the kicks she was aiming at his groin. “Be quiet or your mistress dies!”

As she seemed to regain her sanity, Kylar finally let Elene go. “I knew it!” she said, furiously but quietly. “I knew I couldn’t trust you. I knew it was just going to be you.”

“I meant your mistress will die because your noise will bring the wetboy here.”

Silence, then, “Oh.”

“Yes.” In the dim moonlit room, he couldn’t be sure, but Kylar thought he saw her blushing.

“You could have knocked,” she said.

“Sorry. Old habit.”

Suddenly awkward, she picked up the cleaver off the bed and put it under her pillow. Looking down at her nightgown, which was disappointingly chaste, she seemed embarrassed. She grabbed a robe and turned her back while she pulled it on.

“Relax,” Kylar said as she turned back to face him. “It’s a little late for modesty. I saw your statue. You look good naked.” Why had he twisted that last bit to make her sound like a whore? Even if she was sleeping with the duke, what choice did she have? She was a servant in the man’s house. It wasn’t fair, but Kylar still felt betrayed.

Elene folded as if he’d hit her in the stomach.

“I begged her not to display it,” Elene said. “But she was so proud of it. She said I should be proud too.”

“She?”

“The duchess,” Elene said.

“The duchess?” Kylar repeated stupidly. Not the duke. Not the duke?

He felt at once vastly relieved and more confused than ever. Why should he feel relieved?

“Did you think I’d model naked for the duke?” she asked. “What do you think, that I’m his mistress?” Her eyes widened as she saw the expression on his face.

“Well . . .” Kylar felt like he’d unjustly accused her, then felt mad that she was making him feel embarrassed for drawing a perfectly good conclusion, then felt mad that he was wasting time talking to a girl when a wetboy was probably waiting out in the hall. This is madness. “It happens,” he said defensively.

Why am I doing this?