A burst of annoyance and something else, a little shiver of apprehension, flittered through him. “’Scuse me, but I’m not going to be waiting on your table,” he said. “I drive a coach. I’m not much for the serving. Too clumsy.”

“I never thought you would,” she replied, and sauntered toward him, her hips swaying. They weren’t much, as hips went, but she certainly knew how to move ’em, Martin would give her that.

The apprehension ratcheted up a notch, and Martin warily sidestepped, trying to get around her. She was between him and the door. He just needed to edge by between the chair and the wall — and she slipped sideways herself, blocking his path.

Not much of an obstacle, if she’d been her weight in a sack of potatoes, but an impassible barrier in the form of a genteel virgin staying in his mother’s bloody inn. Martin stopped dead.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re playing at, but — miss, I don’t think —”

He stammered to a halt as she stepped closer and laid one hand against his chest, tipping her head coquettishly and fluttering her lashes. She really did have the prettiest eyes, sort of a bluish-gray, wide and clear.

But Martin wasn’t a green lad anymore, and eyes like that — with a look like that in ’em to boot — spelled nothing but trouble.

“I’m not playing,” she said, her voice unexpectedly serious given the come-hither look she was throwing his way. “I’m quite in earnest.”

“In earnest about what, exactly?” he asked cautiously. Mayhap she was so innocent she didn’t even know what the deuce she was about. She might think she was just being friendly. And pigs might fly, but better to play dumb himself than to assume anything that might get him taken before a magistrate on Yuletide Eve of all things.

The girl played her fingers over his chest, stroking in little motions that sent sparks through his skin. “I’d hoped the landlady might take pity on a girl who’s had a series of misfortunes,” she purred. “But I don’t mind discussing the matter with you, instead. I find myself at point non plus, you see, and — well, to be frank, I can’t pay for my supper.” She smiled, a dimple appearing in one cheek. “At least not in the normal way.”

Oh, no. “No,” Martin said firmly. “Absolutely not. That’s — not happening, miss. I’ll speak to m’mother —”

“Your mother? You would ask your mother before you — oh, goddesses,” she said, her tone changing to one of weary dismay. She stepped back and crossed her arms over her thin bosom, rubbing at her upper arms as if she’d taken a chill. “Your mother’s the landlady. And now you’re going to tell her the harlot in room eight offered hi—her body in exchange for a night’s lodging and supper, and I’ll be out on my arse in the snow before I can say ‘joyous bloody Yule.’”

Martin’s shoulders dropped what felt like a couple of inches with the tension that flowed out of him. Genteel virgin, his own blasted arse. If this one pulled him in front of a magistrate for besmirching her reputation she’d be laughed out of the courtroom.

Not that Martin had any issue with harlots. Quite the contrary. In general, he liked their company quite a bit. Anyway, he didn’t see why one would set store by not having ever bedded anyone, much less care whether or not someone else had ever bedded anyone. He’d been the same fellow after the dairy-maid on his cousin’s farm had taken pity on him and given him his first tumble, hadn’t he? Only he’d had a smile on his face.