Page 32 of My Fair Viking

Elation such as she'd never experienced before replaced the disappointment.

"Next step will be a harem… you wait and see," he said. "Praise be to Allah! I will be home afore springtime, I wager. And we have you to thank, my lady Viking."

"A harem? Are you saying that this kiss was a ploy to get me to join some gaggle of quacking sex-women?"

"Well, I cannot speak for my master, but, yea, kisses can be tools of seduction. And women can be seduced into joining harems. That is not to say that Master Adam—"

Tyra stomped off before he could finish.

'Twas all much ado about a kiss.

Starting now, she was going to stop thinking about the kiss. For some reason, though, she couldn't stop touching her lips.

"You kissed her," Rashid charged Adam and grinned as if praising a wee child.

"Bloody hell! Why is everyone making such ado about a single kiss?" Adam set aside his book and glared at his assistant.

"You've heard that old Arab proverb about kisses, haven't you?"

"Nay, I have not," Adam admitted, knowing he was going to hear the proverb whether he wanted to or not.

"A wise man once said, 'First comes a kiss. Next come the harem veils.' "

"You bloody fraud! You made that up. There is no proverb that says any such thing."

Rashid ducked his head. "Well, there should be."

Adam shook his head at Rashid and his never-ending attempts to put together a harem for him. "Help me gather together the instruments for tomorrow's operation."

Rashid nodded. A short time later, while they examined the tools laid out on linen cloth, he tried once again. "I think she is melting."

"Who?" Adam asked… as if he didn't know who.

"The warrior princess. I mentioned a kiss being the first step in the seduction process leading to a harem, and—"

"You told her that?"

"Yea."

"Now she will think I kissed her with ill purpose… to gain some end."

"Didn't you?"

"Nay, I did not. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. And 'twas no big thing, Rashid. Do not make it so."

"Hmmm."

"What does that hmmm mean?"

"Just that she had the same response. Told me in no uncertain words not to make much of nothing. But me-thinks she protested too much. Methinks it was a big ado to her. In fact, methinks—"

"Dost know what I think, Rashid? Methinks you think too bloody damn much. Stop interfering in my life." Adam closed his precious journal and was about to put it away in its leather case; it was obvious he would have no more opportunity to study it this evening. He couldn't stop himself from asking the next question, though. "So, what was Tyra's reaction to your telling her that kisses lead to harems?"

"She stomped away."

"Aaahh," he said, and would have liked to do the same.

But there was a knock at the door. A series of knocks, actually. Four of them.