Bedbugs? But nothing had bitten him. It was a ploy, he thought. Some feminine ploy to get his attention, to punish him, to torture him further. Though it was his own fault he was feeling tortured, he had to admit.
He got out of bed and turned up the lantern. “Let me see.” He flipped back the bedclothes and bent over her legs. Sure enough, he could see half a dozen little red marks. And a black spot that jumped.
“Fleas!” he exclaimed. “Dammit, there are fleas in this bed!”
“I told you something was biting me.” Isabella jumped out of the bed and peered over Luke’s shoulder at the sheets. “What’ll we do?”
“Get the blasted landlord to change the blasted bed!” Luke strode to the door, flung it open, and shouted for the landlord. Isabella grabbed his greatcoat, shrugged it on, and waited on the mat beside the stove.
In a moment the landlord came hurrying up dressed in trousers pulled hastily on over a striped nightshirt. He was followed by the improbable redhead, dressed in a bright pink flannel nightgown and shawl. Short, plump, and with her crimson hair pinned up haphazardly, she folded her arms and regarded Luke with disapproval. “Señor?”
He glared at her husband. “There are fleas in this bed, dammit!”
The woman sniffed. “Never! Not in my inn!”
“Sí, señor, this is a very clean inn—” the landlord assured him.
“The cleanest inn in all of Aragon!” his wife said, her black eyes snapping with anger.
“No fleas, no bedbugs,” the landlord finished.
“Rubbish!” Luke was outraged. “They’ve bitten my wife and I saw one for myself. Look!” He grabbed the landlord by the arm, dragged him across to the bed, and pointed. “Fleas!”
Then he turned to the wife. “And you, look at my wife’s feet!”
The woman sniffed again and marched crossly over to where Isabella stood, disbelief radiating in every inch of her small person. She bent down, made an exclamation, and bent lower.
“Fleas, Carlos!” she said in an outraged voice. “Fleas, inmyinn!” She jumped, pressed a finger to her own ankle, then squished the trapped flea between her thumbnails. She peered at Isabella’s bare feet, and then at her own slippered ones, and then at the rag rug. “They’re in this rug!” she exclaimed suddenly. “Carlos, come and see.”
“Carlos, open the window,” Luke snapped.
The landlord, caught between his wife and Luke, chose to obey Luke.
In an instant Luke rolled the flea-ridden rag rug up and hurled it out the window into the street below.
Isabella clapped and danced restlessly on her toes, hopping from foot to foot.
The fierce little lady turned on her husband. “Itoldyou not to let that man bring his dogs inside the other night, but oh no, you were impressed by a title, bowing and scraping and accepting his bribes—and look where it’s got you! Fleas inmy inn! Look at the lady’s poor feet!”
The man bent to look and she biffed him over the head. “Modesty!” she hissed. “You don’t stare at a lady’s bare feet! Don’t you know anything? Bitten to pieces she is, poor lady, and what must she think of this place?”
Luke suddenly realized why his wife was moving about so oddly. She was still being bitten, dammit. Luke picked her up and held her against his chest.
“What are you doing?”
“You were hopping around. I assumed you were still being attacked.”
She smiled. “My feet were cold, that’s all.”
“Oh.” But he made no move to put her down. The floor was still cold, after all. And she couldn’t wait in a flea-ridden bed.
“Aren’t I too heavy?”
He snorted. She was a featherweight.
“I want another room,” he informed the landlord. “With clean sheets and fresh bedding. And no rugs. Now!”
The man’s wife spoke for him. “A thousand apologies,señor, but this is a small inn and there is no other private bedchamber, only the public room, which is not suitable for a gentleman and lady such as yourselves. But I will put this right, be assured.”
