He was looking at her very solemnly, all his attention on what she would say. Lily made herself breathe deeply, not knowing what she was hoping for: he might laugh and see her home, or give her what she asked for.

She said, “If you will shave your beard, I will stay. And if—mind, I said if—we are to . . . make a life together, then you must stay clean shaven.”

Maybe he had read her mind, for he showed no surprise at all. Instead he rolled away to stare at the rafters. “You must do it for me then,” he said, in English now. “And you must do it straightaway, before I lose my nerve.”

They lit all the candles and the lamp that hung over the table, stoked the hearth and heated water, sharpened the straight razor and scissors, found a pannikin of soft soap and beat it into a lather, and finally Simon Ballentyne sat bare-chested on a chair with a piece of toweling around his neck and his hands fisted on his knees.

“You have a pelt like a bear,” she said in a conversational tone, trying not to look too hard at his chest, well muscled and broad, the way his shoulders sloped away from a strong neck. His body hair was fine and straight, and it feathered across his chest and stomach and arms too, though there was none on his back, she was relieved to see. She said, “The Kahnyen'kehàka would call you Dog-Face.”

“I've been called worse,” he said. “And for less reason. Get on with it, lass, or I'll bolt.”

Lily went about the task as she did all her work: quickly, neatly, with no wasted motions, exchanging scissors for soap for razor, standing back to study her work and sometimes adjusting a candle for the light. After a while she began to hum a little.

“You needn't enjoy it so,” Simon grumbled openly, and she stopped, razor poised, to look at him.

“And am I not worth a little hair, Simon Ballentyne?”

He reached out for her but she danced away, moving around the chair to work on his other cheek, the razor making rough scraping sounds as it revealed stripe after stripe of pale skin, such a contrast to the sun-darkened forehead and cheeks that she realized now how strange he would look, at first.

Standing in front of him she said, “Sit forward, I have to be here to do your throat properly.”

At that he raised an eyebrow, but he did as she asked and she stood between his open knees and tipped his head back to expose the long stretch of his neck, the prominent Adam's apple bobbing nervously beneath the shorn beard.

“Don't swallow,” she warned him and instead he broke into a sweat.

“There,” she said finally. “As smooth as a—”

She hiccupped her surprise when his hands closed around her wrists. The razor clattered to the floor and the chair thumped. He lifted her bodily and settled her astride his lap.

“But you've upset the bowl,” she scolded. “You've spilled the water.”

“Damn the bowl,” said Simon, rubbing his freshly shaven cheek against hers, “and damn the water too.”

He kissed her for a long time, his fingers busy on her ties and buttons until her bodice was loose once more, cold air on her skin and a warm mouth. A sound came up from deep inside her, from the knot of wanting that was centered low in her belly. She was frightened, mortified, and aroused beyond all imagination.

She touched the hair on his chest and said, “Wait, wait . . .”

“Will you keep the bargain we struck?” he asked her, all seriousness.

She bit her lip and nodded, and at that he laughed, a full laugh from deep in his belly, and pressed her against his chest until Lily began to wonder if perhaps chest hair was not such a bad thing after all. He grinned at her as his hands worked her clothes and his own.

“Simon Ballentyne,” she said, trying to slow things down at least a little. “You have dimples.”

He paused then, raised a hand to a cheek and looked first surprised and then—oddly, sweetly—abashed.

“Great deep dimples,” she added, tracing one. He grabbed her hand and held it away.

She laughed. “You can't have forgot about your own dimples. That's why you grew a beard, isn't it? To hide the dimples because they make you look—”

“What?” His hands moved to her back, hands so big that they covered her from nape to the small of her back, warm and sure, moving lightly, fingers curving around her ribs, thumbs stroking. “What do they make me look?”

His grin returned and with it his intention, for he caught her mouth before she could have thought what to say.

When next he let her catch her breath she said, “The bed?”

“Damn the bed, most of all.” His hands moved under the tumult of her skirts to cup her bare buttocks. She started, and then settled.

“Here?” Lily asked, feeling a little faint and wide awake, all at once.

“Right here,” said Simon. “To start.”

Later she hobbled up the stairs—refusing to let him carry her, out of embarrassment and confusion and so many other feelings she did not want to examine closely—and collapsed on the bed. It was then that Lily saw a different and entirely unexpected look on Simon Ballentyne's face.

He drew back the blankets and the comforters and settled her into the feather bed, tucked her in and clucked softly, kissed her on the cheek and studied her as though she were burning with fever.

“You never said you were a virgin.” There was regret in his tone, and accusation too.

Lily said, “I thought you realized.”