Have the food brought in

"You won't mind if I eat while you talk, will you?" asked Xabar. Without waiting for a response, he calls through the door to bring the food in.The door opens, and the waitress enters, putting a tray down on the table in front of Xabar.

She is about to leave, when she suddenly stops, looks sharply at him, and exclaims, "Lord Xabar? Is it you?"

Xabar looks at the young lady in confusion. Blake raises his eyebrows and says, "Lord Xabar, is it?"

As if noticing the other man for the first time, the waitress looks at him and says, "I beg your pardon, sir. I did not mean to interrupt you and the Viscount. Please forgive me."

Blake looks amused and says, "Not at all, Miss....?"

"Gwendolyn," she answers.

"Tell me, dear Viscount, how you know this charming Miss Gwendolyn," says Blake, his eyes filled with laughter.

Xabar, for his part, is studying Gwendolyn with a furrowed brow. "I'm sorry... I'm drawing a blank for some reason."

"Surely Your Lordship remembers me! Gwendolyn Patagonia? From Amberbrook? I was working at the Lionsgate Inn when you and your page -- I believe his name was Hager -- were there on a special mission from the king."

Xabar shakes his head, blankly. He and Hager had been to Amberbrook several times -- generally over Spring Break, but all the females they encountered kind of blended together in his memory.

Seeing his puzzlement, Gwendolyn said, "You were unable to complete your mission because you took ill, and you sought my help to get well."

A faint light started to shine in Xabar's memory. "Go on," he urged.

Gwendolyn's face began to turn pink, and she looked uncomfortably at Blake before saying, "You sought me out because you had a vision that love freely given by a virgin would cure you of your illness."

Xabar nods. That sounds like something he would say.

Again, Gwendolyn looked nervously at Blake as her complexion turned even redder. "I was dubious of your intentions, but when you told me your vision revealed to you that it would be a woman with a particular-shaped birthmark who was fated to be united forever with you in love, and you drew a picture of the birthmark, and it was a replica of the very one that I have on my --" She stopped abruptly, looking again at Blake, but her hand over her right breast told everything.

"Oh, NOW I remember you!" exclaimed Xabar. "The birthmark in the shape of a swan! Of course, I remember you, Genevieve!"

"It's Gwendolyn," she replied. "And it is the shape of a badger."

Xabar maintained a straight face, but inwardly cringed. How could he have made that mistake? The girl with the swan birthmark was from Tyresia, and her name wasn't Genevieve. At least, he didn't think that was her name. Come to think of it, he never got around to asking her name.

Gwendolyn doesn't seem to mind the confusion, however. "I don't understand how you can be here! When I came back the next day, Hager said you had died!"

"Well, I was terribly sick. It was touch-and-go for quite a while, but I managed to pull through."

"When I asked if I could see your body one last time, he said you had already been cremated, and your ashes had been scattered on the beach."

"And that was a close call, too," said Xabar. "One of the few times that it was to my benefit to have incompetent help. The morticians ended up cremating the wrong body. The only thing that kept me from being buried alive was that I was dreaming about you, and it caused a physical reaction that prevented them from being able to close the coffin." He placed his hand on his crotch and winked at her, knowingly.

Gwendolyn gasped and covered her mouth as she laughed. "Is that so? Then why didn't you come to me? I was in mourning for months!"

"Evidently embalming fluid causes some memory loss. In fact, it was only recently that I felt drawn here again. I'm told that the same expression of love that cured me of my disease can restore my memory to what it once was."

Gwendolyn's back is toward Blake, so she does not see him roll his eyes and cover his mouth to stop himself from laughing. Xabar, however, catches his eye and gives him a concealed wink.

Gwendolyn looks troubled. "But how did you even know to look for me here? I have only moved here quite recently."

"Nothing can separate true love, dearest Gwendolyn," replied Xabar.

"This seems so unreal," she exclaims. "I had all but convinced myself I had been taken in by the scheming of some unscrupulous pretender. I knew it could not have been so, though. When I think of your innocence, and your purity on that night when you confessed to me that it was your first time, as well...."

A violent coughing fit erupts from Blake's mouth, and he rushes to grab a napkin to cover his lower face.

"One thing troubles me, though, my lordship... When I wrote to your parents, the Duke and Duchess of Clagghiggle, to express my remorse, and they wrote back, saying they had no son, and that I must be very much mistaken."

"Ah, yes... Dearest Mum and Dad were so overcome with grief that they were in denial for quite some time. It's sad what types of coping mechanisms the brain will adopt under **** stress!"

Gwendolyn nods, understandingly. "But now you are back, my love, and we can begin planning our wedding and the joyous announcement at once!"

Xabar places his hands over hers. "I share in your enthusiasm, my dearest, but we must be discreet. I am here on a fresh mission from the king, and it is imperitive that no one know my true identity. In fact, aside from you, only my trusted associate Blake is aware that I am, in fact, a Viscount."

Gwendolyn looks confused. "I thought you were here because you were drawn by the power of my love?"

"And isn't it evident just how powerful that love is, if the king, himself, is compelled to send me here?"

This evidently makes sense to Gwendolyn, who breaks into tears of joy and throws her arms around Xabar. "Oh, my love! When can we be together?"

"Soon, my darling," says Xabar, returning her hug and allowing his hand to feel her bottom. "I will call on you -- no doubt this very night -- as soon as I tend to other matters that require my immediate attention."

After getting directions to where Gwendolyn is staying, and after several more passionate hugs and kisses, Gwendolyn tears herself away from Xabar and returns downstairs, with happy tears streaming down her cheeks.

As soon as she leaves, Xabar retrieves a sandwich from the table, leans back, and takes a big bite. Blake looks at him with unabashed admiration. "That was masterful!" he exclaims. "I'll never understand what I just witnessed or how you pulled it off without getting your nuts handed to you, but let me just say that I am in awe!"

Xabar smiles and nods in recognition. "I almost blew it at first," he admits. "Hager and I have picked up so many chicks, using the 'sick Viscount' routine that I lose track of them. I generally don't have to worry about it, because we only do that when we are far enough away from home that we're not going to run into them again. I hadn't counted on running into her again."

"And you did it without a Seduction Spell!" says Blake. "How'd you manage the thing about the birthmark, though?"

"I managed to sneak into the changing room for the female staff and got a good look at her. Then I bet Hager a bottle of cognac that I could bed her before our vacation was over."

"And how did you know she was a virgin?" asked Blake.

"I didn't," admits Xabar. "But once I fed her that line about true love, even if she wasn't a virgin, she wasn't going to admit it, was she? For the record, she was, if memory serves."

"And how are you going to handle her plans to join with you in wedded bliss?"

Xabar looks thoughtful. "Suddenly I find myself much more interested in hearing about this job opportunity you have for me and whether it involves any travel.”