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Perhaps there was more to Sir Sweetums than met the eye.
    Whatever the case, Miles knew he had made the right choice. Perhaps the sailing would be a bit rough at first, what with them both coming from different worlds. Already her cat had done damage to his nose. The saints only knew what wreckage Abigail would leave of his heart. But surely it would be worth the effort.
    The smell of something burning finally caught his attention. And that warmth on his backside he had thought to be Abigail’s hand had suddenly turned into something else entirely.
    â€œMerde!” he shouted.
    â€œDrop and roll!” Abigail said, shoving him. “Drop and roll, you idiot!”
    He dropped and she rolled him. He soon found himself face down on the floor. There was a fine draft blowing over his backside.
    â€œThe fire got your tights, too, I’m afraid,” Abigail said. “What a shame. Your bum is looking kind of red—”
    Miles whipped over so he was sitting, bare-arsed, on the floor. He felt furious color suffuse his cheeks. Abigail laughed.
    â€œOh, Miles,” she said, shaking her head.
    He grunted and scowled to save his pride. Abigail leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
    â€œYou’re very cute.”
    Well, he knew that was a compliment. A pity he’d had to scorch his arse to wring one from her! To soothe his burned backside and assuage his bruised ego, he hauled her into his lap and looked at her purposefully.
    â€œI will need to be appeased,” he announced.
    She put her arms around his neck. “And just how is that done in 1238?”
    â€œI will show you.”
    â€œI had the feeling you would.”
    Miles kissed her. In time he forgot the pain of his toasted backside. He forgot that, by the saints, he was some seven hundred years older than the woman in his arms. He was almost distracted enough to bypass giving thought to what he would tell his father about her when he took her to Artane.
    â€œHey,” Abigail said, looking at him with a frown, “keep your mind on the task at hand. Really, Miles. It can’t be that taxing.”
    He threw back his head and laughed. Perhaps this was truly the gift he’d needed most for Christmas—a woman who had no reason to tread lightly near him. He looked at Abigail and smiled.
    â€œMy lady, you amaze me.”
    â€œOf course I do. What other twentieth-century girls have you met lately?”
    He smiled and kissed her again. She was certainly the only one, the saints be praised. He doubted he would survive the wooing of another.
    His nose began to twitch, but he stuck his finger under it and kept his mouth pressed tightly against Abigail’s. With any luck that blasted cat would keep his distance until Abigail was properly wooed.
    And if Miles ever caught up with Sir Sweetums, he would offer him a cup of the finest meade in gratitude.

Chapter Five
    ABBY SAT CROSS-LEGGED on the table in the kitchen and watched Miles cut up vegetables for a stew.
    â€œDo you know what you’re doing?” she asked, doubtfully.
    He looked up from under his eyebrows. “I cooked many a meal for myself in my travels. We will not starve.”
    â€œBut how well will we eat?”
    Miles very carefully set the knife down, crossed the two steps that separated her resting place from his working area of the table, and stopped in front of her.
    â€œOh, no you don’t—”
    She wasn’t fast enough. She didn’t even get a chance to give him her kissing-won’t-solve-all-our-problems speech before a very warm, very firm mouth came down on hers. She shivered. It was a mouth minus its previous surrounding accompaniment of whiskers. Miles had shaved once he’d learned modern guys did it every day. Abby had vowed solemnly to herself not to overuse that keep-up-with-the-twentieth-century-Joneses strategy too often. But it was worth it for this. Kissing a bewhiskered Miles was great, but this was